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Last updated on Dec 14, 2023

Supported file formatsLearn about the latest video, audio, and still-image formats that are supported by Adobe Premiere Pro.

Some filename extensions—such as MOV, AVI, and MXF, denote container file formats rather than denoting specific audio, video, or image data formats. Container files can contain data encoded using various compression and encoding schemes. Premiere Pro can import these container files, but the ability to import the data that they contain depends on the codecs (specifically, decoders) installed.

Supported sequence, still image, and movie sizes

  • Sequence size: Video and still-image files you want to import must not exceed the maximum dimensions allowed. The maximum sequence frame size in pixels is 10,240×8,192 (width x height). If you attempt to set one of the Frame Size dimensions higher than this limit in the Sequence Settings dialog box, Premiere Pro resets the value to the maximum.
  • Still image and movie size: The maximum frame size to import still images and movies is 256 megapixels, with a maximum dimension of 32,768 pixels in either direction. For example, an image that is 16,000×16,000 pixels are acceptable, as is one that is 32,000×8,000, but an image that is 35,000×10,000 pixels cannot be used.

Supported native video and audio formats for import

Adobe Premiere Pro supports several audio and video formats, making your post-production workflows compatible with the latest broadcast formats.

Format

Details

3GP, 3G2 (.3gp)

Multimedia container format

AAC 

Advanced Audio Coding

AIFF, AIF 

Audio Interchange File Format

Apple ProRes, ProRes HDR, ProRes RAW 

Apple video compression format.

Apple ProRes is a high-quality codec and is widely-used as an acquisition, production and delivery format. Adobe has collaborated with Apple to provide editors, artists, and post-production professionals with comprehensive ProRes workflows for Premiere Pro and After Effects. Support for ProRes on macOS and Windows streamlines video production and simplifies final output, including server-based remote rendering with Adobe Media Encoder.

ASF  

NetShow (Windows only)

ASND

Adobe Sound Document

AVC-Intra

Panasonic codec

AVI (.avi)

DV-AVI, Microsoft AVI Type 1 and Type 2

BWF

Broadcast WAVE format

CHPROJ

Character Animator project file

CRM

Canon Cinema RAW Light (.crm) files created by cameras such as the Canon EOS C200

DNxHD

Supported in native MXF and QuickTime wrappers

DNxHR

DNxHR LB, DNxHR SQ, DNxHR TR, DNxHR HQ, and DNxHR HQX

DV 

Raw DV stream, a QuickTime format

GIF 

Animated GIF

H.264 AVC

Various media that use H.264 encoding

HEIF 

High Efficiency Image Format (HEIF) capture format supported on both macOS 10.13 or higher, and Windows 10 (version 1809 or higher). On Windows, both the HEIF image extension and the HEVC Video Extension need to be installed.

HEVC (H.265)

H.265 media with resolutions up to 8192*4320

M1V

MPEG-1 Video File

M2T

Sony HDV

M2TS

Blu-ray BDAV MPEG-2 Transport Stream, AVCHD

M2V  

DVD-compliant MPEG-2

M4A

MPEG-4 audio

M4V

MPEG-4 video file

MOV  

QuickTime format

MP3

MP3 audio

MP4

QuickTime Movie, XDCAM EX

MPEG, MPE, MPG

MPEG-1, MPEG-2

MTS

AVCHD

MXF

Media eXchange Format. MXF is a container format that supports:

  • ARRIRAW 
  • P2 Movie: Panasonic OP1b variant of MXF video in AVC-Intra LT and AVC-LongG, Panasonic Op-Atom variant of MXF video in DV, DVCPRO, DVCPRO 50, DVCPRO HD, AVC-Intra
  • X-OCN footage produced by cameras such as the Sony F5, F55, or Sony VENICE with the AXS-R7 add-on
  • Sony XDCAM HD 18/25/35 (4:2:0)
  • Sony XDCAM HD 50 (4:2:2)
  • AVC-LongGOP
  • XAVC Intra
  • XAVC LongGOP
  • XAVC QFHD Long GOP 4:2:2
  • JPEG2000
  • IMX 30/40/50
  • XDCAM EX
  • Sony VENICE 2 Ver. 2

Native MJPEGs

1DC

OpenEXR

Files in .EXR, .MXR, and .SXR formats

R3D

RED R3D RAW file

Rush

Existing projects from Premiere Rush

VOB

Container format in DVD media

WAV

Windows Waveform

WMV

Windows Media, Windows only

Note:

Not all QuickTime codecs are supported by default. Some codecs require third-party components.

