P2 (MXF) > Premiere > AAF > ProTools/Nuendo workflow?

J

John Kary

Active member
Now that Premiere 3.1.0 supports native MXF reading and editing, I need to devise a workflow for getting my audio edits out to a professional DAW.

Now when you try and do an AAF export of your Premiere project, but you shot using the HVX as your audio recorder, you can't embed the audio. This is my #1 gripe about Premiere right now... it should just demux the audio into a temp WAV/AIFF file, embed it into the AAF then delete it. But rather Adobe chooses to ignore any additional AAF functionality since initially adding the export to the application in 1.5 (?)

Regardless, you can export an AAF and have it reference the original MXF data.

Has anybody had success in exporting an AAF of a Premiere project shot with HVX/P2 and having it be readable in ProTools or Nuendo?

Please don't suggest to use Audition/Soundbooth. Those are not professional DAWs and do not have the amount of features necessary to mix for a feature-length film. I need handles, and exporting each track from Premiere as WAV is not an adequate solution.
 
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A partial solution might be this, that I found on the Adobe forums, but it almost seems like only the clip-length will be rendered into new .wav's, and not the entire audio from the video file. I don't think this will leave handles, but I could be wrong. I'll try this later.

1. Unlink all audio/video in the timeline.
2. Select and delete all video clips from the timeline.
3. Delete all but 1 video track (Premiere doesn't let you delete them all.)
4. Select all audio clips.
5. Menu: Clip > Audio Options > Render and Replace
6. Save project.
7. Project > Export project as AAF
Click to expand...
 
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If you try to export an AAF with this method and try to open it in Nuendo 3.2.0, here's what happens...

[ ] Save as legacy AAF
[x] Embed audio
Incredible... Premiere crashes when you try and do the process above... Do they not test these things or what? I'm really disappointed in Adobe.

It writes the temp XML file that will be used in the AAF, but apparently crashes when trying to write the WAV files into the AAF.

[x] Save as legacy AAF (checked or unchecked, same result below)
[ ] Embed audio
The AAF is written. Upon importing into Nuendo, the timeline comes up with the stereo tracks from Premiere split into mono tracks in Nuendo. The files that were rendered by Premiere also are not linked properly in the AAF, as they come up as missing in Nuendo with the path being like "\\?\C:\path\to\file.WAV" where C:\path\to\file.WAV is the real path to the file.

Even if you manually relink the files to where they should be, they don't resolve properly in the Pool and they don't play in the timeline. But of course, how could they? The source files are stereo, and the tracks in the timeline are mono. Nuendo wouldn't know which channel (L or R) to play anyway.

---------------------------------------

From what I've read, Adobe only said their AAF export would work with Avid systems, or to other Premiere projects.

I don't have a ProTools system to import this AAF on, but obviously Nuendo isn't working. Whether this is the fault of Nuendo or Premiere I'm not sure. 3.2.0 build of Nuendo is from late 2005, so the AAF standard may have adapted since then. Although I have seen no changelog from Adobe that mentions anything about AAF changing since they implemented it.
 
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That probably doesnt help you right now, but Edius should make what you want...although i am still not sure about AAF/Audio-export from P2 footage...my tests rather did end up with strange .wav exports, but missing nuendo also doesnt give me a final answer...I will try to investigate on this in the next weeks...!

2nd guess was that the upcoming update of AE might help you: it includes AAF and will include native P2 with the new version, the question is: is the AAF-export from AE different from the one they use in Premiere....maybe yes, maybe no...!

Edius AAF-function works great with keeping the original files so far, so i am defintily lloking forward to work with P2 in AE for CC....but for sound i am still unsure how it will work...this would make things much easyer for the final mix....any other users tried AAF from Premiere'/Edius with Nuendo???
 
hvx_germanboy said:
2nd guess was that the upcoming update of AE might help you: it includes AAF and will include native P2 with the new version, the question is: is the AAF-export from AE different from the one they use in Premiere....maybe yes, maybe no...!
Click to expand...
Yes, you're right... after AE updates to 8.1 to handle AAF, Adobe will also issue a 3.1.1 update for Premiere, hopefully on the same day. Although I haven't heard exactly what to expect in the new Premiere revision. The new AE version is slated for "before the end of the year" so hopefully we will know soon.
 
