Successful OMF export for mix?

[Steve Covello]

Ah, you are correct. Except that the OMF does not include any of the automation, so it is essentially useless if the editor has done anything to the mix.

Thank you for the clarification. I guess what I meant is that it embeds the media but not the mix. which makes it almost useless, along with the 2GB file size limit.

That is why I used Automatic Duck Pro Export for FCP. I still recommend it if this guy isn’t working on FCS2.

steve covello

[Andrew Kimery]

[weevie833] “Thank you for the clarification. I guess what I meant is that it embeds the media but not the mix. which makes it almost useless, along with the 2GB file size limit.
“
I guess it depends on who does your audio but I’ve always worked w/guys that wanted a clean slate. A post house I used to work at even had “rubberbands” on the “things you will not do/use” list in the editor’s bible.

-A

[Arnie Schlissel]

That I wouldn’t know. It’s worth a try, though if you don’t have too many files that are 44.1k to resample them via iTunes & reconnect your media to the 48k versions.

Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
https://www.arniepix.com/blog

[Steve Covello]

Admirable, true. but in a world of Good, Fast or Cheap — pick two, it is probably more often than not to give the mixer a head start, despite their talent, unless they specifically ask otherwise. And it’s probably more true on spots than in longform.

However, we had some problems on a 1.5 hour doc where there were 8 tracks channeled to 4, and the amount of mixing, cleaning up and effects were so overwhelming that it would’ve caused us to miss our deadline for festival entries if the mixer started from scratch. And the editor was VERY experienced, so we were inclined to deliver the mix as it was edited.

steve

[Walter Biscardi]

[weevie833] “Ah, you are correct. Except that the OMF does not include any of the automation, so it is essentially useless if the editor has done anything to the mix.”

All the pro audio guys I work with throw out all my levels when I give it to them. Their feeling is “that’s their job.” I couldn’t agree with them more.

If there’s a question as to what my intentions were, they refer to my reference quicktime movie. But none of them retain any level information from FCP, Avid or any other editing systems they receive OMF’s from.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Walter Biscardi]

[Budrick21] ”
1. Are there any known gotcha’s in this process? I searched this forum and didn’t come up with anything. Rubberbanding should be irrelevant, and there aren’t any FCP audio effects applied.”

We’ve been exporting OMF’s for two years now with no issues so far on 22 minute episode television.

All I do is ensure that all my audio is laid out per my arrangements with the audio designer. I also never send out more than 10 channels of audio on any show to be mixed, usually no more than 8.

I set an In Point and Out Point on my timeline and do the OMF Export. So far so good and I honestly don’t have any “gotchas” to pass along.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[David Eells]

Hi John

I have Soundtrack Pro 2 at home (but not at the facility). I imported the OMF files on my home machine, and got this prompt about 5 times:

One or more files used in this document could not be located.

Where is “/Users/myname/Documents/Soundtrack Pro Documents/Edited Media/PROJECTNAME mixername omf A5-8/23

[Michael Gissing]

Three things.

Audio post people like me don’t want rubberbanding or EQ.

FCP OMF exports have been for me faultless since Vers 4.5

File names should always be computer sensible. There is no need to use characters Windows machines hate, just because Macs are happy. That I suspect this is your problem.

The fact that ProTools is owned by AVID and they are leaving their own format (OMFi) behind says it all. Other audio systems have been noted as better than ProTools in OMF importing. Older versions of ProTools needed external programs like Digi Translator to import OMFis reliably. The problem may be at their end.

[David Eells]

So I imported the omf files and had a look, and sure enough a number of clips are missing, and they are all from the original footage, normal tape ingest. In Final Cut the the clips had no effects, no obvious weirdness.

I’m stumped.

[John Pale]

FCP does a sample rate conversion to a single user specified rate while embedding the media. This should prevent there being multiple sample rates in the embedded media. Not likely this is the problem.