Hi all
Does anyone know about the inner workings of the AMA Media Management folder?
It seems to live in slightly different locations (depending on OS) but you should find it in the same place as the Attic. I've read that you can move/rename/delete this folder if you run into problems and MC will rebuild on startup.
Looking into the folder structure reveals some interesting files.
Firstly, there's a xml file which seems to list every file I've linked to. For each file I see the following data:
Media Pathname - where the file actually lives on your media drive.
Virtual volume pathname - the volume/folder this file came from, eg. Roll 001.
Metadata pathname - the path to the metadata for this file.
The metadata is all stored in 'AMA Metadata Folders' which lives next to the xml file. Inside this folder you'll see lots of other folders whose names correspond to all the metadata pathname info in the xml. In each folder you'll see the following three files...
An aaf file which seems to be named after the original camera file name.
A file called 'amaFMID.pmr'
A file called 'amaMMOB.mdb'
The last two files seem to be the same sort of database files you find in the Avid Mediafiles/MXF numbered folders.
So the questions that come to mind are:
If you do delete the whole AMA Media Management folder structure (to let MC rebuild) I'm assuming it can't reconstruct the data from all the original clips I linked over several projects, and instead starts with a fresh (empty) folder?
Is the aaf file anything like the aaf files I understand? Could you import this aaf file as one would do normally?
Is the amaMMOB.mdb like the ones created in the Avid Mediafiles folders? Can I use the technique of dragging this file directly into a bin to make a master clip?
Could one hack into the xml files to change (for example) the path to files?
B
