Audio Exchange: ProToolsAV / Avid Film Composer?

[Stephen Kearney]

I'm a bit confused about the capabilities that the AV Option adds. I understand that it allows ProTools to use the Avid's video media without conversion (and 24 frame media with the FilmFrame software). But does it allow audio to be passed back and forth without creating new media?

What I'd like to do is bring in audio tracks into ProTools from the Avid, do some editing in ProTools, then send them back over to the Avid. Is there a way to make that work and have the Avid use the audio files it already has?

Thanks!

[Charouhas]

No. AV Option doesn't do that, per se. In order to do what you want, you don't need AV option (although it's great to have!).
If I understand you correctly, you're simply interested in working with audio files. In order to do that, you must export your audio files from the Avid in the form of an OMF export, which you then import into ProTools. Later, you can export your work back to the Avid in a similar fashion. DigiTranslator is a must-have tool for this. But be advised: ProTools uses some very sophisticated "tools" which are just not found in the Avid, and most of these are not "translated" into Avidspeak unless you permanently (destructively) render these changes into new files (creating new media). Sorry.
Hope this helps!
George Charouhas

[Stephen Kearney]

Thanks for the reply. I understand that DigiTranslator now makes it possible to send cut audio tracks back to the Avid from ProTools. But I'd still like to confirm that the Avid can't use the audio files it already has. In other words anything coming from ProTools via DigiTranslator is new media for the Avid. And if that's true, do the imported clips in the Avid have the same names as the regions did in ProTools, or do they end up with the cryptic, hexadecimal Avid names?

I'm trying to figure out how practical it is to repeatedly pass audio tracks back and forth between the Avid and ProTools (picture editing dept. and sound editing dept.).

Thanks again.

[supersonic C]

No. Because the OMF "simplifies" the files, even if you just sent over the EDL, it couldn't tie to the old media. Anyway, even if that WOULD work, the only changes the Avid could really "see" would be edit points and fades. Any EQ, Plug-ins, automation (other than clip level) would not make it back to Avid. UNLESS, you were to mix internally on PT and just OMF the mix (as a 2track or 5.1 file). Repeatedly send audio back & forth? Sounds like the editor is chasing the mixer is chasing the editor is chasing....

[Stephen Kearney]

No. Because the OMF "simplifies" the files, even if you just sent over the EDL, it couldn't tie to the old media.

So you're saying it works differently for going from ProTools to Avid, compared to Avid to ProTools? Because it is possible to have ProTools use the original Avid soundfiles. You have to do a finder copy of all the Avid audio media to a drive. Then make a composition-only (no media) OMF on the Avid. Hook the audio file drive to the ProTools machine, convert the OMF to a PT session, resolve the file pointers, and open it up. We use this method because the picture dept. gives us (the sound dept.) many versions of the same sequence over the course of a project. We don't want to have get new media every time. This way each time there's a new version they just give us a new composition and any new pieces of audio. We can save any work we've done to the tracks they originally gave us, and simply update them to the new cut.

But the problem is it's a one way street. They can give updates of their cut tracks and we can bring them into PT, still referencing the orginal media. However, going from PT to Avid, I'm limited to giving them mixdowns, or cut tracks that apparently get imported into the Avid as new media even though that media originally came from the Avid.

Can anyone confirm that my understanding is correct?

Thanks!

[DigiTechSupt]

Here's the lowdown on taking audio back and forth from Composer and Pro Tools.
There are a couple of reasons...

1) Avid systems and Pro Tools share audio file formats (AIFF, SDII and/or .WAV) so an audio file created on one can be imported into the other and played back. The problem comes with keeping it all in sync while going back and forth.

Avid systems are "frame accurate", in other words their smallest editable increment is a frame (for the most part, but if you want to be technical there quarter frames and perfs but these don't apply to this conversation). There are 30 or 24 frames per second depending on your project.

Pro Tools is sample accurate. There are 44100 or 48000 samples per second.

The problems comes in with the math of these two "resolutions". It's easy, mathematically speaking, to keep frame accurate (30 or 24 per second) audio in sync on a system that can handle much higher resolutions (44100 or 48000) but the opposite is very dificult.

An Avid must have audio that is rounded up to frame accuracy. When going from Pro Tools to Avid, Digi translator forces you to create new audio files so that it can create and guarantee "frame accurate" audio files. It will add samples to the beginning and/or end of a file(s) to accomplish this.

2) Considering much of Pro Tools DSP and mixing functionality is real time, it is assumed that you will be doing a bounce down or mix down of your audio before sending it back to an Avid anyway. This would, in most cases, give you a stereo pair of files (or more if you choose) to send back to the Avid in the form of contiguous files which by definition would be different audio files than the original Avid sequence.

Jon Connolly
Digidesign Product Specialist