Dialogue Editing

56 GETTING SOUND FROM PICTURE DEPARTMENT TO SOUND DEPARTMENT
For most audio workstations, it doesn’t matter which OMF format you receive
from the picture department, as long as you have the necessary software
on your computer to translate that format into your machine’s language.
You can’t convert an OMF-2 fi le using an OMF-1 translator. This is yet another
reason to talk with the picture department long before the picture is
locked.
AAF and MXF
Building on the successes of OMF, and learning from its failings, two new
fi le exchange tools were created. One was the Advanced Authoring Format
(AAF), created by the AAF Association, a consortium founded by Avid and
Microsoft. Avid donated the core OMF model, and Microsoft provided a
container code to replace the Apple proprietary container that had long
haunted OMF. AAF offers more rugged and bug-free fi le interchange than
did either OMF version. Moreover, the software development kits given to
manufacturers for implementation have been more extensively tested than
were Avid’s OMF development kits, so industry implementation should be
easier. AAF stands a good chance of becoming a real, rather than de facto,
standard, unlike unlucky OMF.
Media Exchange Format (MXF) is a media wrapper that standardizes the
way different media are revealed to applications, thus facilitating fi le exchange
for very different types of material. Working in conjunction, AAF and MXF
allow a far more effi cient vehicle than OMF for fi le exchange than did
OMF. 5
Exporting the OMF from the Avid
When the picture editor (or assistant) creates the OMF from which you’ll
create your initial session, she has the choice to keep separate the soundfi les
(the “media”) and the session instruction set (in essence, the EDL plus other
control and naming information) or to embed all of this into one giant fi le.
You shouldn’t have trouble with either format, but there are a few things to
think about.
5 For a more detailed discussion of AAF and MXF, see “Advanced Authoring Format
and Media Exchange Format” by Brooks Harris, in The Editors’ Guild Magazine (vol. 24,
no. 3, May/June 2003).