[Clement Hobbs]

Resolve doesn’t read MXF wrapped XDCam files according to their supported Codecs list, only quicktime wrapped.

Check here:

https://www.blackmagic-design.com/media/1764192/DaVinci_Resolve_8.0_Supported_Codec_List.pdf

[Clement Hobbs]

Yeah I read about it a short while ago in another COW thread about Resolve on the PC.

Although I don’t think I’ll change midway through our series now if the single output/input file works well enough, but I’ll definitely keep an eye on the new AAF process.

[Clement Hobbs]

We receive consolidated edits from an offline setup out East for conform, grade and package here for commissioning broadcasters and int. distribution.

In this tapeless (XDCam) series, having a number in the tape column is hit & miss when the projects arrive, so there is clean up work that could be done here if we had time but we don’t. The method we’ve used to have files relink is by putting all master clips (source and Resolve renders) into one bin and modifying all tape names to be identical, then relinking the old sequence to the Resolve renders. Seemed odd to me but it works although I don’t like the idea of changing anything on the source master clips (even if we don’t have tape #s in there)
Other then mixdowns not linking back up, we see approx 10% of shots not linking correctly back in the Avid. Not huge but still time consuming to pin point them and manually sort it out. All i/o with Resolve is with DNxHD mxf files.

We also noticed that Resolve seemed to blow away the reel ID information in the clip metadata when it rendered out. We tried a few different settings but didn’t find one that preserved the incoming ID information through to rendered file. If you know of a way to do this I’d love to hear it.

As I said previously, working with one long file for the entire show seems to be the sweet spot for us at this time due to time constraints on the show.
I’m sure if we had more time to fiddle we could find a way for this to work better than it currently does, but the series landed only a week after we had Resolve up & running so we’ve been through trial and error on the fly while trying to maintain schedule.

I am hopeful that with Blackmagic & Avid collaborating more, a thorough round trip will be developed. If you have a cleaner way for round tripping I’m all ears!

[Clement Hobbs]

We ended up bailing out on our workflow that got Resolve footage back into the Avid linked to a timeline.
We were having too many issues with files not linking properly and simply don’t have the time to hand hold the process that much with episodic work piling up. I never did like the idea of changing tape IDs anyway.

In the end, we’re sending one MXF file out to Resolve for the entire episode and using an AAF file to represent the cuts. On the timeline we mix it down to one track and then use the Symphony’s reformat tool pan & scan with subdivide to create the matching edits into the mixdown track. This then shows up in Resolve exactly as it would if we used the original MXF media through AAF except we’ve lost the handles and are dealing with much less media.

From Resolve we’ll render out one file representing the colour corrected mixdown track and bring that back into the avid. It mirrors our traditional tape to tape process, with one video track coming back in, which is what we’re used to dealing with anyway.

Not what I was hoping for but still way more economical for our series budgets and I trust the workflow will improve over time.

[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.

[Clement Hobbs]

The link isn’t working for me either, odd since I ended up there this morning thanks to Eric’s post.

Not sure what’s going on but I re-posted the main steps in the above message. I hope I credited the original author correctly as it couldn’t be verified since the link isn’t working.

Clem

[Clement Hobbs]

As originally posted in the Avid community forum by Marcin Zwolski:

Put all the clips – original and graded ones – in one bin (if not you’ll have to repeat steps 1-5)
1. Select all the clips
2. Choose Modify from Clip menu
3. From pulldown manu choose Set Source
4. Put whatever Tape Name you want
5. Hit OK (several times…)
6. Select graded clips and – at the end – sequence you want to relink
7. Choose Relink from Clip menu
8. Choose Selected items in ALL open bins
9. Uncheck Create new sequence (if you want to)
10. Hit OK

The above procedure worked for us using file based material. Not sure I’d want to modify tape based source clips but I’ll deal with that when I have to.

Clem

[Clement Hobbs]

I tried the solution proposed in this thread and it works for us on file based media.

https://community.avid.com/forums/p/99101/570425.aspx#570425

We just relinked our Resolve graded material in the Avid to the sequence we used for export, worked like a charm.

[Clement Hobbs]

In a perfect world, it would be great to be able to relink the original Avid media clips over to the newly graded renders within the editing app so that the sequence would update to the new grade.

But seeing as this is not a perfect place (yet!), I’d settle for being able to bring in a sequence (ie through AAF) to the Avid and have it link to the media rendered out from Resolve. So effectively ending up with two sequences, the original one that was used for output to Resolve, and one that reflects the return trip after the CC session.

[Clement Hobbs]

Ditto here.

AAF into Resolve work fine.

We can render out files from Resolve and see them back in the Avid, that part works fine. The issue is if we need to connect the clips to a sequence of any kind.
We tried ALE export which didn’t work at all (Avid said invalid film type), we tried an EDL export and the reel IDs were on the EDL, but the MXF files in the Avid had been stripped of their tape #s so no go there. At this point our only workflow would be to render out either with 0 frame handles and drop them to timeline based on file timestamps, or render out as one long file to overlay the sequence similar to if we had received a tape back from a grading session.

I’d love to know if we’re missing something and that there is a way to bring the data back in to Avid and have it link properly to a timeline.