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OMFI File Management
1) Can someone confirm –
When clips/sequences are renamed in the Avid bins, the media files in the OMFI MediaFiles directory do not get updated with the new names. True/False? That has been my experience after trying different possibilties. Is Avid even designed to do that?Why? There are excess media files (taking up a lot of space) I’d like to thin out (since I thinned out my bins).
Since names got convoluted, bin names no longer matching media file names, I copied and saved a group of media files into a different directory before permanently deleting — to make sure it was files I didn’t need. In realizing I did need them, I copied and pasted them back into the OMFI MediaFiles — but Avid couldn’t recognize them once they were brought back into their original directory. (I tried different recovery routes – no luck.)
I deleted the files and the project — so I’m not worried about salvaging them, now. However…
2) Since I intend to transport files in the near future, (not having done so yet), I’m wondering what I could have done wrong to cause this corruption. In this case, I just moved it back and forth within the same drive. The file names weren’t even different with this batch.
Basically, for question #2, just wondering if there’s something more to moving OMFI files around than what meets my eye.
Any insight?
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1 Reply
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OK, I’ve never been an Avid assistant, so don’t take what I’m saying as the last word in being correct, but here’s what I believe to be the situation.
No, Avid does not change media file names even though you change them in the bin or even change the name of the bin. Each file has it’s own unique alpha-numeric name and that’s how Avid locates it. So it knows what clip/bin it is even if you changed the name. If you want to find out what unused media you can delete, you open your media tool from the tools menu, select your project and drives that you want to be searched,etc., the click on your current sequence and select find media relatives from the bin menu. This will highlight all the omfi files being used in your current cut. (If you have all your bins open, it will highlight them in the bins as well). You then select “reverse selection” from the bin menu and now it highlights all those clips that aren’t currently being used. You can either delete those right off, or you can look at each of them to determine if you think you might still need them later on, de-select those you want to save and zap the rest. That’s how Avid is set up to thin the herd so to speak. The method you used, copying omfi files in the directory, creates duplicate files, which is not desireable. You can use this method to copy files to another drive (or use consolidate media in Avid), but I don’t recommend it for moving files within a drive.
This is not my forte so there may be additional ways of doing this, which is usually the case with Avid.
Hope this helps.
Chaz S.
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