Supported native camera formats

Premiere Pro lets you work with a wide range of native media formats from the latest DSLR cameras without transcoding or file rewrapping.

The media formats listed here are supported for directly importing and editing with Premiere Pro. The required codecs are built into Premiere Pro and supported on both macOS and Windows systems unless stated otherwise.

ARRI AMIRA camera

Premiere Pro provides built-in support for the ARRI AMIRA camera, with appropriate color LUTs applied as master clips on import.

ARRI ALEXA 35

Premiere Pro supports ARRIRAW and ProRes files from the ARRI ALEXA 35 camera.

ARRI ALEXA LF footage

Premiere Pro provides the ability to import ALEXA LF (Large Footage) file format.

Canon XF, Canon RAW

You can work natively with Canon XF and Canon RAW footage, including footage from Canon Cinema EOS C300, C500, EOS R5, and EOS-1D X Mark III cameras.

Premiere Pro lets you import and edit QuickTime formats natively, including Apple ProRes and MOV files that Canon 5D and 7D cameras capture. You can clip metadata without any transcoding, rewrapping, or logging and transferring required.

CinemaDNG

Premiere Pro lets you import and edit uncompressed CinemaDNG media from the following cameras:

  • Blackmagic Cinema Camera
  • Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera
  • Convergent Design Odyssey7Q

When working with CinemaDNG media, you can access the Source Settings and edit the metadata parameters. CinemaDNG can be debayered on a supported GPU for extreme playback performance.

Panasonic AVC, P2 cameras

You can native import and edit media from the following cameras/camera codec formats:

  • Panasonic AVC Ultra
  • Panasonic AVCi 200
  • Panasonic AVC Ultra Long GOP (Group of Pictures)
  • Panasonic P2 cameras and across multiple P2 cards

You can also view Panasonic Camera acquisition metadata in the Metadata panel. This provides an easier starting point for grading.

The following metadata fields are now available for supported Panasonic cameras:

  • Camera Manufacturer
  • Camera Model
  • Video Codec
  • Video Bit Rate
  • ISO Sensitivity
  • White Balance Color Temperature
  • Capture Gamma
  • Capture Gamut

Phantom Cine media

You can natively import and edit Phantom Cine media shot on Vision Research Phantom cameras.

Red support

Premiere Pro supports working natively with RED Digital Cinema (R3D) footage from the following cameras & codec formats:

  • Color Science like REDcolor2, REDgamma2, and REDlogFilm
  • RED ONE
  • RED EPIC
  • RED Scarlet-X cameras with support for RED Rocket
  • Red Dragon including RED Dragon 6K
  • RED Komodo
  • RED V-Raptor XL camera
Note:

RED format clips use the GPU (OpenCL and CUDA) for debayering for an improved and faster playback performance.

Sony cameras

You can import and edit media from the following cameras directly without rewrapping or transcoding:

  • Sony XDCAM
  • Sony XDCAM 50
  • Sony XAVC
  • Sony XAVC LongGOP (Group of Pictures)
  • Sony XAVC-S
  • Sony A7S Mark III
  • Sony SStP
  • Sony RAW (F65, F55, F5, FS700 cameras)
  • Sony VENICE V3
  • Sony VENICE V4
  • Sony VENICE 2 Ver. 2

You can browse the imported clips using the Media Browser and organize them using camera metadata.

