Park Street Post Software

AAF Player

Open the turnover.
Hear it. Export it.

A turnover lands and the usual way to find out what is actually in it is to import the whole thing into Pro Tools. AAF Player opens the AAF on its own, draws the timeline, and plays it back with the reference picture in sync. Then it exports what you select: dry Broadcast WAVE files with handles, or a new AAF holding just the clips you want on the tracks you chose. The AAF you opened is never touched.

$80 once. No subscription, no account, and no internet connection required: not to activate, not to keep working. The 14-day trial is the complete app, so you can be sure before you pay. If it is not for you, there is a no-hassle 14-day refund policy.

/01 The timeline Read-only · nothing imported

Drop an AAF on the window and it opens in place. You get track lanes, clips, waveforms, fades and crossfades, clip gain and automation drawn over the audio, markers, and timecode. Zoom and scroll, click anywhere on the timeline, press space, and it plays from there.

The whole session is parsed in-process by the same native-Swift engine that powers AAF Look, so opening a turnover is not a job you start and walk away from.

A real turnover, not a staged one: 34 tracks, 4,073 clips, every bit of audio embedded in the AAF, dragged onto the Dock icon. Watch how long it takes to open, then it plays. The clip on this page carries no audio.

AAF Player's Preparing playback progress over a blurred timeline: reading audio, 2.01 GB of 2.94 GB, at 4.33 GB per second.
Playback is cache-backed, so the audio is staged before the first sound rather than streamed off the disk under you. The progress bar tracks real bytes: here 2.94 GB of embedded audio read at 4.33 GB/s, well under a second.
  • PlaybackCache-backed engine
  • MonitoringPer-track mute, solo, pan
  • MeteringPer track + stereo master
  • EngineNative Swift
/02 Read it your way Track order · waveform height · new in 1.2

A turnover arrives in the editor’s track order, at the editor’s levels. Lay it out the way you need to read it. The sound stays exactly as the editor left it, and so does the file.

  • Drag a track by its name or number to put it anywhere. Grab one that has a selected clip and every track with a selected clip moves together, keeping their order. Undo takes a move back, and Reset Track Order returns the editor’s order.
  • Exports follow the order on screen, so an exported AAF or a folder of audio files comes out arranged the way you left it. The AAF you opened keeps the editor’s order for next time.
  • Waveforms zoom from an eighth of their true height up to 32 times, so room tone and distant dialogue become readable and a hot mix can be drawn smaller. Nothing you hear changes, and the zoom button stays faintly blue whenever waveforms are not at true scale.
  • Waveforms follow clip gain, the way Pro Tools draws them: a clip at +20 dB draws ten times taller, one at −10 dB about a third as tall, and a clip-gain line shapes the waveform along the clip. Volume automation plays but is not drawn into the waveform.
  • Shift-M and Shift-S mute or solo every track that has a selected clip, all at once, so checking the dialogue against everything else is one key.
/03 Export what you need Audio files · AAF · in your track order

Select any combination of clips, or click a track name to take the whole track, then choose File, Export Selected. Two shapes come out, and both are the shape the next person actually asked for.

Neither one touches the AAF you opened. Export writes new files to a folder you choose, and it never overwrites what is already there without asking first.

Thirty seconds, start to finish: select, export, and the files are in the Finder. The export sheet counts what you have selected and sizes the result before you commit.

  • As audio files One Broadcast WAVE per clip, written dry the way Pro Tools writes Export Clips as Files. Handles of whatever length you ask for, and a timestamp in every file that spots it straight back to where it came from. Bit depth and sample rate match the source unless you say otherwise.
  • As an AAF A new file holding only the tracks and clips you chose, carrying every marker, timecode, clip gain, fade and automation curve from the original. Open it in AAF Player, or send it to the DAW as a turnover of its own.
  • Self-contained wherever it can be Where the AAF you opened linked to media on another machine, that audio is written into the new file so it opens anywhere. If some of it cannot be written in, the export becomes a folder holding the AAF beside the media it needs, and the sheet tells you so before you commit.
  • Selection behaves like you expect Shift extends a range, Command adds or removes a clip, box-select works, and a track name takes the whole track. Command-A fills out the tracks you have already touched; Option-Command-A takes everything.
AAF Player with two tracks selected: Track 6 and Track 7 are tinted blue across their full width, and the counter reads Length 00:21:28:14.
Click a track name and every clip on it is selected. The track tints to show how much of it you have, so a partial selection reads differently from a whole one.
AAF Player's Export Selected sheet with AAF chosen: 464 clips on 2 tracks, Contestant 2 with 388 of 388 clips and Track 4 with 76 of 76, and a note that all markers, track automation and timecode are carried over unchanged.
The AAF export sheet lists exactly what is going: which tracks, and how many of each track's clips. Markers, automation and timecode ride along unchanged.
The exported subset AAF open in AAF Player as a file of its own: 2 tracks, 464 clips, the same start timecode and duration as the original, markers intact.
The result, opened as a turnover of its own: two tracks, 464 clips, the original start timecode, the original markers. Everything else left behind.
/04 Picture in sync Import · spot · nudge

Load the reference picture and it follows the transport. Play, shuttle and frame-step all stay locked, and a video lane on the timeline shows where the picture sits against the audio.

