[Joseph Owens]

[andrew smith] “The avid project is 1080p/23.976, all of the files are mxf files DNXHD175.

… what they need to do in order for me to properly grade the r3d files and render back out however they want. …

dont know whether to ask them to remove dissolves, speed changes, etc and collapse to a single video track or what.”

If the media has been transcoded to DNxHD, then it is no longer a RED/RDC project, its a straightforward MC/AAF/MXF workflow.

Unless you are reconforming the project back to the RED raw source files which, if you’re starting the project *soon*, sounds ambitious.

You don’t have to remove dissolves; Resolve will show them to you and actually preview them, (take that! COLOR). Speed changes are a little dicey– more or less same caveats apply as late versions of COLOR. For the most part its the variable speed changes that throw a wrench, and trackers go crazy.
Resolve 8.0 started supporting multiple video tracks. You can even do some rough compositing between them to, for example, preview and grade green screens and occasionally split infinitives, if you boldly go there.

jPo

You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?

[Joseph Owens]

This workflow seems bizarre from the get-go.

The simplest solution would be to continue with a normal FCP to Resolve transfer in ProRes. Grade, and export DNxHD MXF out of Resolve in Target mode to deliver a completed, graded final project to Media Composer.

However, if you want to be able to undo the show and re-cut it in Media Composer, an editable, probably “handled” export will be more complex. In that case, there may be some room for an Automatic Duck AAF/XML translation. Even Premiere could be pressed into service if the timeline is relatively simple.

It would be a small investment for software outlay (considering that Automatic Duck is now “free”, like so many other applications, these days) if the time factor outweighs the financials.

jPo

You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?

[Joseph Owens]

Consider external audio sync issues if you are in fact converting from “whole frame” 30.000 fps to 29.97.

I know this from long and hard-won lessons transferring 24 fps film (the kind with sprockets) to 2997 with double system sound. In fact it is this frame rate that is the “pull down” that people refer to as “3:2 pulldown”. (Its not the “pulldown” that gets removed, its the redundant fields).

Also beware that some consumer solutions obfuscate the frame rate nomenclature in a vain and misguided attempt to simplify things for an otherwise oblivious market. For example, Final Cut still refers to 23.98 as “24”. It makes it confusing for those of us who actually understand these things, and need to know what the exact frame rate is. So although you may indeed be shooting at 30.000 fps, there is still the possibility that that is in name only, and would be a mightily weird choice and a departure from over a half a century of an established format. It does disqualify your project from a majority of transmission methods.

jPo

You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?

[Joseph Owens]

All very amusing. I could cry.

So having been twisting dials for over three decades, I have seen some changes. The trend has generally been more for less. Yes I bought into… or maybe invested … in assisting this in some respects by getting into Final Touch. Which now is part of FCX as an auto-grade/auto-match plugin. So what?

There are still thousands of editors out there who just want an “auto-look” button and *grading* software will never be for them. I heard some ‘woo-hooing’ out my door (with this announcement) that Resolve Lite ‘doesn’t suck anymore’… However, I’m still puzzled by what that means. Like many, or maybe the vast majority, I am one of those FCP users that never used either Motion or Soundtrack Pro, but I’d hasten to add FWIW that I’m getting fed up with DVD Studio Pro, but still use LiveType. (I really don’t “get” Apple, either, in some respects.)

Little-d daVinci is gone… we need to move on. The more I use Resolve, the better it gets — but is it the software? Debatable. However, as far as ruining the business model goes, I see this about every 5 years. Surf or die, was the message from Stephen St. Croix decades ago. Where there is no money, there never was a market, and where there is no talent, there is also no opportunity. The situation now is that there is so much chaos and confusion (co-opted democracy becoming anarchy) that if you know *anything* (for sure) you have a leg up on your nearest competitor.

Reductio ad absurdum, there’d be robots flying all the airliners by now… and nothing would ever go wrong. And won’t it be entertaining when the machines completely take over and do everything for free even without our asking them to? Awhile ago, I took a cinematographer’s observation to heart that ‘the only sin we can commit is boredom’, so that’s my real fight.

jPo

You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?

[Joseph Owens]

You are back in the old tape-to-tape workflow, where transitions have to be handled with keyframe/dynamics and masks. Dissolves are fairly straightforward — add a dynamic mark at the start of the dissolve, and a mark at the end. The correction will “fade” between the two.

Wipes and composite scenes can sometimes be handled with “power” windows (” dynamic vignettes”).

An alternative would be to bring the .mov in twice, so that you actually create a synthetic source clip layer. Cut and grade the mov in such a way that you can grade the layers separately and re-create the transitions whether they are dissolves, wipes or composites back in the FX or editing application of your choice.

When Apple COLOR showed itself to be very weak in this area, or the grade-tracking from one set of values to another is problematic, this became an alternative workflow that many NLE colorists adopted.

Having the original source clips available on separate layers is, of course, vastly preferable.

jPo

You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?

[Joseph Owens]

You’ll be on Media Composer 6 anyway, though… right?

jPo

You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?

[Joseph Owens]

“If” it is useful, “and” it is Mac-compatible, or the Windows version is really the wave of the future (again), with the failure of Apple to move forward in its ProApp division.

jPo

You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?

[Joseph Owens]

This looks very nice and everything, but some of us have no use for Twitter, and zero interest in creating yet another hole-in-space account.

jPo

You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?

[Joseph Owens]

[Eric Johnson] “The Viewer”

With all the caveats that come with an uncalibrated DVI display.

jPo

You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?

[Joseph Owens]

[Peter Chamberlain] ” DNxHD read and write support.”

Is this MXF wrapper DNxHD (as originally available on commercial basis) or Quicktime DNxHD?

jPo

You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?