Adobe Premiere Pro AAF vs OMF

[trevora]

Hi Linus

I'm happy to share, although I can't remember the exact settings...

The general audio prefs were the default I think, other than automatic peak generation was unchecked.



The AAF settings were also probably default... may have changed to 24 bit and/or to 50frame handles, but probably not for those tests.

The sequence settings may be of more use - those were the mono / standard / adaptive tracks in a multichannel (rather than mono or stereo) timeline I think.

Also the clip audio channel settings have an affect (wether it treats a source clip as mono/stereo/5.1 or adaptive).

If I get time I'll make a v3 AAF with clip and track, gain and pan, keyframes and I'll wrap up the PPro project in there too.

[trevora]

OK here's a later version - that has some clip and pan automation, some clip and pan level adjustments via dissolves, some gain adjustments via 'audio options' and some gain adjustments via 'volume' plug-in.

The 'stereo ident' is broken on the left channel and has unity at -18dBFS

When placed in the mono timeline tracks (1 and 2) it is mono'd in my timeline - be interesting to see if you then get access to both source legs.

The gain automation sweeps from -infinity to unity then unity to +6

The pan automation sweeps from left to centre then centre to right (it is balance on stereo tracks and there is no 'clip' pan on mono tracks, but there is 'track' pan.

The audio option gain is an additional way of adding gain - that tone should be at -12dB

The volume plug-in should also bring the gain up to -12dB but may not pass through the AAF

(BTW - The mono tracks may be -3dB, I monitor using submixes and add 3dB to maintain unity over Premieres inbuilt attenuation for mono tracks)

My project is also available - here you can see the submixes I use to monitor.

This is all a work in progress - there's so many variables that may or may not make it through an AAF....


AAF v3

Project v3

[FajitaTone]

my editor is using stereo tracks for music and they are being summed to MONO on the export. If we choose export AAF and check no boxes, I get no media, just an AAF file and empty regions. How do you export the media into folders and get a valid AAF that PT 12HD can open reliably?

Thanks

[trevora]

Are they being summed to mono on an OMF export or an AAF export?

If an OMF export then it is likely to be a stereo clip in a mono timeline track.

I've played around with a number of exports and settings with CC2014 but cannot get the AAF export to be summed mono when I import to Media Composer (although I get error messages on every import that I'm ignoring).

One thing to note is that, if the editor mixes mono and stereo source clips on a timeline track then these are broken out into multiple tracks in the AAF. This does make some sense but has the ability to confuse the hell out of things...

Hope that's of some help.

[FajitaTone]

We are experiencing this in CC2015.

[trevora]

Anyone having success getting AAFs from PPro to ProTools painlessly? I have to do it again shortly and I'm pretty sure last time the OMF route wasn't without pain.

I've made a CC2015.2 updated version of an AAF.

Media is embedded (including video mixdown) in bigger file

Media is 'seperate' (all in same folder as exported) in smaller file

There are screen grabs of PPro timeline and PPro AAF export settings in both.

I suspect that my 9 timeline tracks will be expanded to 17 in the AAF as PPro separates the stereo / mono elements. (Although that behaviour may have changed in CC2015.2 with the 'break into mono' option).

Be interested if anyone has the chance to download and open the AAF & check it makes sense & is in sync with the audio mixdowns on the bottom track. (DX & FX is from MXF and MOV, from a variety of sources, MX is from a .M4A).

Thanks

[trevora]

I've now imported that AAF into Media Composer so will report back what I found there...

Embedded video mixdown is DNX185 - but it is OP1a so Avid barfs if it is put into Avid MediaFiles. Linking to it works fine.

PPro MONO timeline tracks are replicated (i.e. there are not seperate tracks for mono and stereo clips within them).

NB: The stereo clips in those MONO timeline tracks are mixed down to mono before being embedded in the AAF - this is potentially a massive gotcha if editors use Lav/Boom or Interviewer/Interviewee or Lav/Camera mic dual mono sources as 'stereo' clips in a mono timeline track.

There's errors in some of the tracks though (mono clips where I meant to modify and put stereo) - so I'll try and remake the AAF when I get the chance.