AVID Resolve roundtrip

[Michael Stirling]

Hi

We have more or less given up on an Avid round-trip for the next while. I tried quite a lot of experiments with an (decade+) Avid editor – we got close to getting it working with tape originated clips using render source with unique filename of the whole clip in the master session but without the whole industry suddenly going back to tape that ain’t a workflow. Anything that came through the AMA (ie tapeless media) import in Avid never worked. ALE is just a bin xfer protocol according to my Avid guy to move taking clips into legacy versions but doesn’t have timeline info so I don’t see how it can help.

I’d say at this point that waiting for BM to sort a solid workflow is the best use of your time

Mike

[Vagelis Kasapakis]

I tried resolve lite and the avid roundtrip worked more than perfect for me.
You just render from resolve using avid 1:1 mxf into an avid media folder
then in avid you find these renders using the media tool (the nice thing is that you find both media files and master clips)and you copy the master clips in a bin
after this you set the same source to all the master clips (as described in the other avid roundtrip thread here)
and relink the sequence to the imported master clips
the great thing is that you can change the sequence, export aaf and go back to resolve where the sequence is relinked again and all the unchanged clips automatically “relink” to their last color settings
I find this workflow more than perfect, there is nothing that needs to be added (except for more avid codecs like dnxhd to be supported in resolve).
And resolve lite is far more powerfull than any nle’s color correction tools, which makes it the best free application ever for me.

[Illya Laney]

michael stirling
“ALE is just a bin xfer protocol according to my Avid guy to move taking clips into legacy versions”

That’s the first time I’ve heard that. You can save and open .avb files on legacy(i.e. ANCIENT) versions of Avid. There’s no need to use an ALE as a “bin xfer protocol” when you can just save and open a bin file on pretty much any system you want(as long as that system supports the formats you’re using). Performing a “save as” for a bin IS the “bin xfer protocol.” The problem with your editor’s logic is that an ALE contains “project settings”(resolution, frame rate, etc.) and if you create a bin in a standard def project and try to import an ALE with an HD header, Avid won’t allow it. On the other hand, if you open a bin with HD clips in a SD project, it will work.

ALEs contain logging, metadata, and any custom info pertaining to events. If you open one in a text editor you can see what I mean. It’s much closer to a .flx file than an .avb file. Check the import prefs in Avid to get a better idea of all the different things an ALE can be used for.

On to the original topic…
Avid cares about tape name and timecode. Without that info, things tend to go awry, so make sure all your events are properly filled out before sending anything to Resolve. When using a tapeless workflow it’s easy to forget to fill out the essential clip info(tape names etc.) and that’s when I’ve seen problems with the Resolve roundtrips. For example, tapeless clips don’t come in with Tape info so you’ll have to modify an event in order to insert a tape name into the tape column. There are Tape and Tape ID columns so keep that in mind. I haven’t done it yet, but for AMA, I believe you need to transcode the sequence to MXF before exporting an AAF in order to work properly, and once again….make sure you’ve input a tape name.

[Illya Laney]

I think you need to get the Avid License for the DNxHD codecs.

twitter.com/illyalaney

nextLAB Mobile
SpeedGrade DI
Resolve
da Vinci 8:8:8 Renaissance
Color
Truelight

[Josh Petok]

Here’s what I’ve been doing for a Resolve/Avid workflow. It’s still a bit bumpy, but it’s the best that I’ve come across for the types of tv shows I’ve been doing (avid fx, boris, PiP, speed fx, etc). I plan on putting this together in a tutorial soon.

For this to work correctly, be sure the checkbox for “Assist using Reel Numbers” is off.

AVID
1. Export a textless version of your show in a format Resolve can read. Exporting in “acts” will improve the performance in Resolve as well as making it easier to deal with changes.

2. Export an EDL of V1 using either the “file 16” or “file 32” templates

RESOLVE

3. Add your files to the media pool and preconform from the EDL

4. Grade and render in target mode

AVID

5. import or AMA your footage and overcut

But wait! What if the cut changes?!?! and it usually does…

1. In Avid, export the act(s) that have changes with an EDL for V1

2. Make a new project in Resolve, add the files and preconform again

3. Use the colortrace function to move all the grades from your previous project to the new project

4. color remaining clips, render, and import/AMA into Avid

This is my “beta” workflow. I’m open to hear how this could be improved.

