Any AAF file event viewer?

[Michael Phillips]

None that I know of… an AAF file is a binary format and quite a complex representation of sequence structure. The home of all things AAF can be found here:

https://www.amwa.tv/developers.shtml

You can always create a new project, import an AAF and look at it that way, so it is not influenced by original project and already existing clips.

Michael

[Roger Bolton]

Pity, XML still has all the effect information and layer sizing etc and is human readable, if theres a mistake you can open it with a text editor and scan it finding clip names and templates.

Personally I’d find such an app incredibly useful for conforms especially if it also had the same functionality for XML. Hint hint to any shareware developers out there.

–
Freelance: Flame – Smoke – Resolve – Nuke – VFX Supervision
Owner / Director: CoreMelt Plugins

[Michael Phillips]

I don’t disagree with the ease of XML as a structured schema for translating sequences, sources, etc. OMF which evolved into AAF was in place before XML existed. But there has been talks for years of the AAF association creating a XML version of AAF, or even the more simplified version of the Edit Protocol, that has yet to happen. Typical issues for standards that have many subscribers and need to satisfy a large number of legacy based workflows and systems. SMPTE is a good example of that. Not a bad thing in the end, but takes so much longer.

Michael

[Roger Bolton]

Well AAF is binary but at the end of the day it decodes into a list of file names and timecodes per track. Its a pretty simple job for a programmer to just decode the structure and print out a spreadsheet like presentation of clip names and timecodes.

In my case we had bad camera management, so we had overlapping timecodes on a multi day shoot. After conforming in resolve with half the clips working I had to manually write down original clip names and time codes in MC and then match them back up in Resolve.

A simple viewer for AAF like I’m suggesting would have made that a lot faster, and it wouldn’t require a copy of MC to be running.

–
Freelance: Flame – Smoke – Resolve – Nuke – VFX Supervision
Owner / Director: CoreMelt Plugins

[Michael Phillips]

I think “simple” is debatable when it comes to walking through an AAF composition and MOB structures… that being said, if all you want is a list of clips and timecodes, a simple EDL, or an XML from FilmScribe, or using the set bin display of a sequence and export as TAB may be a better method at this time to achieve what you are trying to do.

Note that the FilmScribe XML is just that – a representation of FilmScribe lists as XML to make it easier to parse. If someone wanted to write XSL to turn it into FCP XML, or other type of XML, then that work would need to be done. Also, XML is export only, not import back into Media Composer.

Again, I am not disagreeing to the simplicity of XML, but dealing with how it works now as it stands.

Michael