Can someone verify if they’ve successfully AAF interchanged huge film post projects (with thousands of clips) between N10 on a PC to Pro Tools 2019.12 Mac and PC and vice versa, without any drift or errors in Import/Export.
I want to know if N10 can seemlessly be used in North American post situatons; through AAF, and if anyone is actually using AAF to prove it works. I know that the manual and brochures advertise it is that easy, but I’d like to hear proof from actual users who have done it…and specifically in audio post.
If a Dialog Editor has done subsequent edits on his Pro Tools 2019.12 Mac system, what are the exact specifications I can give him, to make sure I can import his work without any hiccups?
Check with Fredo and ErikG. There’s also a guy I think called Stephan who has a big stage in Paris. He probably also has experience. Mine’s limited to TV and one-man jobs when I’ve done interchanges.
(so you can skip this if you want a more experienced view on interchange)
Avid & AAF seems to me to be a slightly moving target to be honest. I’ve also not interchanged very large projects. I think the largest projects I’ve moved from Nu/PC to PT/Mac were about 1hr and for television. I was the sole engineer on those. And it wasn’t recently.
Technically the pitfalls I would foresee are possibly fades - specifically shapes (I’m simply not aware of how well it translates) and maybe interleaved stereo vs .L/.R, although the latter might be mostly an inconvenience.
And on that note I think what I’d really ask myself is what you expect to transfer between the two systems. If it’s pretty “pure” dialog editing then fine, but to me it starts getting a bit annoying when I have to adjust my workflow to make transfers easier. And for me that means if I’m intending to do a pass of production sound editing I probably want to do restoration and EQ as well at least, and that poses issues when transferring since I’m not transferring plugins across with AAF. And so if I then decide to render effects of various sorts that’s all fine I suppose but I lose the ability to undo that after the transfer, which is inconvenient.
Cool - thanks for the heads up for what to look out for. You don’t mind if I copy your system specs below to build my own Resolve system lol…
I know for a fact that Nuendo back in the day, had been used in Hollywood where massive projects were converted to and from Pro Tools, but not using AAF. So not sure how solid AAF is. I will do more investigating.
I need to build a new system and am banking on Nuendo 10…but concerns about dealing with scads of “pro tools drones” who I would have to deal with.
Of course I don’t mind. But the CPU/mobo is first gen Ryzen so there’s newer stuff out there. If I was building a new PC today and I was going for an AMD build then I’d either do an x570 build with a 12-core CPU, maybe a 16-core one, or I’d spring for an entry level Threadripper… probably the latter.
I also recently upgraded the GPU to a Radeon VII because of the performance specifically in Resolve, should I want to get deeper into using it. Right now I’m still just ‘messing around’ in it.
You can check Pugetsystems for different recommendations in Resolve specifically. Their caveat with the Radeon VII is that it’s discontinued, which of course is a valid caveat. I bought it on sale however and it was a fraction of the price of the best performing Nvidia cards, so very good value that way. A bit power hungry though…
I successfully made AFF from Nuendo 10 to ProTools 2019 with Atmo+Sfx stems for feature movies for several times. No problem was noticed on receiving side.
The amount of data transferred is very limited.
Events, fade ins/outs and cross fades (IIRC only straight linear or exponential no custom fades). Clip level (not clip envelopes), basic pan L/R and fader level.
It does not handle plugin or insert automation data
It does not handle sends, groups(aux) or I/O.
It’s even worse from PT to Nuendo as PT only render fades to AAF, so you won’t get any actual/dynamic fades data in that direction.
So no it does not work that well and really isn’t suitable for this type of workflow. IMHO.
But it can work with a careful workflow and working around the limitations.
I was the sole engineer on those. And it wasn’t recently.
This makes sense - if you aren’t dealing with other people - the whole process can be controlled. However, if I dictate to the picture post people what >I need - maybe it would work.
Thanks for pointing out the pitfalls about fades.
If it’s pretty “pure” dialog editing then fine, but to me it starts getting a bit annoying when I have to adjust my workflow to make transfers easier. And >for me that means if I’m intending to do a pass of production sound editing I probably want to do restoration and EQ as well at least, and that poses >issues when transferring since I’m not transferring plugins across with AAF. And so if I then decide to render effects of various sorts that’s all fine I >suppose but I lose the ability to undo that after the transfer, which is inconvenient.
The proposed system will be used for Dialog editing ONLY. No SFX or Music editing. I also don’t mind working in a destructive manner, rendering all edits before passing on the stems to whoever.
REPLY TO MCSOUND
I successfully made AFF from Nuendo 10 to ProTools 2019 with Atmo+Sfx stems for feature movies for several times. No problem was noticed on >receiving side.
This is good. Do you remember if the AAFs that you delivered were opened on a PT 2019 PC Windows or PT 2019 Mac?
REPLY TO ERIC G
When you say it supports “Clip Level (not envelopes)”, are you saying that the AAF standard doesn’t support breakpoint level automation, like the kind that is “written” by using a fader in real time?
It’s even worse from PT to Nuendo as PT only tenderer fades to AAF, so you won’t get any actual/dynamic fades data in that direction.
Interesting - thanks for pointing out this pitfall.
One new concern I just thought about - is what about “Folder Tracks” this new feature Pro Tools is advertising. How will AAF handle that. If in the source system, they used folder tracks, can those folder tracks be collapsed into regular Mono Tracks (of course this will have to be done from the source system before AAF export).
Channel volume levels (fader) level IS getting passed on via AAF, but clip envelope (Nuendo lingo) or dynamic volume on clips in PT (can’t remember proper description) is not, only the static clip level / Clip volume of the event.
AAF does not support folder tracks in any way shape or form (just like it cannot handle advanced region group editing from PT).
AAF nor PT supports process history, so any processed event will have to have unprocessed versions sent along to the re-recording mixer.
Also test that muted events works as you expect them too. Over the years and between different versions and applications, sometimes they are simply discarded in the transfer.
If by stem you mean full length bounces or a actual dialog stem file, then I advice against it unless specifically requested by the re-recording mixer. I would absolutely hate getting that as it makes it impossible to change almost anything.
PC/MAC compatibility. stay with a-z-_+0-9 and you should be ok with event names. However, NEVER use “/” or “:” in filenames ever, as they define a folder for windows/Mac OS. any file containing those will definitely not link up, and may even be unsinkable until renamed.
One thing I’d like to add to is the length of bounces and files. Like Erik said it’s tying hands when it goes from one DAW to the other. I think one clear good example is writing (static) automation over a region. In case one wants to do that it’s basically very annoying if the regions no longer are clearly defined and follow shots/angles or at least scenes. Having to locate those boundary frames is time consuming. It also makes navigation harder. One thing I’ve found is that over the years navigating a timeline has become far easier as I now just intuitively see where things are based on the patterns of where regions/events are or the look of waveforms.
Anyway, I’m basically just reinforcing what Erik wrote…
There are definitely some peculiarities with muted events going from Nuendo to PT via AAF. Checking the -inf volume for muted clips mostly works (on Nuendo AAF export options), but I have yet to find a reason or pattern with why some of those muted clips don’t show up at all or show up as shortened clips with no ability to expand the tails of the clip in PT. I have ran into some other odd issues/limitations as well. I do have some steps I created to help me that I’d be happy to share but I’ve only transferred shorter projects to a PT mixer (mostly foley/ambiences). I hope the workflow between the 2 DAW’s is improved. It would make it a lot more efficient to work with PT mixers.
I’m not 100% sure but If I remember correctly it was PC. It should be mentioned that there were no plugins, just audio events with different volumes, fades (its lengths), all were transferred correctly.