How (and why) do I Rename the OMFI MediaFiles Folder or Use Media Mover?

To seperate the various media files associated with your projects, you can do either of two things, both of which are outlined below:

Using Media Mover

Media Mover is a powerful and easy to use tool which is used to separate your various media files associated with your projects. To understand why you would use Media Mover, you need to understand how Avid organizes media. Whenever you create anything in Avid, (through digitizing, importing, creating titles, rendering, etc.) Avid creates a file called an OMF file. It places this file in a folder on your video drive called OMFI MediaFiles. This means no matter what you do, Avid will always place the media it creates in the same folder. Now suppose you have worked on three projects today, and only want to archive the media from one of those projects. Since all the media for all the projects is in the same folder, how can you tell what media belongs to only the one specific project? This is when you would use Media Mover.

Media Mover is a tremendous time saver, particularly in terms of archiving video. MediaMover analyzes all the media files on your Avid editing system and determines what Projects they belong to. Media Mover then moves the associated media out of the media files folder and places them into their own folder. You can then take that folder and back it up (to DVD for example). Now, along with your project file you have a complete backup consisting of only the media files you need.

Click here for detailed instructions on how to use Media Mover (pdf)

Remember to always backup your project (usually found on the C drive, under program files>Avid>Avid Xpress>Avid Projects) along with your media!!

Renaming the OMFI MediaFiles Folder

If you do not have Media Mover, but you still need to seperate all your media files you will need to utilize the following technique. This process must be done BEFORE you start any new projects. Because Avid always looks in the same place for it's media (the OMFI MediaFiles folder) you can "trick" the system into thinking the OMFI MediaFiles folder has been removed by renaming it. For example, you are working on a project called "project 1" and you now want to start on a new project. You want the media for the new project seperated from the "project 1" media. By renaming the OMFI MediaFiles folder to something new, such as "OMFI MediaFiles - project 1", the system no longer sees the correct folder name and is forced to create a new OMFI Media Files folder when you create your new project. You media is now seperated. This method must always be done before the start of any new project if you wish to keep your media files seperated if you do not have a copy of Media Mover.

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