Import H.265/HEVC to Premiere Elements (15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10)

Video shooting and editing is getting more and more popular and easy. Everyone can record his own footage and edit in Premiere Elements (15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10) then post into YouTube to show his talent. But the new released HD cameras with 4K resolution output often encode videos with HEVC/H.265 codec. When you import these H.265/HEVC videos to Premiere Elements (15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10), you will get error massage saying it is an unsupported video files no matter the video is in MP4 format or MOV format.

"Need to import video from a Samsung NX500 and they decided to use H.265 format for video, does anyone know if any of the Adobe Premiere Elements video editing products support the format?"

"Get some footage from DJI Phantom 4 Pro. But I can't import the H.265 MP4 4K video to Premiere Elements 15 for editing"

To figure out the issue, you should know if Premiere Elements (15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10) support H.265/HEVC video files. You can see Premiere Elements (15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10) supported video files to import for editing in the below chart. The chart is from helpx.adobe.com.

Premiere Elements Supported Import file formats

Format and filename extension

3GPP (.3gp, .3g2)

Adobe Shockwave Flash (.swf)

Audio Video Interleave (.avi)

AVCHD (.m2ts, .mts)

DV stream (.dv)

H.264 (.mp4, .m4v)

H.264-encoded QuickTime (.mov, .mp4, .m4v)

MOD (.mod)

MPEG-1 (.m1v, .mpeg, .mpe)

MPEG-2 (.m2v, .mp2, .mpg)

MPEG-2 Transport Stream (.m2t)

QuickTime (.mov)

TOD (.tod)

Video Object (DVD video) (.vob)

Windows Media (.wmv) *

Obviously, Adobe Premiere Elements (latest version and earlier) does not support h.265 so far. Maybe the only way to import H.265/HEVC video files to Premiere Elements (15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10) is to transcode HEVC video files to Premiere Elements compatible video files such as DV AVI, MPEG-2, H.264 MP4, H.264 M4V, QuickTime MOV, etc.

Best Tool to Convert H.265/HEVC to Premiere Elements 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10

Pavtube Video Converter for Mac is a lightweight tool that, which allows you to encode/decode H.265 video files to H.264 for Premiere Elements with the least amount of effort on your behalf. It can convert your DJI Phantom 4 Pro H.265 4K video, Samsung NX500 HEVC files and some other H.265 video files to Premiere Elements accept video files. You can customize the output file's video and audio settings to make the video more fit in Premiere Element.

Besides HEVC files, it also can convert MKV, AVI, TS, 4K, AVCHD, XAVC, MXF, etc to Premiere Elements 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10 video files. Before output video, you can edit H.265 like merge H.265 files into one, crop H.265, trim H.265, rotate H.265 video, add subtitles/watermark to HEVC. Pavtube Video Converter for Mac will work stably on macOS Sierra, El Capitan, etc.

For Windows users, please use Pavtube Video Converter. Now download the right version below to start to convert H.265/HEVC to Premiere Elements 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10.

Steps to Transcode H.265/HEVC to Premiere Elements 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10

Step 1. Import H.265 files

Run the H.265 Video Converter program, go to the menu bar, select Add Video/Audio button to select the H.265 files you want to import. You can also directly drag the video files to the program for conversion. It supports batch conversion so you can import multiple files at a time.

load hevc video

Step 2: Choose Premiere Elements preferred format

Navigate to “Format’ > “Common Video” > “MOV – QuickTime(*.mov)”. You can see that here are hundreds of video formats for you choosing. You also can choose H.264 MP4, DV AVI, MPEG-2 for Premiere Elements. Click “Settings” button to go to “Profile Settings” screen where you can adjust audio and video parameters like size, bitrate, frame rate, sample rate, etc.

QickTime MOV

Step 3: Start H.265 to QuickTime MOV conversion

Click the convert button under the preview window, the converter will start encoding H.265 clips to QuickTime MOV for importing to Adobe Premiere Elements. When the H.265/HEVC files to Premiere Elements conversion task is finished, click “Open” button to get the exported files for transferring to Premiere Elements with easy playback or editing.

How to Add Media Files to Premiere Elements?

You can import your converted HEVC files from your computer’s hard drive.

Do one of the following:

Click Add Media and choose Files And Folders.

Choose File > Add Media From > Files And Folders.

To import a media file, locate and select the file from the dialog box and click Open.

On Windows, select the folder from the dialog box and click Import Folder if you want to add an entire folder.

Note: Alternately, you can drag files from your operating system's file explorer to the Quick view or Expert view timeline.

How to Export Premiere Elements Files into H.265 Video?

Premiere Elements doesn't save output video into H.265/HEVC video files. But you can save Premiere Elements video to H.264 codec then use Pavtube Video Converter to convert Premiere Elements export to H.265/HEVC codec video.

The Export & Share (previously called Publish +Share) panel can save your finished project.

1. Click Export & Share and then click the tab for the desired media type.

2. Select an output type for the specified media category.

3. Change the recommended settings, if need be.

4. Watch a preview of your video before exporting it.

5. Type the File Name and select a location for the output. Click Save.

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