Supported still-image and still-image sequence file formats

Format

Details

AI, EPS

Adobe Illustrator 

BMP, DIB, RLE

Bitmap

DPX

Cineon/DPX 

EPS

Adobe Illustrator 

GIF

Graphics Interchange Format

ICO

Icon File (Windows only)

JPEG

JPE, JPG, JFIF

PNG

Portable Network Graphics

PSD

Photoshop

PTL, PRTL

Adobe Premiere title

TGA, ICB, VDA, VST

Targa

TIFF

Tagged Interchange Format

Note:

Premiere Pro supports 8bpc (4 bytes per pixel) and 16bpc (8 bytes per pixel) still-image files.

Supported closed captioning and subtitle file formats

Format

Details

DFXP

Distribution Format Exchange Profile

MCC

MacCaption VANC

SCC

Scenarist Closed Caption File

SRT 

Subrip Subtitle format

STL

EBU N19 Subtitle File

XML

W3C/SMPTE/EBU Timed Text File

Supported video project file formats

Format

Details

AAF  

Advanced Authoring Format

AEP, AEPX  

After Effects project

CHPROJ

Character Animator Project

CSV, PBL, TXT, TAB

Batch lists

EDL  

CMX3600 EDLs

PREL

Adobe Premiere Elements project (Windows only)

PRPROJ

Premiere Pro project

XML

FCP XML

Support for growing files

Premiere Pro supports growing files for those needing this workflow. Growing files are files that are still being written to disk and will grow in duration after they are ingested. These files automatically refresh their duration based on a preference you can set in Premiere Pro.

SUPPORTED CODECS FOR GROWING FILES WITHIN AN MXF WRAPPER

  • AVC-Intra Class 50/100
  • IMX 30/40/50
  • XDCAM HD 50/35/25/18 RDD9 (The low latency version of XDCAM HD is not supported)
  • OP1B files

Support for growing files to automatically refresh and how often they must refresh is available in Media Preferences. The updated duration can be viewed in the Project panel and the Source Monitor. The refreshed duration is also available for editing in the timeline.

Growing files can only be imported if Premiere Pro can read the volume where they are stored. Premiere Pro can read footage from an unc path ("//somewhere/something"), but the drive must be mapped ("H:\somewhere\something"). The file can then be imported using the File > Import command. You can then edit these clips as you would normally edit any other clip.

Support for Variable Frame Rate files

Variable Frame Rate (VFR) is a video compression term that refers to the format of videos where the frame rate changes actively during video playback. Most videos created using mobile devices (such as iOS and Android) and e-learning applications (such as ScreenFlow or Twitch) are in VFR format.

DETECT VFR FOOTAGE IN PREMIERE PRO

Choose any footage and select File > Get Properties for > Selection. Premiere Pro indicates if it detects VFR footage.

The screesnhot shows the Properties panel indicating VFR footage.
You can identify VFR footage in Premiere Pro through the Properties panel.

PRESERVE AUDIO SYNC FOR VARIABLE FRAME-RATE FOOTAGE

You can incorporate variable frame footage from devices such as mobile phones and the DJI Phantom without having to adjust the audio-video sync manually. Select a VFR clip in the Project panel or the Source Monitor and select Master Clip Effect in the Effect Controls panel. Toggle between the following options:

  • Preserve Audio Sync: This option decodes the source so that the audio and video are in sync. Preserve Audio Sync works by adding or dropping frames, resulting in choppier-looking videos. Preserve Audio Sync is the default for all VFR clips that have audio.
  • Smooth Video Motion: This option decodes all the available frames in the source and does not make any effort to maintain audio-video sync. It results in smoother motion in the video. You can choose this setting if you're doing motion graphics work and care more about getting all the available video frames. Smooth Video Motion is the default when Premiere Pro does not detect audio in VFR clips.

LIMITATIONS WITH VARIABLE FRAME RATE SUPPORT

  • If you plan to use a proxy, consolidate, or transcode workflows, it’s better to transcode VFR material to a constant frame rate before editing.
  • If you have manually synced VFR footage in previous versions of Premiere Pro, resync that footage when opening the project in Premiere Pro 12.0.1 or later versions.

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