Can someone explain what the mechanism/logic is for Nuendo finding media files on its own when importing an AAF? Or can point me in the right direction in the manual where it’s defined, if it is.
My issue is that Nuendo seems to go out of its way to search audio files in completely different directories than my project. I do some projects that are similar but different each month (like, the music track is the same track, but edited differently for different length videos, etc.)
I export from Autodesk Flame which gives me an AAF and a folder full of .wav files. I make a new project directory for my Nuendo session and place all of the WAVs in an an ‘Audio’ subdirectory of it. In Nuendo I make a new project, pointing it at the project dir I made. Then I bring the AAF into that project. One of two things will happen:
Nuendo will find 2 or 3 of the audio files from the Audio directory of my project, but claims the rest are missing (even though they are there and have the correct filenames it’s looking for.)
Nuendo will find 2 or 3 files from a completely different location, and show the rest missing.
See attached image, where in that case it actually went so far as to find something from the recycle bin!
How can I make it stop searching the Earth for these files and just make everything offline so I can point it to the right directory myself? It’s a pain having to scroll through and look at the paths for everything in the media pool to see what might be wrong, and then have to go rename all those folders to hide the files from Nuendo so it treats them as missing so I can then point it to the correct location. And then go re-rename those folders so all my other projects aren’t screwed up.
Nuendo will find 2 or 3 of the audio files from the Audio directory of my project, but claims the rest are missing (even though they are there and have the correct filenames it’s looking for.)
Yes, I asked me more then once why that is so. Why find some but not all…?
and then have to go rename all those folders to hide the files from Nuendo so it treats them as missing so I can then point it to the correct location. And then go re-rename those folders so all my other projects aren’t screwed up.
And yes, any better way to relink files as what you describe would be very appreciated…
Try making an embedded AAF instead of one that references files or puts them in a folder. I personally haven’t had those AAF issues though. Mine are mostly coming from Pro Tools.
If you export with ‘separate audio’ selected it will import the AAF and then look at the last location you had imported the AAF audio from. Sometimes some of the file names of the current AAF import match the names of the previous AAF import of a previous project. It then cant find the rest of the audio in that old folder and then asks you where the media is of the current AAF it will then correctly link the audio from the correct folder.
Just to note… if you export an AAF from your video editor with the ‘link to media’ option the audio has not moved and is still correctly referenced in the AAF file. With the ‘Embedded’ option selected this issue does not exist as the audio location of the embedded file is packaged with the AAF.
I edit with avid mc8 on the same system I have N6, I always use the ‘link to’ option and then use the prepare archive function if I want to archive the project and have the N6 project contained. This way I don’t wast space and time exporting audio that i don’t need to duplicate.
I’ve found with AAFs from out-of-house Avid editors that the files are always linked to the folder structure (folders-within-folders, courtesy of Avid) that the editor sent me. This is great for getting started… but if I ever lose the editor’s original export, or try to move the production from the DropBox or GoogleDrive where they sent it, Nuendo gets lost.
This doesn’t happen with OMFs.
So as a matter of course, now, as soon as I’ve verified the AAF import I do a File>Back Up to /client/project in my current working drive. Then I treat the new copy as the master, and do my incremental saves there.
This might be easier …
Instead of doing a backup of the project you can either select “Import all Media files” on the import window or Prepare pool for archive once you have imported the AAF.
Both options will copy the audio media into your projects audio folder saving you the mission of duplicating the project.
