BWF management and AAF export to Protools

Question

Hi everyone,
I'm currently editing a feature film and I wanted to report some issues about BWF management and AAF export to protools.
I was aiming to fill the feature request form, but seems it is not available in my area at the moment (Taiwan). I also tried to fill the form using a VPN with a US IP address and I didn't have much chance, so Im going to post it here hoping some people from Adobe will see it.
BWF-P or BWF-M
There is no problem in importing BWF-P files, but it would be very convenient if we could see the track names on the timeline (like if the track is the Boom, which wireless microphone...). Our sound engineer is recording from 3 to 8 tracks and he includes the track names in the metadata of his files. I like working on the sound when I edit, so it would help a lot to have this information appearing on the timeline.
BWF-M management seems very poor to me. It is not possible to import BWF-M as one poly clips. Or is it possible and I don't know why? For the moment, if I have 5 tracks for 1 sound (it means I have 5 files in the finder named xyz_01.wav, xyz_02.wav, ..., xyz_05.wav) and if I import these five files, it will import in my premiere project as 5 different clips, when it should be able to make them as 1 clip with 5 tracks.
AAF Export
The way Premiere Pro export oaf could be much more intelligent.
I always prefer to export separate files from the as, not embbed. I prefer copy complete files instead of doing handles. In this way, Premiere Pro just copy the BWF file exactly like it was, but rename it. The advantage is that we keep the metadata in this export, which is important for our sound designer who works on Protools HD 11.
Usually, I will have from 3 to 8 tracks for on clip. The sound engineer recorded BWF-P. Quite often, I will cut one clip on the timeline to remove some undesirable sound like "Action", "Now"... I found out that Premiere will copy from 5 times the same file if there is 5 tracks. And each time, Premiere is copying the full BWF-P file, it means we'll have 5 identical files with 5 identical tracks, but with different names. And if the same clip is cut into different prices on the timeline, it will copy each time once again the same file with different naming convention.
For a one hour timeline, my sound export took 1 hour and needs 12GB of storage, because Premiere is just copying many times the same file.
I found out that the way Premiere is exporting is more suitable to use BWF-M, because at least, it won't copy five times the same tracks. But as mentioned above, Premiere seems to be very inconvenient when you want to import BWF-M files.
Finally, I'm using merged clips to edit. When Premiere export the aaf and copy all the complete sound files, the naming convention follows the merged clip naming. It would make much more sense to follow the original files naming instead. Like this, if the aaf link to the original name files, then the sound editor might be able to simply link to his original media, which would be very convenient for editor and for sound department.
AAF Translation to Protools.
As the aaf export lots of identical files, it becomes a mess in protools. You can see the file 001_05_T05 is repeated a lot of time!
The also exports the video timeline. It doesn't export the video files, but it shows all the cut of the film and also provides the names of all the clips I edited.
Thats is very convenient for the sound designer, because he can see where I cut and what is the original video clip.
The problem is that in our test, all the name clip appeared to be wrong. The cuts are correct, but not the names.
Another issue is concerning the metadata. As Premiere is exporting 5 times the same files containing 5 tracks, Protools only shows the 1st track name instead of showing the correct one. For example, if track names were MKH60, 718m, 718s, HF_Actor1, HF_Actor2, Protools will show MKH60 on every tracks.
I usually work very close to the sound department and I know they're going to loose lots of time to find out which track is which microphone, when it could be very simple, like when I export aaf from Avid.
I much prefer editing on Premiere Pro, but also our sound designer can understand my decision to use Premiere Pro, he regrets the time I was using Avid.
FEATURE REQUESTS (if not available yet):
1) BWF-M better import management
2) BWF Metadata management: import track names and add an option to show the track name directly on the timeline.
3) AAF Export: Export files with the same name as the original BWF files. Possibility to really Link Media.
4) AAF Export: Copy only time a BWF-P files that is used several time in the timeline and that contain several tracks.
5) AAF Export: Fix the naming of the video clip that appeared to be wrong in Protools,
CONCLUSION:
Since Gone Girl, it appears that Adobe has the ambition to conquer the feature film market. I couldn't be more happy than that, and the improvements have been huge these past two years. I really enjoy working on sound in Premiere. The VST plugin implementation is great, much better than in Avid. The track audio mixer is great as well.
But when we talk about exporting the project to sound department, it install not as good as it could.
I hope Adobe can have a serious look on that.
Matthieu Laclau
IMDb
50th Golden Horse Best Editing Award
P.S.: Sorry for my approximate english, but I'm a French and I hope it is understandable english native readers.

Answer 1

I've had several years of classical voice training, including singing in Italian, German, and French ... well, min Deutsch isn't too bad as I've had some years of  study and actually spent some time talking with Germans; my Italian is ... um ... well, I've been told an Italian can actually understand what I'm saying easily enough but would never mistake me for "real" ... (sigh) ... and my daughter, who took three years of French in high school started laughing one day whilst I was practicing with her listening to advise at the request of my voice teacher ( a near-native French speaker). "Daddy, I just figured out why your French is so weird ... you're not singing with an English (American, that is) accent, but a Norwegian accent!". Yes, I do speak some Norwegian ... way too little compared to what I could 20 years ago while visiting family & professional friends there.
So ... post any further observations you've got on PrPro, questions too ... and as soon as the feature request line is working again, post away on there. "We'll" understand you just fine. Which is far more than I could say for a French person trying to understand my singing of it ...
Neil