[Marc Wielage]

You want to cover up the area at the bottom? Then from within the node, create a new additional window and turn the MASK function on. Read Chapter 111 “Combining Keys and Using Mattes” in the manual. This is very helpful for situations where you need to define a keyed area with one window, and sometimes you need to exclude the key from another area that overlaps it (like a moving actor).

[Marc Wielage]

What happens if you start a brand-new project from scratch and try to import the same files? Just curious.

Once they’re in the new project, it’s very easy to cut-and-paste the clips from the timeline to a different project in Dynamic Project mode. Try that and see what happens.

[Marc Wielage]

They’re smart people at CO3. They know how to deal with EXR and have some of the best color scientists in the world

Talk to me in email and I can provide further info.

[Marc Wielage]

Another way is to use the Color Space Transform nodes provided for free within Resolve. It is possible to manipulate Linear EXR files and get usable files right within Resolve. (And I thank @Juan Melara for the details on that process.)

[Marc Wielage]

More screen real estate for the GUI is generally a good thing.

External displays can show anything you set in the Output Scaling options. You can use a 4K timeline and an HD output display with no problem, or vice-versa. Or a 4K timeline and a 4K display, or an HD timeline and an HD display. The section on scaling in the manual is a critical one to understand when dealing with projects at one resolution that need to be delivered at another.

[Marc Wielage]

Same computer? Same drive? Could it possibly be a permissions problem? In general, any variation of ProRes is an easy import.

I’m not a fan of the App Store version because it omits a bunch of features, but it does have the advantage on working on several computers at the same time.

[Marc Wielage]

Yes, this has been discussed on LiftGammaGain. I think it’s a CPU issue, not necessarily a Resolve problem, where the computer reacts about a frame late in decoding the XAVC segments.

My workaround:

1) extend the XAVC clip so that it starts a few frames early.
2) split the clip at the point it’s supposed to begin.
3) adjust the correction on the initial segment to black (either with a correction or opacity)
4) if the “green flash” syndrome occurs, you won’t see it because it will be hidden underneath the opacity/black correction.

When you do this, my theory is that the computer is already in “XAVC decoding mode,” and the green glitches go away.

I have not had it happen on back-to-back XAVC clips, only cases where a timeline begins with black followed by an XAVC clip. It’s possible this could be improved with Resolve 15.1.2, which came out today.

[Marc Wielage]

This is an example where I think if you pulled a carefully-qualified luma key on the highlights and tracked it, you could knock the sky down another 20%, which would help sell the look better. I run into this all the time. The key is to avoid artifacts with transitions like the leaf edges.

[Marc Wielage]

[Rob Ellis] “I’ve found that playback has suddenly become choppy, whereas it wasn’t at all before I upgraded the OS. I’ve tinkered with playback settings but nothing seems to be helping – considering all my settings are the same as they were before I upgraded I should think it would still be fine. It seems to stutter and not play properly and take about 3-4 seconds to reach 24 frames and even then it’s still choppy and unviewable.”
Heftier hardware would help. As a workaround, what happens if you turn on optimized media? I bet this could help a lot.

[Marc Wielage]

Yes, I agree with Tero: you have to just make judgements with the picture monitor. The scopes are not enough. So much depends on fill light, shadows, and how much sky is visible, it’s tough to make general observations.

The American Cinamatographer Manual has a great chapter on how DPs have to light day-for-night, but sadly, not enough of today’s crews have read that book. The same lessons that applied to film 50-60 years ago still apply to digital today.

One thing I can and will do in some cases is to grab a key from the sky (if I can get it clean) and darken that to a point, then add a tracking window on top of that to darken it more in an additional node. That will generally take the curse off it. But shadows on the ground and excessive fill light… lighting problems like those are very hard to work around. And then there are people who shoot day-for-night with cars and forget to turn the car headlights on…