Export an OMF? or cleanest path to do so?

chap wrote on 3/17/2015, 9:31 PM
Longtime vegas editor, I am now getting a lot of work from bigger studios here in Hollywood, and recently completed a job where they needed an OMF output.

Problem being, I am a Vegas editor so I couldn't seem to work it out.

I have over 40 tracks of audio including sound effects and music (its a cartoon!). Normally we do the first edit with scratch audio, and then after they have the actors in they are looking then to get the OMF once the clean audio is put in to the animatic.

Any suggestions on a path to getting an OMF out?

I was thinking I could render the SFX and Music to separate tracks, then just use the audio tracks and the final edits and export to Premiere, then create the OMF from there.

If I only have one or two tracks it is usually not too hard to export to premiere.

Better would be OMF support.

Chap

Comments

videoITguy wrote on 3/17/2015, 10:17 PM
File Type Open Media Framework File
Developer ---Avid Technology

File Format Description

Standard audio/video format based on the Open Media Framework Interchange (OMFI), a standardized interchange file format; may be exported from digital video editing or audio workstation (DAW) software; commonly used to share project data between multiple applications.

An audio project saved in the OMF format can store multiple audio tracks, volume and pan information, and references to audio files. However, not all settings, such as insertion effects and channel routing options, may be saved in an OMF file. Therefore, not all project and track settings may be transferred when opening an OMF file in another application.
farss wrote on 3/17/2015, 10:37 PM
[I]"Better would be OMF support."[/I]

Not going to happen without the risk of stuff up for the reasons explained above.
When most people ask for an OMF they don't actually need or want all the stuff that could go wrong e.g. FXs and track routing. I've been able to get an OMF file into vegas using one of the translation tools and there were no issue.

To give it back to the sound post house I just gave them one file per track. The other alternative is to send them a single multi-channel wave file. It's a bit of messing around in Vegas unless you've already got you busses sorted but it too does work.

I'd much rather Vegas had functional BWF export than OMF export because BWF should always work, it's just WAV with TC, how hard can that be :)

Bob.
rraud wrote on 3/18/2015, 2:17 PM
Most of the time I just render a mix file and return that to the picture folks. A BWF w/TC stamp is sometimes requested, but that's a complicated work-around with SF pro and Wave Agent, since Vegas can't create one from scratch. Another shortcoming.
An AAF file is an alternative, but it never worked very good for me... import or export.
A work around is a third-party OMF conversion tool from SSL (formally Cui Bono Soft's EDL convert) or AA Translator
AA Translator being the cheaper alternative, but it works.
[link=http://www.aatranslator.com.au)

BTW, myself and many others have been asking for OMF support for as long as I can remember. (Vegas 1)
chap wrote on 3/18/2015, 5:53 PM
Hmmm... well I don't think I am going to be able to alter Disney's work flow, and I love the job I have, so sending them rendered STEMS or a WAV is not an option, I'd be disrupting an pretty hefty budgeted project just cause Vegas doesn't have OMF support.

Current plan is to render out a quicktime of the video (the video edit is not so important, getting the audio edit to them is.

Once I have that, which covers the video edits, I'll try to reduce the video to one track and then export the project as a Premiere project.

In premiere hopefully the audio will be interpreted, and then from there I can export the OMF.

I also found this software, http://www.aatranslator.com.au/

The developer is very fast to reply to emails, and he suggested that while his software can easily convert .VEG to .OMF, he said there are even better options, depending on what software the project is headed to.

So I am going to attempt to find out what program the overseas post house will use and then work with them to run a couple trials. According to the aatranslator developer, most people want an OMF, but it is possible to convert Vegas to an even more meaningful file (for example a ProTools project itself), which would be even better than an OMF.

I'll keep it updated as I go.

Also +farss... check out a previous thread of yours when you were asking about trimmer in and out points. I think that's fixable, I replied to that one.

Chap