20gb+ file size and 100+ tracks

Hello James,

Any solution here? I'm having a similar issue on a 90 minute project that I desperately need to get to the audio folks. I see that you mentioned that it might have something to do with the amount of metadata included. Any progress on that front? Can I omit anything in that regard somehow?

In addition, creating the AAF seems to take a massively long time as well.

In case the information is needed, most of this project was shot on the Sony FS7, with some additional shot on the X70, some gopro and DJI drone.

Dear Rob,

The massive size of the AAF appears to be related to the amount of metadata stored in the original source media, which is then replicated multiple times into the AAF.

When media is written into an AAF, it appears in two places: The essence itself as an embedded WAV file, including all headers and the sample data.
The WAV headers alone also appear as part of an essence descriptor. This can be as small as 44 bytes, but if the original media was WAV, then metadata from the headers in the WAV file can also be included in this essence descriptor. It does look like quite a significant amount of metadata is being included against every essence description.
We strongly suspect that when ProTools extracts the audio from the AAF and writes its own WAV files, that this metadata gets stripped out. This could explain why the size of the WAV files ProTools produces is much smaller than the size of the AAF. That said, we are surprised that the difference is so significant.

Will pop you a mail with details of the FTP drop site If you can arrange to upload one or more of the original WAV files (i.e. 14-01T30.2)

Many thanks.

James

Dear Rob,

We are going to send you a link to upload the XML, in the 4 examples provided yesterday the AAF's all opened up in our ProTools, the largest of these was 1.5G when opened it only had 208M of actual Audio. Hence the need to look at the XML(s) in question.

Yours Sincerely

James

This is a sample AAF export of only some roles, editor reports it crashes ProTools:
www.filemail.com/d/hgbwuiiyjudlegs

I've exported the roles separately, however the combined size is still 20gb. I've attached some of the reports. Is it normal to get this amount of tracks or is it a limitation of the software (FCPX)?

FCPX was never built for AAF exchange?

Dear James,

Thank you. The problematic AAF has been created by the editor on an older version (4.0.11) and I am not sure what he setup in trimming/discarding. I am now trying to export the AAF again with 4.0.29, discard disabled clips and 10sec handle length. I will report the result.

Thanks,
Rob

Dear Rob,

Can you download the application from the app store again, as for some reason it is showing as 4.0.11 and the current version on the app store is 4.0.29. How have you configured X2pro to trim media and discard disabled clips ?

Yours Sincerely

James

An AAF has been generated however the sound editor can't work with the AAF due to the file size, 20gb for a 50 minute film, and the massive amount of tracks. I've attached the XML and the report, perhaps you can look into this and tell me how I can solve this issue best so the sound editor can work with it.

Source files are mainly Sony FS5 with external BWF wav files, sync has been done with Sync 'n Link X, preserving metadata.

I've just purchased X2Pro.