Ideally, I’d like Resolve to work more like Film Master does, which has VERY tight integration with Avid. AFAIK, everything comes over in the AAF file: effects, boris, sapphire, you name it. That said, Film Master is significantly more expensive. The usual time/money/speed triad applies.

Josh Petok
Online | Color
JoshPetok.com
TheCurrentCut.com

[Mike Most]

That approach certainly works (it’s basically how we do nearly all of the network dramas and comedies at Level 3 Post), but it’s not the “round trip” workflow that’s probably being requested here. It’s basically a file version of a tape to tape workflow that’s been the mainstay of post facilities for years. In a round trip workflow, clips would be produced by the color system that relink in the edit system. That allows for modifications to effects, cuts, and anything else, as well as a concurrent workflow. In our world (those network dramas I was talking about) a roundtrip approach is not really feasible, because clients have been brought up in the tape world, and the legacy of that is that they expect to see a complete show – effects, blowups, repositions, all in place – in the grading suite, and to see the completed version played out. They would be put off by shots that are supposed to be resized but aren’t, or shots that are supposed to have effects on them that don’t. So we use the “tape to tape” approach, but it’s not the most efficient way of doing things.

[Clement Hobbs]

We’re been round tripping from our Symphony 5.5.2 to Resolve 8 and it’s not bad but still has room for improvement.

We’re using the same approach as Vagelis outlined above in this thread, the main issues we run into is that we’re dealing with a GFX intensive show and simple things like re-sizes, speed changes, etc. don’t come across at all into Resolve. So the Avid timeline clean up is extensive but not altogether surprising.

Video mix downs don’t always relink properly when back in the Avid, and it can get messy with certain clips not relinking to the correct file in the avid timeline but this is usually based on the # of mixdowns that were needed on the way out.

The show was shot tapeless and we are making it work but ideally I’d like to see a proper way out from Resolve, something to rebuild the sequence as it was sent out but linking to the coloured files.
The process of changing tape names, although it works, is not 100% accurate every time and is rather unnerving.
The idea of having to mess with the original source media metadata just to get the incoming media working just creeps me out.

It would also help if Resolve saw more codecs. Our media shows up as MXF wrapped XDCam files so Avid sees them fine, but we have to transcode everything to DNxHD for Resolve. Although Resolve sees XDCam files, they have to be MOV wrapped with FCP installed to work.

So all in all, I’m happy we bought into Resolve for the feature set, but it is still in its early days for smooth workflows on the Avid.

[Josh Petok]

Thanks for your comments Mike 🙂

I completely agree that a source file workflow would be much more efficient. Additionally, you would get all the benefits of working with the raw files (if it was shot). You lose that once it’s compressed down to a DNxHD or ProRes file.

I’m hopeful that a strong relationship will be built between Avid and Blackmagic so we all can follow a sane workflow. As it stands today, I can’t really use their source file method. I believe there are projects that it would make sense for, just not for the ones I’m working on presently.

Have you worked with Film Master on any of your shows? I’ve seen their Avid workflow demoed, but haven’t used it on an actual production. It stands to reason if THEY can pull that off, Blackmagic should be able to as well, right? Wasn’t there some relationship between Nucoda and Avid at some point?

Josh Petok
Online | Color
JoshPetok.com
TheCurrentCut.com

[Mike Most]

I have not worked on Nucoda, but I have done many shows on Baselight, which has a multilayer timeline (which recreates the Avid or Final Cut timeline very accurately) and can bring in any transforms (i.e., resizing, repositioning) directly. Not quite as comprehensive as Film Master, but the transforms are a major part of what you want to be brought in, especially if you’re working with things like R3D files. In that case, you’re doing all of your resizing directly from the 4K image, a huge advantage.

Avid does have a partnership program, of which I believe both Digital Vision (maker of Film Master) and Filmlight (maker of Baselight) are a part.

[Illya Laney]

Fotokem’s KMP uses a Nucoda/Avid workflow and it works well. A lot of work is shot with Alexa and follows the basic offline/online editorial routine.

twitter.com/illyalaney

nextLAB Mobile
SpeedGrade DI
Resolve
da Vinci 8:8:8 Renaissance
Color
Truelight