Selects hands off to Avid Media Composer as an .aaf file, the interchange format Media Composer imports. Your cuts and track layout come across, and the file points to your original media instead of carrying a copy of it, so your originals are never modified.
Hand off to Avid Media Composer
Open the timeline you want to work from.
Click [Export] in the top right and choose [Avid Media Composer] under [Handoff to]. Avid Media Composer is not one of the main editing tool choices, so there is no shortcut icon for it beside [Export]: always start from the menu.
If the drafts you hand off contain transitions, keyframes, effects, or graphics, Selects first tells you Some edits won't carry over in the handoff. Click [Handoff anyway] to continue without them, or [Cancel] to go back. Only the handed-off copy leaves them out: your draft in Selects keeps everything.
In the Hand off to Avid Media Composer dialog, set where the file goes in [Save in], check the file name in [Name], choose your settings, then click [Handoff].
Handoff runs in the background, so you can keep working. When it finishes, a dialog opens with your .aaf file name at the top. Click [Open folder] to find the file.
Note: With more than one draft in the project, Selects asks which ones to hand off. All of them are selected to begin with, so handing off without changing anything takes every draft across. See Export your edit to editing software, or as a transcript or video.
Handoff settings
The Avid Media Composer handoff dialog has three settings, and all of them are off when it opens:
Include captions: adds captions to the exported timeline. Selects uses the draft's captions if it has any, and your transcript if it does not.
Include chapters as markers: adds your topic chapters to the timeline as markers.
Exclude unused audio tracks: leaves out audio tracks that play nothing anywhere in the draft.
Selects does not remember these settings between handoffs, so turn on the ones you want each time. There is no Keep all cut points setting either: an Avid handoff always keeps every cut you made, including B-roll and standalone audio.
Import into Avid Media Composer
To import into Avid Media Composer, bring in the .aaf file the way you normally import an AAF. Your timelines arrive pointing to the original media files on your computer. Selects never converts your media or embeds it in the .aaf, so keep the files where they are.
Tip: If Media Composer has not used those media files before, you may need to link the clips to them first with Link to Media. Point it at your original files to bring the clips online.
FAQs
Can I choose which drafts to hand off?
Yes. With more than one draft, [Select timelines to handoff] opens and you choose what goes across. Everything is selected to begin with, so clicking straight through hands off all of them, and you can clear anything you do not want. With a single draft there is nothing to choose and it goes straight across.
Does the Avid handoff copy or convert my media?
No. The Avid Media Composer handoff never transcodes your media, never embeds it in the .aaf, and never changes the original files. The .aaf only points to them, so your media stays exactly as it was.
Can I bring my topic titles across?
Yes, as markers. Turn on Include chapters as markers in the Avid dialog and your topic chapters arrive as markers on the timeline. The Avid dialog does not offer topic titles as captions.