EDIT: This reply is about dealing with DV-footage originating in Premiere and exporting to Vegas via AAF file. Vegas 8 still does not natively support Panasonic P2 footage.

Thanks to a user on my blog, I have been made aware that Vegas Pro 8 handles AAF import, and flawlessly (?) handles a Reference AAF exported from Premiere. Again, you create a Reference AAF by not checking any boxes after bringing up the export dialog box.

Vegas is a very-capable audio mixing application, although it is not widely used in professional studios to the extent that ProTools or Nuendo are. Vegas also has AAF exporting options, with the ability to export an "Edit Protocol Compliant AAF File" and an "Avid Legacy AAF File."

Neither of the AAF export options from Vegas will import properly into Nuendo 3.2.0, but I'm now fairly sure that the problem lies within Nuendo's AAF import plugin.

After importing the AAF created by either Premiere or Vegas into Nuendo, Nuendo tries to set up the audio tracks as MONO tracks, instead of Stereo. The audio within the AVI is a stereo file, and trying to play it back within a mono track is obviously wrong. The timeline positions and edits are correctly preserved, but Nuendo can't break up the stereo file.

Now... if I can just find out how to relink timeline events with new audio files in Nuendo...
 
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Still probably not what you want,
but i did some more tests on AAF export from Edius and had great success using it in Nuendo...i took me some time to figure out which is the right setting, but finally i was able to import everything(just a test of a couple of minutes..) into Nuendo.
Despite the fact that ALL of the tracks wouldnt play in the first place until we put a external clip on each and every track, play it-and all the original AAF-import would work now...!

The material that was used in Edius: P2-Footage and some synched .wav files from a sound-device...the .wavs are being kept, the P2-footage sounds get exported as AIF or WAV files...i was very pleased when i saw it, as i am still finishing some old old projects(premiere 6.5) that need to be sound-mixed now, which is really PITA the "old"-school way....now i am just hoping for AE to be updated on native P2, that together with AE should hopefully do it for you and Noendo..allthough i am not sure if itll work...good luck!
 
Something that works...

Something that works...

I know that the original post may be a bit old, but since no one has posted a definite solution, I thought it'll be good to post mine at least so that it helps others...

We encountered the same issues with MXF files (DVCPRO-HD 720 25pn) because we were editing in Premiere and wanted to do the mix in Nuendo 3. The issue was discovered after finishing the edit and exporting AAF.

Here's what you have to do...

Overview
For each clip placed in the timeline you need to extract the audio and replace it with a wave file and you also need Adobe soundbooth. The process is not that easy but can be made quickly once you get the hang of it with no problems.

1. Go to each clip, double click it so that it opens in the source monitor and copy the "in" timecode displayed on the downleft corner of the source monitor then right click "reveal in project", this takes you to the corresponding clip in the bin, double click it, so that it opens in the source monitor, expand competely the in and out points and right click the clip in the bin: "Edit in adobe soundbooth" ->extract audio.
2. This actually creates 4 audio wav files on the project folder and displays them in the bin. You can now double click these files, open them in the source monitor->paste the timecode you copied earlier in the same place and press the (I) "in" button so that it sets the same in point. You can now go to the timeline, unlink the video with audio files and position the corresponding at the beginning of and under the video clip and then resize the out point to match the length of the video.
3. The above procedures must be completed for all clips in the timeline, till all the video clips have the replaced audio files under them.

4. Save as your project with a different name, delete all other sequences except the one you're interested, remove all video from the timeline leaving just the obligatory video track empty, remove all unused audio tracks and then remove all video from the project leaving just the audio wave files created and the one sequence you're going to use.

5. You can now click project-> export as AAF, do not choose anything and click ok.

6. Take all the wave files created in the Premiere project on your hard disk not on the bin and copy them to a folder along with the AAF you just created. This will import just fine on Nuendo and you can then provide a separate video file of your liking like dv avi etc...

This process works and it's the recommended one because using "render & replace" actually creates audio files with the exact ins an outs of the edited clip which is not usable for the sound mixer/engineer....
 
jazzx, does this process work for importing an AAF file into Pro Tools?

Does this give the audio tracks handles or what?
 
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