Thanks to user stooovie’s comment in the post where I belittle Premiere’s audio exporting capabilities, I have been made aware that Sony Vegas Pro 8 properly imports Reference AAFs exported by Premiere CS3.

The Reference AAF is created in Premiere by selecting Project > Export Project as AAF… and checking neither of the boxes available in the dialog box. You can then open Vegas, go to File > Import > AAF… and select the reference AAF ceated by Premiere. The project will open in Vegas as fully editable, with infinite handles on the audio and video, just as if you had edited it in Vegas.

After getting the project into Vegas, I was given a glimmer of hope when I found that Vegas Pro 8 can also export AAF! You can choose between the option of an “Edit Protocol Compliant AAF File” and an “Avid Legacy AAF File.” Surely, an old-school Avid-compliant AAF would get us into Nuendo, right?

Sadly, neither AAF options from Vegas were able to properly import into Nuendo. Actually, they showed up just the same as if I had opened the reference AAF as exported by Premiere.

I must humbly admit that after my long triad of unfavorable things said about Adobe’s inter-application support, they are probably not at fault when it comes to exporting an AAF file from Premiere and getting it into Nuendo. Nuendo’s AAF import is either not able to properly read the audio track it’s embedding from the AVI, or is improperly routing the stereo signal from the AVI to a mono track in the mix console.

A software created by Cui Bono Soft called EDL Convert may hold the keys to going from Vegas to Nuendo. Or, since Sony has really expanded the mixing capabilities of Vegas Pro 8, I may decide that it will suffice for doing the majority of audio editing and mixing and stay in Vegas.

Even if this case works for a good number of our in-house projects, it may not for all of our contracted clients. Being able to weave ourselves into their workflows is top priority.

Categories: Software, Tech Corner