AAF processing

Questions and answers on how to get the most out of FFAStrans
emcodem
Posts: 1646
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2018 8:11 am

Re: AAF processing

Post by emcodem »

Crazy stuff :-)I am sure there is a sohpisticated technical reason for avid not being able to work on files straight forward ;-)
It works, thanks!
emcodem, wrapping since 2009 you got the rhyme?
Ghtais
Posts: 157
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2017 11:06 am

Re: AAF processing

Post by Ghtais »

yes it's historical. AVID always works like this and this is the main reason why it's more reliable than its competitors.
momocampo
Posts: 592
Joined: Thu Jun 08, 2017 12:36 pm
Location: France-Paris

Re: AAF processing

Post by momocampo »

You can "link" directly files too( called AMA link) but files need to be op1a or something else but not Atom : The simplest thing to do is hold "alt" key and drag and drop your file to a bin, it will be directly in Avid.
;)
B.

EDit: Ghtais 's right, it has always been like this with Avid but it's a good thing because with this method the clips are always in the good place ;)
emcodem
Posts: 1646
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2018 8:11 am

Re: AAF processing

Post by emcodem »

Yeah well... i see that OPAtom is handled in a very special native way within Avid. Whatver, i don't work for them so i don't care ;-)

Could anyone upload please an extremely complex linked aaf sequence? I mean a sequence that you would later on use with ffastrans to generate a mp4 preview as bespoke earlier in this thread - all the audio/video effects already rendered... What i need are multiple examples of real life input aaf files that my program will have to deal with later on.

Also one question: could you live with a first version that supports only opatom in the timeline or would that be totally useless? - or better don't answer, just send me the aaf you need to be supported.
Last edited by emcodem on Fri Oct 04, 2019 10:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
emcodem, wrapping since 2009 you got the rhyme?
momocampo
Posts: 592
Joined: Thu Jun 08, 2017 12:36 pm
Location: France-Paris

Re: AAF processing

Post by momocampo »

Hi,
Only Atom will be already great ! And more, in my opinion, for a better workflow stay with only atom will be more stable.
I have to find you a complex sequence but there isn't a lot here :)
Ghtais
Posts: 157
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2017 11:06 am

Re: AAF processing

Post by Ghtais »

Benjamin, don't worry about complex sequence, I will upload it very soon :)
momocampo
Posts: 592
Joined: Thu Jun 08, 2017 12:36 pm
Location: France-Paris

Re: AAF processing

Post by momocampo »

Ok thanks Ghtais ;)
emcodem
Posts: 1646
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2018 8:11 am

Re: AAF processing

Post by emcodem »

@nknuelle
thanks for playing with the generateaaf tool :-)
I'll drag over the discussion from the announcement forum to here, your statement was:
As I understood you are using pyaaf2 right? I already tried that library and got some working AAFs. But there is one problem with those AAFs and Avid Interplay. I generated an AAF which links to MXF Op Atom files on a network drive (Avid ISIS Storage System). Afterwards I checked-in this AAF via Interplay Web Services (a SOAP service by Avid). This is working fine but there is another issue. We are using the Interplay Access Tool which is a kind of Database GUI. The pyaaf2 generated AAF causes an issue:
You can see a so-called "Masterclip" which is generated after CheckIn. But this Masterclip does not reference any assets which makes it impossible to delete the Masterclip AND the related media files within the Interplay Access Tool. If you open up this Masterclip in Avid Media Composer everything is working fine and all media assets are found...
Well then, let's debug this. I see you posted something on githup at the pyaaf2 source as well, right?
https://github.com/markreidvfx/pyaaf2/issues/64

The samples you uploaded there is just the right thing to start.
The biggest issue here is that none of us dev's have Interplay for quick testing but it looks like you have some python skills at least.

Where was your biggest problems trying to debug this? Did you play with the source code of pyaaf2 to try to repair the issue?
emcodem, wrapping since 2009 you got the rhyme?
nknuelle
Posts: 19
Joined: Mon Jul 01, 2019 4:39 pm

Re: AAF processing

Post by nknuelle »

Thanks for your reply.

It's very hard to debug this issue, because both AAF's doesn't seem to have major differences. I just don't know where to start. Everything is working fine, but I think there is a kind of metadata/info missing for Interplay to reference the assets the right way.

I already contacted Avid with this issue. The only response I got was that I should use AMT for encoding AND AAF generation, because the AAF structure parsed by Avid Interplay is changed a lot by Avid. This is a very bad solution to me, because AMT needs RAW Frames as input. Even if you already have OP Atom files encoded as AVC Intra 100 you have to decode and encode via AMT again. According to Avid AMT is the only stable solution to get working AAFs... A very bad design in my thinking..

PS: Your tool seems not to be recognizing UNC paths like network shares \\server\share\folder\to\mediafiles - or am I missing something?
Ghtais
Posts: 157
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2017 11:06 am

Re: AAF processing

Post by Ghtais »

@emcodem
I have uploaded two complex AAF sequences on your Google Drive.
bye :)
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