omf and fcp (not to be confused with LBJ taking the IRT)

Hi there Pals,

I am on a TIGHT deadline and just exported an omf file from fcp for a sound-mix-fellow. He wrote the following:

"It should be fine as long as you selected all the audio regions and you did not refer to them instead."

But where are such choices? When I hit export/OMF, the choice window was limited to "rate, depth, handles, and include crossfades." Are there hidden preferences for this? Or was the dude just thinking about AVID? He is not around at the moment to test the file I sent, and I need to know if it's any good as if not I need to deal with aiffs instead...

Thanks,

Marla

i don't know what your audio fellow is talking about.
(maybe he doesn't know either... or rather he doesn't know FCP. he way well be using avid lingo, but sorry, i cant advise on that)

it's pretty simple.
FCP will put all the ENABLED audio into the OMF.
if it isn't enabled (you've made the clip "invisible" or "mute" it wont go into the OMF.

i've found FCP OMFs to be pretty solid,
mainly because they are so simple, with almost no options....
there's less to go wrong.

cheers,
nick

Marla, was it you looking for a cheap/free audio app a while back so you could check the FCP OMFs?
if it was, i guess you didn't find one

nm

No it was not, but it sounds like a worthy desire!

he jsut got back so hopefully he'll check the files pronto.

Thanks Nick,

Marla

I know what he's talking about.
It IS an AVID related question.
In making AVID OMFs you have to the option to make a tiny "composition only" OMF and provide the media seperately, or you can make a more FCP-like OMF with everything in one file.

The first option probably stems from the days of smaller and more expensive storage and the need to be able to spread your media over a couple of drives.

It is more flexible but then it is also prone to more errors on delivery.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

Hello Marla,

It is an Avid workflow the sound editor is speaking of. I have a simple article for Avid users which describes this here:

http://sfbaaug.org/tutorials/export_to_protools.html

But that won't be much good to you except to show you a little of what the sound guy wants. There is an FCP solution to this that Larry Jordan wrote about a ways back for the LAFCPUG. You can find his article here:

http://www.lafcpug.org/Tutorials/basic_export_using_omf.html

I use Avid Media Composer, and I use a tool there called the DVToolkit2, which I believe works on the Mac, and hopefully for FCP. Read Larry's article, and hopefully it resolves your problem.

Best of luck!

Best,

Alex Alexzander

Watch out for that 2gig OMF size limit. If you're project is long and has a lot of tracks, you'll have to export them in batches of tracks.

-CHL

Chi-Ho Lee
Film & Television Editor
Apple Certified Final Cut Pro Instructor