Media Composer 2GB OMF File Size Limit?

Posted on: May 27, 2008
3 comments so far (is that a lot?)

I recently did a turnover on my MC 2.8 Mojo SDI setup. This was a 24fps project and I spent many hours crashing, getting arcane, (error in “Main Thread” 0×0) error messages. Finally, I did a Google search and found something about the 2GB OMF file size limit. Once I broke the problematic reels into sub 2GB parts, the problem was eliminated.

The question becomes, not only why isn’t this fixed? But why did I need to waste so much time crashing and searching the web, when a simple, understandable error message about the OMF file size limit would have solved the problem immediately?

3 Responses to “Media Composer 2GB OMF File Size Limit?”

  1. Mark Says:
    June 3rd, 2008 at 3:49 pm

    It is fixed if you export an AAF file instead of an OMF

  2. hdfilmtools Says:
    June 3rd, 2008 at 4:35 pm

    Yes,and I’ve also found a few open source AAF to OMF converters on the web.

    The OMF’s were part of the sound crew’s requested specs and the previous turnovers were fraught with problems so I didn’t want to rock their boat. I’m pretty sure OMF still one of the most widely used formats for all kinds of sound turnovers. It’s just one of those things that in my opinion Avid should fix.

  3. Mark Says:
    June 4th, 2008 at 12:26 pm

    I totally agree, but I think it is not an easy fix. Avid was written back in the days when operating systems had a 2GB limitation on file size. To get around this would require a major rewrite of the code. We have been using AAFs for several years now and love not needing to split up our edits. I think if more sound people experienced AAFs they would like working with them too as I don’t think they are any different than OMFs.

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