On Sun, Sep 14, 2014 at 9:56 AM, David Baron <d_baron@012.net.il> wrote:

On Sunday 14 September 2014 09:25:01 Paul Davis wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 12, 2014 at 4:15 PM, Russell Hanaghan <
>
> hanaghan.osaudio@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hmm, $60us by the looks? Not too much money by any means if it works
> > reliably.
> >
> > Just curious if any devs are into writing something simple? I can provide
> > testing assistance only. Just sounds like a cool and relative thing to
> > have
> > in the open source world.
>
> when it comes to translating from one DAW format to another, there is no
> such thing as "simple".
>
> the people behind AATranslator are a veritable font of knowledge about this
> stuff, and it cannot be stressed enough how much work they have done and
> how much they have had to discover.
>
> no other attempt at such a tool has ever succeeded - there was one other
> tool which Solid State purchased but its existence now seems hard to spot.

Yep. I had tried to start an openDAW discussion/project a few years back, with
a common XML-based intermediary referencing pcm files/segments. The existence
of a proprietary-binary "AAF" library was called to my attention with some
intent of releasing a XML/text based version. A few DAW programs support AAF.
Have not heard much since.

__________________________

AAF is actually a relatively open specification BUT

* it has every hallmark of design-by-committee

* it is vastly more centered on broadcast and video than on typical DAW scenarios

* the spec includes an explicit dependence on Microsoft "structured storage format",

which is essentially a filesystem-in-a-file, and this part is somewhat opaque

although there are attempts at an open source implementation

I wouldn't put a minute of my time into AAF support. It is a dinosaur, in every sense of that word.