We're in a Nexis environment and typically create the OP-Atom MXFs out of Resolve through an automated process. But there is still the manual step of naming the MXF folder ComputerName.# so an Avid will scan it and create the MDB and PMR files before we name the folder something else.

Is there a way to generate the MDB and PMR with an external utility so that we don't necessarily have to have an Avid machine do the initial scan? In my search, I have seen rumblings of a "PMR Tool" and "Avid MediaManager," but my sense is those are old tools and I don't know if they even would do this.

Thanks!

It's not completely automatic, but my method to make the process a little bit faster is to use lists and Advance Renamer (on Windows).

After I've rendered my rushes out, I'll make a list in Excel or whatever of all the ComputerName.## folders I need, and another list of all the rushes folders names. I'll then use AdvancedRenamer to rename all the rushes folders to the "computername.##" format. Fire up Avid, let it scan all the folders, then use AdvancedRenamer again to the name the rushes folders back to their original names. 

I'll also use AdvancedRenamer to name the bins inside the project. At that point the only real manual part of the process is dragging the database files in to the bins.

I don't believe they have AdvancedRenamer for Mac, but I would imagine there has to be a similar utilty.

I appreciate the suggestions!

What I'm looking for is more of a way to generate the MDB and PMR without the need for an available Avid.  I'm trying to automate the ingest of media as much as possible, and I have every other step, from automatically downloading to transcoding, to copying to the Nexis and even writing an AVB.  I just need that darn MDB and PMR somehow!

I'd very much like to second/third the request for such a tool. Just a simple command line tool i.e

gen-db -path="/Volumes/Media1/Avid MediaFiles"

Would be incredibly helpful.

The closest I've got to this is generating a PMR (there is an ingest solution whose name escapes me that can do this) and using pyAAF to bring the media in rather than MDB... still no way to get them straight into a bin though.

EDIT: https://www.autoingest.com/AutoIngest has a PMR writer

Cheers,

Jon

tech@hireworks:

gen-db -path="/Volumes/Media1/Avid MediaFiles"

That's the dream right there!  Also check out pyavb (from the makers of pyaaf) for writing bins, if you haven't already.  All we need are those gosh darned databases built.

It might be obvious to mention this. You can use the free trial of media composer to do this and while I would also love a standalone media indexer that creates pmr/mdb files it is pretty hard beating an existing free solution.