Extra software necessary to export from Avid to Protools LE?

[Ola Christoffersson]

I just bought an Mbox2 and with it I got Protools LE. I will be using the Mbox2 with my video editor Media Composer but would like to give Protools a go as audio sweetener. However I've tried importing an AAF-audio-file from Avid and that gave me an error message. Now - after googeling this problem I understand that Digidesign sells another product called Digitranslator that seems to be needed to import OMF and AAF-files.

Is there really no other way to transfer Avid projects into Protools LE?? This software is at least $500 dollars which is more than I payed for the Mbox and Pro tools LE together?

[Bill Ravens]

Hey Ola...

Try exporting to wav. It imports to PT8 just fine. I know, it's shameful what Avid/Digidesign tries to get away with. Oh well, what can a person do? The alternatives are worse, trust me on this.

[Ola Christoffersson]

Originally Posted by Bill Ravens

Hey Ola...

Try exporting to wav. It imports to PT8 just fine. I know, it's shameful what Avid/Digidesign tries to get away with. Oh well, what can a person do? The alternatives are worse, trust me on this.

Bill - you are everywhere! I might as well e-mail you directly instead of bothering with these forums. ;-)

Anyway - I guess WAV-export will work but that won't give me anything but the final mix from the Avid, right? I won't get edits and volume levels and crossfades will I?

[Bill Ravens]

Funny Ola...

Now, I have been known to be incorrect, on occcasion. ;o)
So, asking others is a good idea.
At any rate, yeah it seems PT won't import OMF/AAF without that very expensive plugin. Exporting wav files means you'll have to do that as a pre-mix set of waves. Unfortunately.

[Gary Nattrass]

I have AVID Final cut Pro and Pro tools Le, I use the DV toolkit to import OMF and it works great. It also gives you proper timecode timeline and is a must for working with video as it adds lots of extra features and a superb room simulator package called TL space.
it may sound a lot but it is really worth it if you wish to do audio post properly.

[Ola Christoffersson]

Originally Posted by Gary Nattrass

I have AVID Final cut Pro and Pro tools Le, I use the DV toolkit to import OMF and it works great. It also gives you proper timecode timeline and is a must for working with video as it adds lots of extra features and a superb room simulator package called TL space.
it may sound a lot but it is really worth it if you wish to do audio post properly.

Actually it is not that much if you add it all up. What kind of surpriced me though was that when I got the Mbox2 and Protools I assumed I was good to go. Did not expect to fork out $500 just for a plugin to be able to import from Avid. Kind off anoying...

[Chris Rackauckas]

Protools has a way of limiting everything. It is a very BAD program if you don't go HD with it (in my opinion, the digi 003 rack is over priced and its conversion and preamps just plain suck... plus you are limited to tracks and everything). I would advise going OMF into Reaper to do the sweetening, but then again, protools may have crippled the Mbox to not be able to use Reaper... (Nuendo/Cubase is my favorite option though). Still, you'd have to use wav exports for this.

But even better would be, if you have any DA converters already, just exchange for the cheap m-audio transit and run it ADAT into your DA. It works like a charm zero latency for me, and it's a good mobile doogle.

[Chris Rackauckas]

Originally Posted by Gary Nattrass

as it adds lots of extra features and a superb room simulator package called TL space.

TL Space is just an IR. SIR2 is the exact same thing and free if you pick up an IR library (there are thousands online).

[Gary Nattrass]

To put this into perspective guys I have worked as a Dubbing (re-recording) mixer for over 28 years, now up till the DV toolkit you would have had to buy an AudioFile or a full pro tools HD rig just to get OMF import at all. Now an AudioFile was around $100,000 a few years ago and a current pro tools HD-1 base rig with control surface will cost you at least $40,000.

The full dub suites I have used cost anything from $200,000 up to a cool $1-2Mil for the DFC desk and audio dub system that skywalker sound use.

I have a digidesign 002 ($2,000) and the DV toolkit ($1400) at home and I can pretty much do most small post jobs to a pro level with video on-line as well.

You pays yer money and makes your choices, semi pro kit is still very low cost compared to full pro kit but you can now get a lot of very pro features for a lot less than a few years ago.

Expecting a $500 m-box to do everything is not realistic and I think digidesign have been very competative with their DV toolkit.