  • Spotting is automatic when the file carries a start timecode. When it does not, type the timecode where the first frame belongs.
  • A configurable timecode burn-in can be drawn over the picture, so what you are looking at and what you are hearing are checkable against each other.
  • If the sync feels a frame off, nudge the picture a frame at a time and reset when you are happy.
  • Plays the formats post actually ships: ProRes, DNxHD, DNxHR, AVC-Intra, H.264 and HEVC.
  • The decoder runs in a separate process, so a problem with the picture can never take down audio playback. If it does fail it restarts and re-syncs itself.
AAF Player playing a 45-track turnover with the reference picture floating over the timeline, both showing timecode 01:21:57:03, and a VIDEO lane along the top of the track list.
The picture follows the transport, and the burn-in reads the same timecode as the counter. A VIDEO lane along the top of the track list shows where the reference sits against the audio. Reference picture from INSTBHA, written, produced and directed by Eric Wilson, used with permission. xolo.tv
AAF Player's Spot Reference Video dialog: the file is 1920 by 1080 at 23.98 fps, 37 minutes 36 seconds, with the head spotted to 00:59:30:00 from the file's embedded start timecode and a sync offset of zero.
Spotting reads the file's own start timecode where there is one, so the usual case is one click. Where there is not, you type the timecode the first frame belongs on.
/05 What it plays Embedded & linked

Turnovers arrive in more shapes than anyone would like. AAF Player reads the common ones without asking you to relink anything first.

  • Embedded essence: PCM, WAVE and AIFC carried inside the AAF itself.
  • External media: linked WAV and AIFF, and MXF Op-Atom as it comes out of Media Composer.
  • Per-clip fades and crossfades, plus static and keyframed clip gain, applied on playback.
  • Clips carrying a rendered effect are drawn in gold, with the rendered audio’s own waveform, so processed material is visible before you play anything, even with a whole reel on screen.
  • Where a clip carries a rendered effect, you can switch between the rendered audio and the dry source and hear the difference immediately. That answers the usual question: is the odd sound the edit, or the effect?
AAF Player's timeline with a 34-track turnover open and Play Rendered Effects on. On the Host track a run of clips is drawn in gold and badged fx, marking rendered effects, while the unprocessed clips on the tracks below keep their own track colours.
Rendered clips read as gold, drawn with the rendered audio's own waveform. Here the Host track carries a run of them, while unprocessed clips keep their track colour.
AAF Player zoomed in on the timeline with a clip selected and the inspector open: the clip's timing, its source format, and its clip gain, automation and fades.
Click a clip and the inspector tells you where it sits, what it came from, and what is being done to it: format and channel count, clip gain, automation, fades. No guessing from the waveform.
AAF Player showing several of the mixer's markers on the timeline and the volume automation lanes open on every track, with clip gain values printed on every clip.
The markers come across too, comments and all, which is usually where the note you actually need is hiding. Volume automation draws in its own lane on every track when you want to see it.
/06 Your AAF is never touched Reads the original · writes only what you ask for
  • It never writes to the original AAF Player does not modify the AAF you opened or its media. There is no save and no repair. Export writes new files to a folder you choose, and asks before replacing anything already there.
  • Works offline The app and its license run fully offline, forever. AAF Player makes no network connections at all: Check for Updates opens this page in your browser, where the current version is listed.
  • No account Nothing to sign up for. Your license is a small signed file we email you.
  • Not an editor No trimming, no dragging clips, no conforming. If you need to change the session, that still happens in your DAW. Export hands the DAW the pieces you chose, in the shape it expects.
/07 Questions you would actually ask Straight answers
Does it change my AAF?
No. It opens the file, reads it, and plays it. Export writes new files to a folder you pick; the AAF you opened and its media are exactly as they were.
What does export actually give me?
Either one dry Broadcast WAVE per selected clip, with handles and a timestamp that spots it back into place, the same shape Pro Tools writes from Export Clips as Files. Or a new AAF holding only the tracks and clips you selected, with the markers, timecode, clip gain, fades and automation intact.
Can I pull just the dialogue tracks out of a turnover?
Yes. Click each track name to take the whole track, then Export Selected as an AAF. You get a turnover of only those tracks, ready to open in the DAW or send on.
Can I put the tracks in a different order?
Yes. Drag a track by its name or number. The AAF you opened keeps the editor’s order, so reopening it shows that order again, but anything you export comes out in the order on screen.
Does the waveform show clip gain?
Yes, the way Pro Tools draws it: each clip’s waveform is drawn as if its clip gain were rendered in, clip-gain lines included. Volume automation is not drawn into the waveform; it has its own lane when you want to see it. View, Waveforms Follow Clip Gain turns it off.
Do I still need Pro Tools?
Yes, for the actual work. AAF Player is for the moment before that: knowing what you have been sent, and taking exactly the pieces you need into the session.
What if the media is not embedded?
Linked WAV, AIFF and MXF Op-Atom play from where they sit. There is no relink interface, so if a file is genuinely missing, AAF Player will tell you rather than pretend.
Does it play the picture too?
It plays a reference video you point it at, kept in sync with the audio and spottable by timecode. It does not extract picture from the AAF.
How does the license work?
You get a small signed file by email. Double-click it, or choose Enter License from the AAF Player menu, the one next to the Apple menu. It works offline forever, including on an air-gapped machine, on the Macs you personally use.
Is this the same engine as AAF Look?
The AAF reading is, yes. If AAF Look opens your turnover, this will too.
Something is wrong, who do I ask?
The person who built it answers: support@parkstreetpostsoftware.com.