. "troubleshooting, problem solved, it was in fact my firewall; after finally uninstalling and reinstalling it, ae cs6 now works w/QT. called adobe tech support, the guy eventually was helpful, there???s a Lot that can go wrong with quicktime and AE for the new post cs5 versions, from firewall/permissions/other issues; eg qt32 server has to run properly and other details" . . .