Flash SWF's into Premiere Pro?
I find it continually amazing that even though I work for Adobe, there are things that I hear within and without the organization that I didn't know about a product that I think I know very well. Such is the case with learning that I can import a Flash SWF file into my Premiere Pro timeline and have it play.
I learned this somewhat by accident as I did an eseminar and another Adobe coworker happened to mention it. I tried it and sure enough, it works just fine. It opens up some interesting possibilities on reusing content, but also as another tool to create motion graphics for Premiere Pro. This morning, I reviewed a document that mentioned every new feature of Premiere Pro and I didn't see it there.
What's good for all of us Premiere Pro users is that our flexibility and options continue to grow. Good news for everyone...
Comments
Any SWF? Wow.. that is a strong feature for future possibilites.
[DR - I know! It is a pretty cool feature for people that are doing a little animation in Flash. And for those that aren't, Flash is definitely way easier to pick up than it has been in the past, so hopefully some people will give it a try.]
Posted by: Greg | October 30, 2008 4:57 PM
Does this work just as if you were importing a movie clip? Can it go on any of the video tracks? Does the audio get imported, too and, if so, is the audio successfully synced with the video portion of the SWF?
[DR - Randy, I didn't check on whether I could bring an audio file along with it. My hunch would say no, but if you were working on a Flash project, you could use the .asnd format in Flash and Premiere. So, technically, you can import your Flash sound into Premiere if needs be. Hope this helps.]
Posted by: Randy Marathon | November 9, 2008 9:20 PM
Hi Dennis,
does it require a plug-in?
what version of Premiere Pro should I use?
Thanks,
Wu Xiaolei
[DR - No, to my knowledge, no plugin is required and if it is, its built into Premiere Pro CS4 which is the version you need to use.]
Posted by: Wu Xiaolei | November 12, 2008 12:54 AM
Using Jing, I've made video screen captures. jing generates these files as swf. When I bring these swf files into Premiere, they play back as grey only. Any suggestions?
[DR - I don't know. I took a look at the website. on the positive side, it's the Techsmith guys, on the negative side - it looks like a beta. Perhaps they're not respecting the alpha channel that is a part of the Flash spec. You'd have to take it up with them. Sorry I don't have much more for you on this.]
Posted by: Sara | December 18, 2008 8:32 AM
That is the greatest thing since sliced bread!
I just got into Flash recently and am loving it! Yet trying to work with Flash .swf's in Adobe Premier [old] or Windows Movie Maker is a total nightmare and a hard drive killer.
THANKS, ADOBE!!!!!!! You rock the world...as always.
Posted by: Tony Tuthill | December 19, 2008 8:28 PM
I'm useing the cs3 vision,so could you tell me how to import the swf into cs3? maybe need some plug-in,would you tell me the downloading website? thanks so much!
[DR - Importing SWFs into Premiere Pro is a CS4 feature. What you would have to do is find a utility that converts your SWF into an AVI or Quicktime. I've seen things like that out there. It's another step, but at least you'll get it in there if that's your goal...]
Posted by: songzhi | December 30, 2008 11:23 PM
though premiere cs4 imports swf natively. it aint as goo as flashant plugin -
swf imported thru flashant could be scaled streched and even keyed on a the bg alpha
Posted by: Santanu | February 17, 2009 2:56 PM
I have been having issues using swfs in a Premier Pro project and then publishing it to a Windows Media format. Essentially all of the video info is lost and the file will not play. The bad news is that I have to use Windows Media due to company constraints. Any thoughts on why this might be or how to make it work?
[DR - Nick, Check to see that the SWF will play in a Media player or some type of flash player. Are you using CS4? Have you tried exporting to a Quicktime and importing? These are just a couple of random thoughts off the top of my head. Let me know how you make out with these suggestions.]
Posted by: Nick | July 21, 2009 4:14 PM
Hi, I've been using Premiere Pro and Flash CS4 on my Mac and I've come into some trouble importing a .swf to Premiere -- it imports but the picture is small and needs to be stretched which of course compromises quality.
I've tried saving my 16:9 flash project to Quicktime file but it automatically compresses it to 4:3 and it leaves weird markings on the image.
Breaking the flash animation down into individual JPG frames is not really an option because when I import to Premiere it automatically sets imported images to 6sec duration.
Is there some way to make a .swf a larger image without manually resizing in Premiere? Any help would be really appreciated!
Cheers
[DR - Why not make your Flash project bigger so you don't have to stretch. also when you export to quicktime if it doesn't show up right, you can go into QT's movie properties and change things like the aspect ratio. As for jpg import, you can do a numbered sequence. Check out the check box in the lower left.]
Posted by: Emily | August 25, 2009 1:39 AM
I'm having trouble importing SWfs into Premiere Pro...all I'm getting is black? Although the file appears correct based on time, I'm getting no video playback of the SWF after importing. Using CS4 all the way around and the SWFs are comprised of nested movie clips. Everything plays back fine in the Flash Player. Any thoughts?
[DR - perhaps import the SWF into a Flash stage and export out a Quicktime as an alternative?]
Posted by: aaron | October 13, 2009 12:04 PM