How to Import and Edit MP4 Files with Lightworks?

Lightworks is a computer-based professional non-linear editing system for editing and mastering digital video in various formats, including 2K and 4K resolutions and high resolution formats. There are two licenses for Lightworks: Lightworks free and Lightworks Pro, both the two licenses have powerful importing support for various different file types. How about the media compatibility of Lightworks with the most commonly used MP4 file format?

"I use the Hauppauge HDPVR2 to capture and record video games. The software that Hauppauge uses with the HDPVR2 has the video exported into the MP4 filetype. Now for some fucking reason, I can't import the rendered MP4 video file that my HDPVR recorded to Lightworks?"

MP4 to Lightworks

Why Lightworks not import MP4 video?

From Ligthworks official tech specification page, we can see that Lightworks has claimed its native support for MP4 container format. However, a proper container file format won't ensure you a succesful importing. What really matters is the video, audio codec and also other profile parameters such as frame rate, resolution, bit rate, etc use by the MP4 file formats. Only the following file formats or codec can be loaded into Lightworks with no problem.
- DVCAM / DVCPRO 25, DVCPRO 50, DVCPRO HD
- Uncompressed SD 8 bit and 10 bit, Uncompressed HD 8 bit and 10 bit
- MPEG-2 I-Frame SD, MPEG-2 I-Frame HD, MPEG-2 Long GOP
- IMX 30, 40, 50
- AVCHD (M2T, M2TS, MPEG4, H.264)
- Avid DNxHD - all variants, including Thin Raster**
- AVC-Intra 50, AVC-Intra 100
- XDCAM EX (native MP4 support), XDCAM HD, XDCAM HD 50 422
- Apple Pro Res
- RED R3D
- DPX 8 bit, 10 bit, 16 bit
-Image Sequence (BMP, DPX, JPEG, PNG, TGA, Compressed TGA, TIFF)
- Broadcast Wave Format with drop and non-drop frame timecode options
- Cinema DNG

What's more, the compatible editing frame for Lightworks is 23.976, true 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, or 60 fps.

Transcode MP4 for Lightworks Smooth Editing

To fix all the incompatible format or profile settings issue, the best effective solution is perform a conversion process. Here, a simple to use and powerful MP4 Converter - Pavtube Video Converter(best video converter review) is highly recommended to you. The program has full support for all MP4 files encoded with various different video (H.265/HEVC and VP9 included) or audio codec (DTS and FLAC included) to Lightworks Pro and Free version editable file formats listed above. Besides that, you can adjust the output file frame rate or other profile settings to make them adapt with Lightworks.

Enhance MP4 with built-in editing package tool

Before load MP4 into Lightworks for some professional post editing workflow, you can complete some simple video tasks with the program's built-in video editing functions. You can flip or rotate video, trim or cut video files to remove unwanted parts or segments, crop video to remove the unwanted black bars or area, add image/video/transparent text watermark to video, apply special rendering effect to video, flip or rotate video angel, remove/replace audio in video, add external srt/ass/ssa subtitles to video, split large video into small clips by file size, count or length or merge separate video into one file.

For Mac users, please download Pavtube Video Converter for Mac to fix MP4 Lightworks editing issue on Mac OS X El Capitan or macOS Sierra.

Step by Step to Convert MP4 for Lightworks Pro and Free Editing

Step 1: Load MP4 files into the program.

Install and launch the MP4 video converter program on your computer, click "File" > "Add Video/Audio" or "Add from Folder" to load unsupported MP4 files into the program.

Load unsupported MP4 files

Step 2: Choose output file format.

Click "Format", from its drop-down option, choose one of Lightworks supported "H.264 HD Video(*.mp4)" under "HD Video" main category.

Output Lightworks editable file format

Step 3: Adjust output profile parameters.

Click "Settings" to open "Profile Settings" window, here you can flexibly adjust the frame rate and other profile settings such as video codec, bit rate, frame rate, resolution and audio codec, bit rate, sample rate and channels, etc to make them adapt with Lightworks.

adjust output profile settings

Step 3: Edit MP4 video.

Check an item to active the "Video Editor" function, then click the pencil like icon on the top tool bar to open the "Video Editor" window, you can trim video length, crop video black bars, add watermark, apply sepcial rendering effect, remove/replace audio in video, etc.

Edit MP4 video

Step 4: Begin MP4 to Lightworks conversion process.

After all settings is completed, hit right-bottom "Convert" button to begin the conversion from MP4 to Lightworks conversion process.

When the conversion is completed, you can click "Open Output Folder" button to get the output files effortlessly, and now you will have no problems to import and edit MP4 files with Lightworks.

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