[Adam Harper]

That is what we decided to do eventually. We just exported a ProRes 4444 file from DaVinci and have AMA-Linked to that in AVID so we can add the subtitles and audio.

As for the resizing, I tried every option in the AAF/OMF section of the “Import” in Settings and the same thing occurred each time. I think the issue itself lies within the sequence or timeline, as when I select the individual clips in the AVID Bin that have been transcoded from DaVinci, it appears fine in the source window. It’s only when put into the timeline that the squeezing occurs.

[Adam Harper]

BUMP

I added a resize effect and stretched it out, this solved the crop but of course the quality dropped. However, it seems the issue lies with the sequence as when I select the clips that have come from DaVinci, the squeezing problem vanishes and the quality is up to standard. Don’t know if this might give a further indication of what the issue is?

[Adam Harper]

Apologies, which import are you referring to? The .AAF from DaVinci back into AVID?

[Adam Harper]

Hi Michael.

It would appear that the frame rate issue was the source of the problem. The DIT and I didn’t realise that the US and UK allowed for different encoding frame rates (we are in the UK) so that’s why the 25fps option wasn’t available to us initially. We downloaded the UK version, transcoded it to the correct frame rate and it all worked fine. I was able to do the MXF, ALE and AAF merge as well.

Thanks for you help.

[Adam Harper]

Okay so I just found out that the DIT followed the instructions a bit too closely and when it came to the codec settings, it was set to 23.976 fps whereas the footage is 25 fps. Could that be the cause of the problem?

[Adam Harper]

All the clips had the same error. We could try re-doing it but I’m worried that the same thing will happen again during the shoot and having to redo things wouldn’t be ideal.

I appreciate the link however that was back in 2010 and according to some of the posts, Red Cine-X was in it’s BETA stage at that point. Can it really be a similar issue 6 years later? It does offer solutions but they seem incredibly time consuming and I’d rather figure out how to prevent the problem from occurring at all.

[Adam Harper]

I should also point out that there no audio has been added to any of these clips, hence my utter confusion as to why “Audio” appears to be the source of the issue.

[Adam Harper]

Okay great. A large amount of the footage is in RED RAW format so I guess it’ll be better to go for the AMA-Linked method.

Thanks for all your advice and patience Michael! Much appreciated.

[Adam Harper]

My original plan of attack was once I had relinked to the camera files and created a new timeline I would then transcode the timeline into MXF 1×1, as that was basically the highest quality available and then have it sent to resolve. Those MXF files would then be graded as it were and then I would bring the colour corrected files back into AVID.

What I understand from what you’ve written, is that you relinked to all the camera files via AMA-Link but didn’t transcode them. Then sent that timeline via AAF to Resolve and because it’s linked to the original camera files, you were able to colour correct them and then you transcoded them to a high quality to be brought back into AVID. Is that correct or have I completely misunderstood?

[Adam Harper]

Okay. Sorry to be pedantic but I just want to ask a couple of questions so I can make sure I’m doing this 100% correctly to avoid any headaches for later on. As you can probably tell, I’m still learning!

1. This was done with the method of switching from 1080p to UHD and back to 1080p after transcoding (whilst maintaining the source frame rate)?

2. I’m probably missing a detail or misreading things but I was under the impression that one had to relink and transcode the timeline to a higher quality before it gets colour corrected? I don’t mean to question your knowledge as you clearly know what you’re talking about but maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’ve done here?