AAF Import in 2020.11 and .12

[Sascha Heiny Loft]

Import problems here:
Importing AAF tracks from Avid Media Composer causes matches to be named wrong: metadata names of multitrack field recordings seem to be shifted one track.

For example "xxx.a1 (MixL)" and "xxx.a2 (MixR)" originally recorded on track 1 +2 on field recorder, audio in Pro Tools is still 1+2 of course but names are "xxx.a1" then "xxx.a2 (MixL)" track 2 and "xxx.a3 (MixR)" on track 3!

You can´t rely on track names, just on your ear...

Importing same AAF on 2020.5 or lower does not have that problem and feels better, using 12.2018 to me seems to be the most stable import machine.

Working on Mac Pros 5_1, iMacs, Mac mini with different OS versions

Any experience with that?

[Farhoof]

I have just experienced something similar, but there are way too many variables in the chain where things can go wrong so I haven't tested it fully yet.

We have tried multiple different export methods/settings from Mediacomposer. Here is what we have found for this particular project:
- Every import into PT 2020.12 failed with channel names.
- Every import into PT 2019.12 was correct with channel names.
- A failed 2020.12 import MIGHT be ok when opened using 2019.12 (same session and audiofiles mind you!).
- A correct 2019.12 import MIGHT be screwed up when opening with 2020.12.

There is something strange going on and clearly a discrepancy between 2020.12 and 2019.12. I have not tested other versions.
We are using 2019.12 for importing AAF's because of it's better handling of Mediacomposer mutes (no more missing audio files and unknown file locations) but we are still using 2019.6 for editing/mixing because of a plethora of other bugs.

[Sascha Heiny Loft]

Thanks for sharing your expierences.
We now found out that OMFI Media Files are the problem.
If production sound is imported into Media Composer it should be MXF in the Avid Media Files and not WAV in the OMFI Media Files (as in good old days).
Then AAF import is fine on 2020 versions!
MXF soundfiles seem to work without any problems thesedays...(compared to early days of Pro Tools and MXF)

[Farhoof]

Our project was also imported into Mediacomposer mainly as WAV, creating OMFI Mediafiles, instead of MXF (post house's usual workflow), so I'll have to warn people beforehand.

Still there is a discrepancy between the latest PT and previous versions, as older versions handle omf/wav files well and 2020.12 does not. I'll just add it to the buglist with this workaround for future reference.