Not reading Timecode of MXF files properly

DaVinci Resolve

Not reading Timecode of MXF files properly

Posted by Peter Berg on November 14, 2011 at 9:15 pm

I am conforming a show and most of the sequence is coming through great. But a few clips are coming in out of sync by a few seconds. The offline edit is happening on Avid and they are sending me an AAF and the MXF media for the sequence.

I looked, and the DaVinci is reading the Timecode of the MXF clips incorrectly. I pull the clip up in my Avid and the start TC is 01:01:43:04 and the start TC of the same clip in the DaVinci is 01:01:39:14. So obviously that clip will not conform correctly (it’s out of sync by approximately 4 seconds. Luckily I have 5 second handles and I can slip the clips to get them back in sync).

Most of my MXF clips come in fine, but a few are not. They all seem to have the same properties (23.98, Avid DNXHD 175, etc.).

Anybody run into this or know of any solutions?

thanks,
Peter

Roman Hankewycz replied 14 years, 6 months ago 3 Members · 5 Replies
5 Replies

Bouke Vahl
November 15, 2011 at 11:55 am

I know NOTHING about your workflow, but the mistake is exactly a DF / NDF conversion.

So i would suggest you start looking in the avid if there is something to be found.

Otherwise, it might be that DaVinci is using MXFinfo to extract the TC.
There used to be a bug in there, see here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ingex/forums/forum/531547/topic/4765164

hth,

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pros
Peter Berg
November 19, 2011 at 12:00 am

Thanks for the reply Bouke. I don’t think that specific issue is the problem since all my media in the Avid is 23.98. As you know, there is no NDF/DF issue there since DF does not exist in 23.98.

I am looking at the Avid MXF media in my media composer and on this one clip, the start TC is 01:02:11:08. In the Resolve at the head of that same MXF media clip (the video matches) the TC is coming up as 01:02:07:18. Thus the Resolve is conforming the wrong section of the clip and it is out of sync.

Really annoying. It’s happening to maybe 5-10% of my clips. I can’t find any file properties that are different between those clips and all the rest. If the Avid is seeing the TC correctly, why not the Resolve???

-Peter
Bouke Vahl
November 19, 2011 at 1:03 am

Peter,
well, as stated before, i have NO idea what is happening, and i don’t know daVinci.
But i’m a general TC geek.
Your problem IS a df / ndf issue, since the difference is EXACTLY a df/ndf mismatch.
Now we agree that there should not be DF in 23.976, but do the math, this is no coincidence since you gave two matching examples.

I can give you an analyzer tool to see what i think should be the correct timecode, as well as what i think that goes wrong.
(daVinci using an old version of AvidMXFinfo…)

But what good would it do? I would contact tech support…

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pros
Bouke Vahl
November 19, 2011 at 1:10 am

but the good news, i just saw Michael Phillips is hanging around here.
Now if anyone knows about Avid, it’s Michael. (And he’s a nice guy too!)
Could not hurt paging him…

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pros
Roman Hankewycz
January 10, 2012 at 12:35 am

I’m curious to know if the clips you were having issues with were multi-cam clips. I’ve noticed that Resolve incorrectly reads the start and end TC of multi-cam clips from FCP and I’m wondering if the same is true for AVID.

In FCP I’ve had to re-edit all multicam clips using the original master clips to get everything over to Resolve correctly.

roman hankewycz
harbor film company // colorist

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