Just to put another thing into perspective Ola, I see that you have a letus type filmic DOF feel adaptor on your HDV camera, did you feel the same way about adding this to your camera or did you expect this feature to be included?
Also with your Avid, do you expect it to do full 10 bit uncompressed video or have you had to add a mojo box to enable that?

[David W. Jones]

Originally Posted by Gary Nattrass

To put this into perspective guys I have worked as a Dubbing (re-recording) mixer for over 28 years, now up till the DV toolkit you would have had to buy an AudioFile or a full pro tools HD rig just to get OMF import at all. Now an AudioFile was around $100,000 a few years ago and a current pro tools HD-1 base rig with control surface will cost you at least $40,000.

The full dub suites I have used cost anything from $200,000 up to a cool $1-2Mil for the DFC desk and audio dub system that skywalker sound use.

I have a digidesign 002 ($2,000) and the DV toolkit ($1400) at home and I can pretty much do most small post jobs to a pro level with video on-line as well.

You pays yer money and makes your choices, semi pro kit is still very low cost compared to full pro kit but you can now get a lot of very pro features for a lot less than a few years ago.

Expecting a $500 m-box to do everything is not realistic and I think digidesign have been very competative with their DV toolkit.

Just to put another thing into perspective Ola, I see that you have a letus type filmic DOF feel adaptor on your HDV camera, did you feel the same way about adding this to your camera or did you expect this feature to be included?
Also with your Avid, do you expect it to do full 10 bit uncompressed video or have you had to add a mojo box to enable that?

Actually ProTools used to be able to do all this with full features out of the box, but when Avid bought the company some years back they split the application into the Pro version and the LE version in an effort to gain capital by selling the lower cost stripped down LE version to consumers. The dividing line depended on which hardware interface you had.

And even farther back before ProTools, Digidesign shipped Sound Designer, then Sound Designer II software with their hardware audio interfaces. Sound Designer was a 2-Track editing application, and the earliest version was the de-facto standard for sound designers who were building sample libraries for their EMU, Roland, and Akai samplers. Then Digidesign shipped a revolutionary new software bundled with Sound Designer II. That software happened to be called "Deck" from OSC. Deck was a fabulous new multi-track application, which Digidesign promptly copied and released as ProTools.

[Gary Nattrass]

Originally Posted by David W. Jones

Actually ProTools used to be able to do all this with full features out of the box, but when Avid bought the company some years back they split the application into the Pro version and the LE version in an effort to gain capital by selling the lower cost stripped down LE version to consumers. The dividing line depended on which hardware interface you had.

And even farther back before ProTools, Digidesign shipped Sound Designer, then Sound Designer II software with their hardware audio interfaces. Sound Designer was a 2-Track editing application, and the earliest version was the de-facto standard for sound designers who were building sample libraries for their EMU, Roland, and Akai samplers. Then Digidesign shipped a revolutionary new software bundled with Sound Designer II. That software happened to be called "Deck" from OSC. Deck was a fabulous new multi-track application, which Digidesign promptly copied and released as ProTools.

Thanks for the history David it is always good to hear how things were advanced? and developed.
I was at AMS Neve from 1991-1994 and helped develop AudioFile and the Logic/DFC consoles from an operational aspect. I recall the AES show in 1993 I think when we were the first to do OMF import on AudioFile. it was all downhill from there as audio guys had to grapple with video stuff, EDL import for autoconform was bad enough but then throw in corrupt OMF files and it upped my customer support role a lot.

[Chris Rackauckas]

Or you can get any interface and use cubase which has native OMF. Just a thought.

[Gary Nattrass]

Originally Posted by Chris Rackauckas

Or you can get any interface and use cubase which has native OMF. Just a thought.

Good idea Chris, I suppose using final cut pro rather than avid would give you a more integrated package although I personally dont use soundtrack in FCP and prefer pro tools for my dubbing needs. I use OMF all the time with the DV toolkit and it a tried and tested workflow.

[Vvicente Villaescusa]

If you are working with apple mac, you can get logic for a very fair price and will allow you to import OMF, AAF, etc...all included within the package, not having to buy extras (like the DV Toolkit,etc...) besides there's no limit with tracks in Logic...

[Gary Nattrass]

I just upgraded my PT Le to version 8 and now my track count is doubled with the DV TK2, I appreciate logic is a good program too but for me I hav to use pro tools as it is now the industry standard for audio post in the UK.