Pro tools files (mac) to PC Nuendo?? How to ?

ultima · 4th August 2006

I have just finished a recording session on a MAC Pro tools and i need to transfer the files over to my PC where i will mix on Nuendo.

What I need to know is a few things.

I have been told that in order for the mac to be able to read my portable drive i need to format the drive as FAT 32 .....I have now done that, but im not sure if the PC can in turn read that unless i use some sort of Macopener or something ?

Can i just put the files as OMF on the disk and then open that on my PC without problems?

Im planning on using OMF so i need to know if that does indeed work before i start doing all the transfers?

Can someone tell if there are any pitfalls or something i need to know to make this work?

Has someone here done this before ?

Thanks

Arnar

gsilbers · 4th August 2006

it "should" work the way u are going to do it. format the drive fat32 it should open on pc.

akso ,, broadcast wav files are better for pc

ultima · 4th August 2006

but can i Export broadcast Wave files from Pro-Tools?

And how will that work exactly?

**Geert van den Berg** · 4th August 2006

Funny that this question pops up from time to time, I am writing a thread for this which I'll post and stick to the top in the future when it's ready.

FAT32 is a PC format, so if you formatted the drive like that it will definately work on a PC! And... it works on a Mac as well.

OMF is a bit of a problematic format. It's originally been developped by Avid and meant as a sort of open standard, but many manufacturers haven't implemented it well, or maybe the specification was too sketchy. In the beginning even going from PT to Avid and vice versa would sometimes not work properly, and that's quite odd because PT is a division of Avid. There are also 2 version, which differ, so you'll have to look into what your application supports (OMFI is an older version which doesn't support audio resolutions higher than 48kHz and 16 bits, OMF2 can handle 24 bit files but I believe it doesn't go higher than 48kHz).

Then for the OMF file you got another 2 options. One is to embed all the data in one large file. Handy because you can be sure all the data which you export is in the project, but the drawback is you can't access any of the data before you unpack it with your destination application (and when it's large you can't easily split it by hand for backup purposes, though there are ways around this offcourse), and that's a bit of a risk if you are not sure it's going to work. On the other hand, even if you could access the audio, it wouldn't be much of a use, placing a large amount of small files by hand is not really an option.

The other option is to reference to the audio files. In this way the OMF becomes sortof a sessionfile similar to a PT session or Nuendo project and there's a seperate folder with the audiofiles. Only one thing you'll have to watch out for is that the audiotype you're using is supported by both applications because when opening the OMF file most apps don't do any conversion, they just give an error and SD2 files don't work on a PC, also beware of placing SD2's on a PC server, because it will strip the resource fork and make them unreadable by PT.

The best and most failsafe option is to consolidate all the tracks in PT into one long audiofile per track. You can do this by selecting all the tracks and pressing command-A which will select all the content, and then hit shift-alt-3 to consolidate. Make sure all the tracks are named properly because the tracknames will be included in the newly rendered files.

The best thing is to make sure all tracks have the same starttime, but by doing like I just wrote this will automatically be the case. The files will be timestamped though, which can be handy if you want to place the audio at the exact same location when you go from DAW-X to DAW Y and then maybe back again for some additional overdubs...

If the session is already started as a broadcast WAV session, you can copy the consolidated files directly from the audio files folder (there's an added -CONS to the file names and if you select the option 'sort on creation' date they will likely be at either bottom or the top of the folder, based on the finder settings), if the session is not started as a WAV session or if you don't want to do a manual search for the files in the audio files folder, you can select the consolidated files and export them as broadcast WAV's, press shift-command-K, now you can select which filetype you want, and the resolution (choosing the same resolution as the session, leaves the audio untouched, it only changes the header to for example WAV, if you select otherwise it will do a sample/bitrate conversion), and to which location you want them to go.

Third option is to consolidate and then make a referenced OMF file, this way your import in Nuendo is faster because you don't have to do it by hand, but if it doesn't work you always have the option to place the files manually, and this is easy because of the timestamps and the same starttimes. I think you might be able to select all the files at once and then drag them from the audio pool at once, but I am not sure of that. I am not a Nuendo expert.

