Audition AAF Import

[larryb7272]

I'm experimenting with Audition for the first time. How do I import an AAF file?

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

My understanding is that AAF (Advanced Authoring Format) files are essentially about the exchange of metadata. Audition is an audio editor, and whilst it can handle metadata associated with audio, it's not a general metadata handler. Whether this will change in any material way, I don't know - but at present it has no means of dealing with files in that format.

[larryb7272]

Thank you for the fast response. I have been working in post audio for many years and can assure you that AAF is the standard format for exchange of edited audio from video editors. If Audition cannot import AAF source audio then it's not useful to me.

[mcoyle1960]

Ugh. 2021 and no AAF support. I mean, geez, OMF and AAF are basically the same. Come on Adobe.

[SuiteSpot]

They are two totally different beasts entirely.

They are self proclaimed standards that never should have been created.
Although the container format is always a standard, the methods of describing data within the containers is not.
They each have multiple ways of describing the same thing and since everyone has a slightly different way of doing things within the containers, they might as well not exist at all.
To call it any kind of standard should be against the law.

OMF is literally a format within a container format.
AAF is much worse because it is a format within a container within a structured storage format.

And no there is no such thing as a 'standard' OMF or AAF.  Even Avid have two different variants of both OMF and AAF - the ProTools variant and the Media Composer variant.

From memory even Final Cut X doesn't have AAF (or even OMF).

So no I'm not surprised Audition doesn't have AAF support

[Floris29796447i7to]

So if any software developers out there can build a software pgm that is only to convert omf/aaf to respective formats..you will make a lot of sound designers happy !!

[SuiteSpot]

It has already been done a long time ago
AATranslator 

[Floris29796447i7to]

Thanks, will check it out !

[SuiteSpot]

It must be late at night or I'm going mad but send me the AAF and I will convert it to Audition for you
info@aatranslator.com.au

[larryb7272]

Thanks for the offer. It seems like you must be using some other program to import the AAF ?

[BlueApplesMedia]

it is shocking and sad to discover Audition can't open an AAF. This lack of a fundamental feature makes it just a toy for children and nothing close to being a professional tool.  Why do they even bother to build something like this and hobble it like this.

[SuiteSpot]

AAF is a joke that AVID played on the Audio community and they are the only ones laughing.
I've been interrogating and converting AAFs since the late 1990s and I still come across rougue AAF variants.
A simple google search will show you just how many daws can't open AAFs from other daws and even if they do either one of them won't fully support the details contained within (if they even contain them at all).
If Adobe was to even try and meaningfully support AAF they will not only be digging a whole and throwing all their development funds down it but they will then find that the posts on this forum will be filled with the complaints of unsuspecting fools screaming about all the things they haven't covered or that don't work.
There are just so many better and more effective formats than AVID's in-house garbage.
But hey, everyone is entitled to their opinion