LibAAF is currently a work in progress and is not production-ready yet.
LibAAF is a C coded library for AAF file handling. The AAF beeing a quite complex file format, the main goal here is to get an easy-to-implement, audio oriented, FOSS solution.
The library is composed of three parts :
- LibCFB : Low-level AAF's Compound File Binary handling
- AAFCore : AAF Class/Object manipulations
- AAFIface : Abstraction layer for easy data access.
One should only use the AAFIface interface to manipulate files and retrieve data.
LibAAF only supports the reading of AAF files, it cannot write ones.
LibAAF was widely tested with :
- Avid Media Composer 8.4.5 - 8.8.3 - 18.12.5
- Adobe Premiere Pro (CC 2018) 12.0 - 12.1.1
- ProTools 10.3.10
- Logic Pro 9.1.7
- Fairlight Evo/Dream 2.5.1 - 4.1.75
| Composition Name | x | Full support |
| Track Names | x | Full support |
| Clip Names | x | built upon source file names |
| Original essence file names | x | Full support |
| PCM Embedded Essences | x | Full support |
| WAVE Embedded Essences | x | Full support |
| WAVE External Essences | x | Full support |
| AIFF Embedded Essences | x | Full support |
| AIFF External Essences | x | Full support |
| AES3 Embedded Essences | - | Missing from the specs |
| MXF Embedded Essences | - | TODO |
| MXF External Essences | x | Full support |
| Multi-channel Essences | - | TODO (AAFClassID_MultipleDescriptor) |
| Multi-channel Tracks (stereo, 5.1, 7.1) | x | ProTools AAF with Export Stereo, 5.1 and 7.1 tracks as multi-channel enabled. |
| Fades in/out - XFades | x | Full support |
| Legacy Fades in/out - XFades | - | useless ? obsolete since at least AAFv1.1 - 2005 |
| Clip based Gain (fixed/varying) | x | Full support |
| Track based Gain (fixed/varying) | x | Full support |
| Track based PAN (fixed/varying) | x | Full support |
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
Note that tools will be built with make, however examples need to be compiled manually (instructions in files).
There is an Ardour fork that includes an experimental tool to create ardour sessions based on AAF files.
You can build it using the regular ardour compilation process.
Building this tool requires libaaf to be installed.