Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1010948
20 S U M M E R 2 0 1 8 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y Armed with an EDL and a batch of source tapes, I was a pretty mean hand-conformer (even though Pro Tools had the dreaded 12-hour session time limit). OMF, however, often allowed us to eliminate the need to re-conform because it included the sequence's EDL info and access to the media files—which were digitized as 16-bit, 48 kHz uncompressed files. While our billing department may not have liked the technological advancement OMF provided, our television clients with their faster and faster turnaround times certainly did. Back then, Media Composer was the only video work- station that could export an OMFI document because, well, it was developed by Avid. Given Media Composer's prominence in the industry, other audio workstations wanted to offer interchange capability. For example, I recall beta testing a couple variations of an OMF Tool- like application that converted files into something com- patible with SSL's ScreenSound. After a couple variations yielding unstable results, I went back to hand-conforming when working on ScreenSound and SSL's interchange development soon ceased. OMF interchange capabili- ties became a DAW necessity and, in my opinion, helped secure Pro Tools as the most prominent audio platform. Other non-linear video editing systems saw the attrac- tion of being able to move files and sequences across plat- forms and began implementing OMF options into their software. Most of these translations weren't as smooth as Media Composer's and sometimes required third-party applications to help bring across information. Even with OMF's successor, AAF, not being developed directly by by Matt Foglia CAS Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018 AAF & OMF Importing Observations Avid, translation of information from non-Avid NLEs to DAWs can still be lacking. Given the increased presence of Premiere in professional facilities and educational institutions—and the chatter about OMF and AAF transfer issues from audio folks (including myself), I decided to put Premiere through the paces and explore some of its export options and import results in Pro Tools. Of note, I ran similar tests using Adobe Audition, as is suggested as a workaround on Adobe user's groups, but results were similar. THE SETUP… In an effort to be able to identify drift, timing, and chan- nel name/content inaccuracies, I created a 29.97 NDF time-stamped four-channel poly WAV. Channel one was a loop of me saying "one" on the second, every second for two minutes (very exciting). I did the same for chan- nels two through four (saying "two" or "three" or "four" based on the channel). This way, I figured, if channel paths were somehow swapped, I'd be able to easily identi- fy them. The poly WAV had TC, scene, take, and channel info. I also created a mono mix of the four channels with the same TC and additional metadata (having it quasi- represent a production mix). These were 24-bit, 48 kHz. Additionally, I added an interleaved WAV stereo music track that was 16-bit, 48 kHz. The idea was that I could see what happened to mono, stereo, and poly WAV files. Metadata and file specs were verified in Sound Devices' Wave Agent software. BACK STORY… I've had a long relationship with OMFs (later, AAFs) that began in the mid-1990s when I started in post production at Sony Music Studios in NYC. We were one of the beta testers for OMF Tool (remember that?)—a standalone application that converted the exported ".OMF" file from Media Composer to a Pro Tools session file. Unlike today, where public betas are the norm, back then, beta testing was limited to a rather small number of folks. We'd use our dial-up modem to provide feedback on the Digidesign BBS and see how other audio editors and mixers were dealing with conversion issues. Digidesign would take that feedback, adjust the code, and send us an updated version of OMF Tool.