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RTFCP – Back to Final Cut EDL Converter tool
I am releasing a tool that will (hopefully) allow for easier roundtripping from a Resolve render back to FCP timeline. I am calling it RTFCP (Resolve to FCP) – very original I know!
The gist of the program is this:
You create an EDL file for Resolve. Grade your project, then render all the timeline clips in Source mode. My program parses and converts the original EDL and creates a new EDL, that when imported into FCP, allows you to easily link all the media.WARNINGS:
While my tool won’t eat you alive it’s seen limited testing. I would give it a whirl or two. I’m sure bugs will come up. Please report anything you find and I’ll see if it’s fixable!Please post any bugs here or email them to *@*****ab.net
How to get it:
Download zip file here:
https://www.vladk.net/RTFCP/RTFCP_v0_1.zipHow to use it:
There is a Readme in the ZIP file describing usage. I am not a documentation writer, so forgive any confusion! I will try to answer any questions here if any crop up.The program itself is a JAR file, so you’ll need Java to run it. All macs as far as I know come with Java so it should be no problem. It should also theoretically work on Windows.
Handles
This tool allows you to render from Resolve with handles and relink to original timeline in FCP. To do this you simply pass the number of frames you’ve added to the head of each shot within Resolve as a parameter to RTFCP.Assumptions
RTFCP does things somewhat blindly. It assumes you are following certain workflow conventions. I’ve outlined them in the readme file. They are close to what you’re already doing for QT workflow – getting reel names from files with */%R.* and pulling reel names from EDL comments.It’s very important to look at the render settings – there are very specific conventions that must be followed there.
Problems and Limitations
My tool isn’t the correct way to achieve this functionality but it should work. I developed it because I am constantly having trouble giving back the client workable timelines. As it is somewhat of a hack, not everything works (yet!)Big ones:
Speed effects – better not have them in your timeline. Resolve doesn’t render speed effects in source mode very well.
Some cases of handles – if some of your clips don’t have enough head for the handle you’ve given, Resolve will insert black. RTFCP, however, will not relink these clips. They will appear offline and will have to be brought in manually.Fun Undocumented DaVinci stuff
By undocumented, I mean that I never saw this in the manual.
During output, you can specify variables in Prefix and Suffix. They are:%L = filename
%R = resolution
%T = EDL REEL
%V = Version NameI use this feature to keep all filenames unique during render, and to find files afterwards. Very helpful!
That just about wraps it up. I hope that this tool works for some of you, and makes your lives a little easier!
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11 Replies
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There’s another tool to reconnect files to FCP. Its called FCPReconnect. Could it be that if Resolve for Mac renders out as Quicktime with source timecode, FCP reconnect can take an FCP XML or EDL and reconnect back to these rendered files?
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Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India -
Cool, thanks Vlad.
Whats the difference between doing this, and just reconnecting to media in a single folder? (assuming you had media managed it beforehand?)
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Not too much difference if you’re media managing, except that it saves you that step. I deal with a lot of RED projects though, and it’s not really possible to media manage R3Ds as far as I could figure out.
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hey Vlad,
Cool, checked it out. Seems you’re basically assigning a randomly generated suffix per clip.
It seems that you could even take this a step further.If the suffix were generated predictably, you could feed the script both an EDL and XML from your FCP project. (The script would modify both EDL and XML with the same substitutions.)
Resolve would import the EDL, output the media, and you’d import the new XML into FCP.
Then we’ve got actual roundtrip functionality.
Off topic, the “right” way to be doing this is supposedly using the “split and add” function. I however have never gotten it to work correctly. Do you have any experience with this? If yes, why did you choose the script over split and add?
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The suffix is actually not random. The number at the end of each clip is frame count (from 0) of that clip’s IN timecode. So if timecode were 00:00:01:05, suffix would be 00000029 (24 frames + 5 frames)
The idea is, if a clip is marked in EDL to start at 00:00:01:05, I know what the filename of the rendered clip will be. So I just change the filename to that. Resolve outputs timecode correctly, so even if I add handles everything links up properly.
So in that sense, I’m getting true roundtrip right now. I export my EDL, import that into Resolve, grade, and export. Then I convert the EDL, import the new EDL into FCP and all media reconnects to the identical timeline I exported. I’m not 100% sure what using XML would add in this case. Do you mind elaborating?
I haven’t used split and add too much myself, but I love my automatic clip linking when grading. Especially for music videos where a single performance shot is cut in 50 times across the timeline, it’s so easy when you grade one, grade them all. This method allows me to maintain all original relationships of source footage and get a near perfect roundtrip.
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Maybe I haven’t fully wrapped my head around how to use this yet, but..
Importing an EDL into FCP will lose geometry, filters, keyframes, speed warps, multi-layers, etc.
If you can create an XML that links to your newly named media, but preserves all of the original “extras”, that would be pretty cool.
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Hmmm, well you’re right. And I do have plans to update this with XML support – but it’s a much harder parser to write because there’s a lot more data to take care of. There are also the following issues which make roundtripping some of the things you mentioned somewhat useless.
1) Geometry I usually do in Resolve because most of the time I’m working with 4k red down to 1080p and want the best res for zooming.
2) Multi layers aren’t supported in Resolve anyway 🙁 what I would do is make multiple EDLs then reassemble in FCP. Not too too difficult, and the opacity levels are preserved in EDL.
3) Resolve sucks at rendering speed warps in source mode. Last time I tried it rendered me about 100 2 frame quicktime files. The EDL will import with the timewarp fine, but you won’t have a render file to link to. That’s why I always create a 2nd EDL with all my speeds effects “undone” – then render that after I render the main show, and re-do them in After Effects (looks better anyway!)That only leaves filters and keyframed animations and such. Which would definitely be nice to roundtrip, but again, I can probably copy paste all that data from the original timeline onto my new one.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that this script is a shortcut for a defficiency. I’m probably going to be chipping away at an XML variant but I’m really hoping BM beats me to it with some native XML roundtrip support!
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I’m having a bit of trouble with it.
Setting the render prefix to %T_ gives me rendered files such as..
%T_00062243.mov
Its not injecting the reel name.
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Interesting… does your clip have a reel name? If it doesn’t that could be a problem..
Could you try %L_ instead? that would use the filename.
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