FFAStrans forum

Hello,

I have created a workflow with DNxHD encoding with avid project structure. Now I would like to take the tape name from the original material how do I do this? I have tried several but without success.

Thanks a lot

Kind Regards,
Mads

Hi Mads,

you mean you start the workflow with some file that already has some tape name, e.g. some avid mxf? If yes, i think we have to "analyze" the source file for it, exiftool seems to know it:

$jsonget("%s_info_exiftool%","[0].PackageName")

You know how to use that in a populate processor, store the value in some variable and use this variable in the tape name input of the encoder?

Hello Emcodem,

Yes the source already has tape name / reel name and I would like to have this in the export. No I am still quite unfamiliar with populate processor

Kind regards

Sorry for the delay, i love when people answer fast

In this example, i use a populate proc to retrieve the tape name from the submitted source file and populate a variable "s_tape_name_from_source" with the retrieved value. The DNXHD encoder processor has checked "create avid tape structure" and uses this variable for tape name.

let me know if it does what you desire..

Haha you react faster than I expected

Do I have to do something for the populate process? Because the clips are now coming out without a tape-name while the original file does have one.

Yeah... i have been assigned to take over the nightshift support

Nothing special to do, just rightclick the populate variables processor and submit one of your source files.

If it does not work, we need to find if exiftool or mediainfo or ffprobe are actually able to find out the original tape name from your source files. I was only able to test with a dnxhd OP1A mxf as produced from ffastrans, when i submit the video file, my example workflow did insert the correct tape name in the target file.

Is it possible for you to either upload a very small source file example that has some tape name (e.g. 1 frame black on wetransfer) ? If no, you can maybe share what exiftool analyzes for one of your source files on commandline:

C:\__PATH_TO_FFAStrans\Processors\ffmpeg\exiftool.exe \\server\share\yourfile.mxf

Hey Mads,

i received your files and altered the previous workflow to extract the "reel name" as found in your .mov example from AJA.
Please try it out and let me know if it does what you want.
The populate proc now uses this for getting the desired info: In words, this means that the ffprobe json analysis is searched for reel_name: "SOMETHING_BETWEEN_DOUBLEQUOTES"

One thing i noticed is that AJA seems to write a "newline" after the reel_name (e.g. 001\n). I did not "remove" this in the example workflow, if you want to remove the newline, you can add a second line in the populate variables processor like:
%s_tape_name_from_source% = $replace("%s_tape_name_from_source%","\n","")