Supported media formats in Motion
You can import the following video, still image, and audio formats:
Video formats
Animated GIFs
Apple Animation codec
Apple Intermediate codec
Apple ProRes (all versions)
Apple ProRes RAW and Apple ProRes RAW HQ
AVCHD (including AVCCAM, AVCHD Lite, and NXCAM)
AVC-ULTRA (including AVC-LongG, AVC-Intra Class 50/100/200/4:4:4, and AVC-Intra LT)
Dolby Vision Profile 8.4 (interpreted using static HLG tone mapping)
DV (including DVCAM, DVCPRO, and DVCPRO50)
DVCPRO HD
H.264 (AVC)
HDV
iFrame
Motion JPEG
MPEG IMX (30 Mbps, 40 Mbps, 50 Mbps)
QuickTime formats
Uncompressed 8- and 10-bit 4:2:2
XDCAM HD/EX/HD422
XF-AVC
XF-HEVC
Audio formats
AAC (listed in the Finder with the .m4p filename extension)
AIFF
CAF
MP3
MP4
WAV
Important: You cannot import rights-managed AAC files.
Still image formats
BMP
GIF
HEIF
JPEG
PNG
PSD (merged and layered)
SGI
TIFF
TGA
OpenEXR
Other image formats
PDF files
Container formats
3GP
AVI
MOV (QuickTime)
MP4
MTS/M2TS
Motion can support additional video and container formats through media extensions (requires macOS Sequoia or later). See Import third-party formats with media extensions.
You can combine clips that are compressed with different codecs in the same project. You can also combine clips that have different frame sizes and pixel aspect ratios.
Some codecs support an alpha channel, which defines areas of transparency in the clip. If an imported clip has an alpha channel, Motion uses the alpha channel in your project.
Note: If you’re using a Mac with Apple silicon and you import media in a video format that is not compatible with Apple silicon, a dialog to install Rosetta is displayed. After installing Rosetta, you must quit and reopen Motion.
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