We are currently finalising the development of our Avid ingest tool - to allow for the automated processing of content for Avid Media Composer - complete with offline media, AMA metadata for relinking, etc.

The only element that we are stuck on is regarding the generation of the msmFMID.pmr outside of Avid Media Composer. We know that this can be done, as such vendors as Root6 include this as part of their product offering. The idea being that pre-generating this, and opening media by AAF prevents the need for the lengthly scanning process which can occur on large file count projects.

Upon inspection of the file - its clear that there is a mixture of non-ASCII data - and then ASCII data for the folder names and filenames - an extracted example below;

 

©     $   

+4





    Ô›Zm‰¬+4*€ A0002_a8.mxf 000006_gps_native

+4





    Ô›Z<‰¬+4*€•›Z

+4





    Ó›ZY%2+4*€ A0003_a7.mxf 000006_gps_native

+4





    Ó›Z6%2+4*€5›Z

+4





    Ô›Zʬ+4*€ A0008_a5.mxf 000006_gps_native

+4





    Ó›Z¬+4*€Ò›Z

+4





    Ô›Z^‰¬+4*€ A0002_a4.mxf 000006_gps_native

+4





    Ô›Z<‰¬+4*€”›Z

+4





    Ó›Z?%2+4*€ A0011_a5.mxf 000006_gps_native

Is there a DLL we can invoke to generate this file - or is there a schema or other documentaiton to confirm what the non-ASCII text represents?

I am not a developer, nor do I know how many files you are generating at a go, but have you considered creating new .MXF folders NOT numbered "1" (such as "500" or "1001") so that the indexing is only new folders, not a continual reindex of "1".

You are probably already doing this, but your question intrigued me.

Jef