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Exporting OMF or AAF with metadata for Pro Tools?
Hi,
I’m working on a longform television series with FCP7 for the first time, and am trying to figure out the best workflow to deliver audio to sound post.
The sound from set is being recorded with anywhere up to 9 tracks of audio, and I would like to just cut with the stereo mix and have the sound editors do a conform to get the isolated radio mic tracks. Cutting with so many tracks is unwieldy for me, although I suppose I can get used to it! *grumble grumble*
The problem is that exporting an OMF from FCP strips all the metadata and source timecode and the soundies will not be able to conform this way.
I thought the answer would be Automatic Duck, as all roads seem to lead back to it. There’s isn’t a demo bit of software to test it with and we got in contact with them to ask them if the AAFs would export metadata so the sound post guys could conform for their edit and their response was:
“Sorry, this question has come up before. Our plug-in cannot do this”
So my question is – is there another third party application that will allow us to export an OMF or AAF with metadata and timecode so I can edit with just the stereo mix? It seems like such a basic function to be without.
Thanks so much for any light you can shed on the matter!
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3 Replies
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[Q. M. Dao] “The problem is that exporting an OMF from FCP strips all the metadata and source timecode and the soundies will not be able to conform this way.”
No, it does not. I have exported a good 50+ OMFs from FCP 6 and 7 and all of them had the proper data. Only when I exported OMFs from FCP 5 did I have issues, and to solve that I used Automatic Duck. But FCP 7…OMFs are rock solid. If your OMFs are lacking that information, there might be another issue at play.
Wait, what other metadata? I have gotten the OMFs to have timecode and reel number…what else is needed?
Shane
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Firstly do the location mutlitrack files have timecode? Does the stereo file you want to work with have identical timecode to the polywavs or is it from a feed to the camera.
If all the timecodes match then it is possible to do an EDL reconform of the files mapping the tracks to multi tracks to accommodate the polywavs.
I can do this with EDL conform in Fairlight but I am not sure if ProTools has the same function.
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People I’ve worked with in the past have used ProTools combined with Titan to accomplish this. But there may be other tools that do the same job.
As Shane says, OMFs should work fine, but even straight audio-only EDLs can do the trick in a pinch.
But as everyone mentions, if there is no TC in the source audio (are they broadcast wavs?) then it won’t make a difference what tool you use to export.
Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto
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