OMF/AAF export: Does it ever work correctly?

[Guest]

I'm cutting a feature film using Premiere Pro cs5... I've finished cutting the first 10 minutes of the film and want to export an OMF or AAF to the sound guy so he can import it into Logic Pro, to test out the workflow... now there is nothing fancy going on with my sequence... 9 audio tracks, just dialog and a music track.... no fx, no audio transitions and the video is straight cuts with a few cross dissolves... I've tried exporting to OMF about 6 different times with this sequence ticking/unticking the options but it never completes the export....just stops %75 through and I have cancel it.... AAF export finishes but lists several errors and less than half of the audio is included... so neither option seems to work correctly...

I read several older posts here about the inability and inconsistency to export OMF/AAF out of Premiere Pro Cs4/Cs5... with the workaround being to manually export each audio track... is that the current state of affairs? Has anyone isolated the factors that cause PPro to stall when trying to generate an OMF?

How are people taking their temp mixes from their PPro cuts and getting them into Pro Tools, Nuendo, Logic etc?

I've also tried exporting OMF's from a few of my other sequences but it never works.... any tips? Or do I just need to manually export each audio track seperately and file a bug report? Thanks!

using PPro Cs5 5.0.3 on Win7 64... i7 920 16gb ram

[Guest]

After doing some more research I found this which has some things to try to get OMF's out of PPro Cs5... I tried all the tricks but none of them worked... Premiere Pro works flawlessly in every other respect...its just too bad this required professional functionality is screwed up... Is the recommended workflow to do final audio mixes inside of Premiere?

Or lets say you wanted to stay all Adobe ... without OMF/AAF working properly how would you get your multitracks into Adobe Audition? I mean you could always solo your audio tracks and export them one by one... is that the only reliable solution?

[shooternz]

I did an AAF export today and what it does is export AAF

for the entire Sequence!.

It reported errors from other sequences.

I wanted the ability to export a single (clean and tidy ) sequence within the project.

No use to me at all.

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply... After doing more testing I'm able to export an OMF from a simple sequence with 2 audio tracks... but my actual working sequences with 9 audio tracks with lots of dialogue pieces never finish... it seems as with the AAF errors that there are some unsupported features or elements that are causing the problems... I've read about nesting and time remapping causing problems but I'm not using either...

[davidbeisner2010]

I also had issues with AAF/OMF export of a project I had with three video tracks and 12 audio tracks. I needed to get an edit to a guy and ended up just sending him my project file with the media and he pieced it together that way...

I'm not sure on this, but I think I remember reading something about Premiere struggling with OMF where you had more than 2 or 3 tracks of audio running at once...

[Guest]

Yeh it does seem to choke when trying to export an OMF from these sequences that have 4+ audio tracks going at once... I guess we're supposed to make silent films

Thanks for the replies! I exported a Final Cut XMLfrom PPro and sent that and the audio source files to a friend running Final Cut Pro and he was able to export an OMF for me...so I guess I'm going to do that as my workaround.

[Guest]

I've just tried to export OMF from CS 5.02 with 13 tracks of audio.. it worked fine, and the sound guy did open it on PT 7.4 ..

I had only one issue, it was stereo tracks that was residing in the timeline as separate mono tracks.. I just made render and replace for these special files and everything went smooth,,

I had different file types on the timeline from DVDs and other MPEG layer 2 audio, audio from canon DSLR files and wave files that were recorded on edirol.. I think there were also other mp3s and wave from different sources.. the sequence was full of audio effects, transitions and volume envelopes.. the timeline count was around 52 minutes.. it works excellent and exports fast..

[Anonymous876]

@nahawand: I'm happy for you, but it doesn't work at all for me...

I got 7 audio tracks from the sound guy (all mono) and the OMF export just chokes (no error, no anything, just hangs)... it is just plain broken... kind of sad... I'll give Avid MC6 a spin..

[Jeff Bellune]

Please stop bumping old, multiple topics just to complain.  If you want help, pick one topic and post there.  Start your own if none of the other ones fit your particular problem.

