How to export OMF or AAF from FCPX?
- Thread starter ahalpert
- Start date
It’s easy, and it works well. I use this workflow quite a bit as I work in ProTools and in FCP X.
Export an XML from FCP X. Launch X2Pro and drop the XML into the prompted window.
Talk to your sound designer, though, as there are a couple of things that can be done different ways. The AAF can be encapsulated, meaning it contains the audio media, or it can reference the audio. Depends entirely on how your sound designer wants to work. Personally, I make encapsulated AAFs and I trim the media down, but make sure to leave :10 handles. For narrative work, though, it can be very helpful to have all the original media if I find myself needing to stretch the handles out to find alternate dialog takes in the same file.
Either way, X2Pro has been flawless for me since I started using it.
Are you talking about exporting each audio track as a separate file? That renders everything down and leaves the sound designer no control over smoothing or changing edits and cross-fades, and it burns in any signal processing that was dropped in. This is a terrible way to deliver the edit to sound post.
Or are you talking about exporting each individual clip from the timeline? The re-assembly for that in ProTools would be excruciating.
Jim Feeley
Veteran
IME, the scary stories about X2Pro are from its very early days working with oddball FCPX cuts by people who weren't totally on top of their game. X2Pro has been reliable for a while now, FCPX is less oddball, and if you have a semi-decent grip on what you're doing, X2Pro will probably work well for you. I'd presume your audio post guy has worked with AAFs/OMFs that have passed through X2PRo and can give you a touch of guidance.
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ahalpert
Major Contributor
All he wrote was "Please ensure that both the AAF/OMF and the quicktime ref have the same starting point for sync."
But hopefully we'll be able to interface when he gets started tomorrow and if I screwed up some settings in my workflow, I should be able to repackage it for him... in theory...
He also didn't remember the name of x2pro but just that fcpx editors he worked with in the past had used an fcpx extension to convert the xml into an aaf. Although it's a standalone program, not an extension
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Its a 3-minute piece made from 2 1-hour-long interviews and 4 music tracks, but the interviews are chopped into little pieces and reordered. There's no way I can send him the individual audio files. There are probably a hundred. And im sure he'd balk at it. But the client will apparently pay for x2pro. I just need to make sure that I'm getting the right thing and using it the right way. And the upside is I add software and workflow knowledge to my toolkit
Right. So, if you build headers into your FCP X timeline (bars and tone, slate, slug), then you need to make sure that you export the entire video from the first frame of the timeline. Your XML will result in an AAF that has the same start point.
Headers like that are an old-school workflow that dates back to tape, so it’s unlikely you’ve done that. Which means the first frame of your timeline is also the first frame of video. So again, your exported QT and your AAF will have the same start point. I do like to include project start TC in the email when I send links for the AAF, and to include a time code window on the video just as a failsafe.
If you need help with FCPX/X2Pro, message me. I can walk you through it.