4th August 2006	#1
ultima Gear maniac Joined: Dec 2002 Location: iceland Posts: 172 Thread Starter	Pro tools files (mac) to PC Nuendo?? How to ? I have just finished a recording session on a MAC Pro tools and i need to transfer the files over to my PC where i will mix on Nuendo. What I need to know is a few things. I have been told that in order for the mac to be able to read my portable drive i need to format the drive as FAT 32 .....I have now done that, but im not sure if the PC can in turn read that unless i use some sort of Macopener or something ? Can i just put the files as OMF on the disk and then open that on my PC without problems? Im planning on using OMF so i need to know if that does indeed work before i start doing all the transfers? Can someone tell if there are any pitfalls or something i need to know to make this work? Has someone here done this before ? Thanks Arnar

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4th August 2006	#2
gsilbers Lives for gear Joined: Jan 2006 Location: El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora La Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula Posts: 3,622	it "should" work the way u are going to do it. format the drive fat32 it should open on pc. akso ,, broadcast wav files are better for pc

4th August 2006	#4
Geert van den Berg Mac Moderator Joined: May 2003 Location: Amsterdam Posts: 3,454	Funny that this question pops up from time to time, I am writing a thread for this which I'll post and stick to the top in the future when it's ready. FAT32 is a PC format, so if you formatted the drive like that it will definately work on a PC! And... it works on a Mac as well. OMF is a bit of a problematic format. It's originally been developped by Avid and meant as a sort of open standard, but many manufacturers haven't implemented it well, or maybe the specification was too sketchy. In the beginning even going from PT to Avid and vice versa would sometimes not work properly, and that's quite odd because PT is a division of Avid. There are also 2 version, which differ, so you'll have to look into what your application supports (OMFI is an older version which doesn't support audio resolutions higher than 48kHz and 16 bits, OMF2 can handle 24 bit files but I believe it doesn't go higher than 48kHz). Then for the OMF file you got another 2 options. One is to embed all the data in one large file. Handy because you can be sure all the data which you export is in the project, but the drawback is you can't access any of the data before you unpack it with your destination application (and when it's large you can't easily split it by hand for backup purposes, though there are ways around this offcourse), and that's a bit of a risk if you are not sure it's going to work. On the other hand, even if you could access the audio, it wouldn't be much of a use, placing a large amount of small files by hand is not really an option. The other option is to reference to the audio files. In this way the OMF becomes sortof a sessionfile similar to a PT session or Nuendo project and there's a seperate folder with the audiofiles. Only one thing you'll have to watch out for is that the audiotype you're using is supported by both applications because when opening the OMF file most apps don't do any conversion, they just give an error and SD2 files don't work on a PC, also beware of placing SD2's on a PC server, because it will strip the resource fork and make them unreadable by PT. The best and most failsafe option is to consolidate all the tracks in PT into one long audiofile per track. You can do this by selecting all the tracks and pressing command-A which will select all the content, and then hit shift-alt-3 to consolidate. Make sure all the tracks are named properly because the tracknames will be included in the newly rendered files. The best thing is to make sure all tracks have the same starttime, but by doing like I just wrote this will automatically be the case. The files will be timestamped though, which can be handy if you want to place the audio at the exact same location when you go from DAW-X to DAW Y and then maybe back again for some additional overdubs... If the session is already started as a broadcast WAV session, you can copy the consolidated files directly from the audio files folder (there's an added -CONS to the file names and if you select the option 'sort on creation' date they will likely be at either bottom or the top of the folder, based on the finder settings), if the session is not started as a WAV session or if you don't want to do a manual search for the files in the audio files folder, you can select the consolidated files and export them as broadcast WAV's, press shift-command-K, now you can select which filetype you want, and the resolution (choosing the same resolution as the session, leaves the audio untouched, it only changes the header to for example WAV, if you select otherwise it will do a sample/bitrate conversion), and to which location you want them to go. Third option is to consolidate and then make a referenced OMF file, this way your import in Nuendo is faster because you don't have to do it by hand, but if it doesn't work you always have the option to place the files manually, and this is easy because of the timestamps and the same starttimes. I think you might be able to select all the files at once and then drag them from the audio pool at once, but I am not sure of that. I am not a Nuendo expert.