-Jeff

[Anonymous876]

Unfortunately, it seems to be the only way of raising awareness with Adobe around this issue...

[Colin Brougham]

Actually, it's a completely ineffective method. This is a user-to-user forum with only ocassional Adobe interaction. The proper avenue is here: Adobe Feature Request/Bug Report Form

[Jeff Bellune]

@IFDD wrote:

Unfortunately, it seems to be the only way of raising awareness with Adobe around this issue...

It's still a breach of Forum rules and etiquette.  Don't do it.  You've been warned.

-Jeff

[Anonymous876]

Could you please point me to the rules/etiquette and point out, which rules I am in breach of? Couldn't find anything...

[Jeff Bellune]

http://www.adobe.com/communities/guidelines/

Read *all* of the links included there.

-Jeff

[Anonymous876]

I *think* I did, but I'm still unclear as to which rules I broke. Could you please clarify? I'd like to avoid doing so in the future...

[Emantod]

Hey evryone,

I had a similar experience with PREMIERE 5.5 , spent 5 hours scratching my head, wondering why certain files export no problem and certain make it crash.

After careful combing and process of elimination of audio files I found out that certain encodings of even most common AIF, or MP3's files, trip the system. (for me it was a 2 second AIF snippet of a rock crumbling sound effect huddled together amongst 435 files FUN!)

So you have to start eliminating channels and keep exporting piecemeal, until you find the faulty encoding. Remove it, and Voila!

From then on everything works FAST & SMOOTH.

Love PREMIERE, but little bugs like that drive you NUTS!

]

I hope this helps

[HarleyTDavis]

This is an old thread, but still a problem for a lot of us.

I've noticed a few caveats when moving between programs, and I thought I'd let them out here.

When exporting audio:

Start by sending the lot to audition and dropping a file out of that program.  Then split the file to mono tracks, then save the mono files, and shoot it over to a mixer session.  Now save the session itself in a transfer format.  Using mono tracks allows each audio input to be dealt with on it's own first, then shunted to a bus or a master track where it is summed and combined.  You can do this part in any professional DAW with the right setup.  Even if everything doesn't go along, the basic tracks should.  Do a screen grab of the mixer, and store that with the omf\aaf.  That will aid in panning the project.

Keep your files to 48khz, 24bit, and use formats that can withstand larger file sizes for longer audio.  Logic and others may still have trouble with WAV larger than 4gb.  MOV or AVI can work with just an audio stream, so they can be used as file containers, though their efficacy is still in question and occasionally there have been mishaps of one sort or another that render the audio less than useable.  Has anybody had luck with FLAC lossless?  I'm considering it as a transport format.

[HarleyTDavis]

Also, I've noticed that Logic pro X will import WAV files with CD markers, not cue, but CD tracks.  When I have to copy markers, I try a MOV with larger audio, then convert all to CD track markers, then put them in a playlist, and save the file.  Then I open it in logic on it's own track, then tell it to import the markers, I select them all, and drop them on the audio, then export to an OMF or even right back to my transport format, MOV, and go back to Audition.  It may start in a multitrack session, but I can mix that down to a file and keep the markers.  Not bad.  It seems to work okay.  Not perfect though.

[HarleyTDavis]

Just checked the XML of the metatags in Audition and Logic.

Audition marks cd markers as "Track" types.  Logic reads TRACK types.  It will not read CUE as it doesn't have a type written from audition in CS6.  Final cut doesn't read WAV markers the same either... ...I believe it uses CLIP types.  This hints that you might be able to get FCPX to read SubClip markers from audition.

Whatever the case, until marker formats are standardized in Metadata, they will only be transferable by reformatting an entire mixing\multitrack session, rather than a single audio file.

[eoghans21094336]

Hi guys,

I believe I have figured it out, for mac users at least. Try exporting the OMF to a HD that is NOT journaled.

I found that any OMF that went of 2gig would stall and crash and simple not export at all. I tried everything but

was told the solution is to send it to a HD or pen drive that is NOT mac journaled.

So format it to MS-DOS (FAT) or EXFAT.