December 14th, 2008
Message text:
After Effects error: File " " cannot be opened, it may be an unsupported format.
Message interpretation:
You tried to open a file that is not compliant to a standard media architecture and thus it registers as unsupported.
Possible causes:
Some programs like Google Earth Pro feature simplistic export functions that allow to export the screen content to a video file. However, often these programs do not provide many option to configure framerates, sizes and compression. This will often result in chaotic combinations and ultimately in completely useless files that cannot be viewed in any other program than the application that created it. Similar behaviors can be observed with viewport previews in 3D applications and CAD programs.
Resolution or workaround:
If you have the choice and really need to work with such content, export it as image sequences from those programs.