[Michael Gissing]

Clip stacking on a track works by only playing the top layer. This is normal. The idea is to keep layers underneath without deleting them and to also be able to cross fade between the top layer and the layer immediately underneath. It’s a great way to edit dialog and music without splitting over a whole lot of tracks.

If you want to hear all the layers, they need to be on separate tracks.

[Michael Gissing]

I do post work that has been edited in FCPX and transfered to Resolve via fcpxml. Resolve translates this pretty well but you need to collapse all compounded clips like multicam. Also you can only export a timeline with each fcpxml so it doesn’t transfer a whole project. If you want to maintain your folder structure then before you import an xml, setup a new Resolve project including frame rates and pixel aspect. Then on the media page import your media with the option to maintain all folders and sub folders. Then import the timeline and untick the option to bring in media as it is already there.

Resolve will do an excellent job at translating a lot of basic effects and resizing etc but you will need to check through and reapply things like stabilisation, shot flop/ flip and any moves using proprietary plugins. Some text will translate but third party plugins might not unless you have the OFX version installed. Things can go wrong if you have any media with duplicated file names and timecode so there may be typically DJI drone files that are notoriously using duplicate names and not proper time of day timecode.

It doesn’t need to be on the same machine but you do need to be sure all the media is on an external drive. The other gotcha moving to a different machine is making sure the fonts used are pre installed on the new computer

[Michael Gissing]

It’s certainly possible and it’s easier if I just give you a YouTube link that shows this. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fgXFiYtiCa8

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[Michael Gissing]

I ditched Pr when it went subscription a long time ago. I’ve used Resolve since vers8 for grading. I’d not recommend Adobe for anything anymore. The subscription model is a no no but more importantly as an editing tool I feel it has fallen behind in many areas and editors who have switched to Resolve from Pr tell me Pr is so buggy. The grade and audio tools in Resolve are way ahead of Pr.

If you plan to finish in Resolve then it’s a total no brainer to stay in that ecosystem rather than suffer the translation from Pr into Resolve as Resolve is the most common grade and finishing tool around.

[Michael Gissing]

Both FCP and Resolve need minimum specs to be able to manage big projects. Your laptop has enough RAM and the M1 chips are OK but your codec may be a handful for the chip and changing to Resolve may not make that much difference. Also I assume your media is all on an external drive and if you have a big drive, make sure it fast enough and has enough space as that can be a bottle neck. Rest assured however that many of us manage huge feature length docos with lots of media in Resolve including grading and complex sound post so the software does handle it.

As Joseph said, you can export an xml of your current timeline which will translate your edit and many of the effects like standard dissolves so you may not need to start again. I recommend you bring all your media into your project before you import the xml so you can keep the folder structure on you drive. If you import an xml and tick the box to import media, it just grabs the media in that timeline and throws it into a single master folder.

Also you can only import timelines not whole projects so any timelines you need, create them in FCP first and untick the import media option. Resolve is pretty good at finding the media if you pre import it in all its folders. However you may find the odd file that won’t connect correctly if you have repeated file names and timecodes. This happens all the time with people shooting with DJI drones and not managing their file names before editing, allowing a lot of duplicated names.

[Michael Gissing]

I think Topaz wins because it is doing three basic things adaptively and dynamically in one pass. Upscale with sharpening, denoising and de-artifacting. Resolve can do most of that but the upscale, sharpen and denoise are separate plugin processes. For me the compression de-artifacting in Topaz is an important part of its secret sauce.

[Michael Gissing]

As well as the methods outlined in the Boris article, there are tracking options within Motion that also give greater control similar to using Mocha with the Boris plugin. I suggest searching for a YouTube tutorial. Try people like Casey Faris who is a whiz in Fusion and does excellent easy to follow tutorials

[Michael Gissing]

The Topaz files should have an added suffix. I replace the clips in the timeline by selecting the Topaz version in the media pool then right click on the matching old clip in the timeline and then selecting Conform lock with selected clip in media pool. This should mean the clip in the timeline will also show the correct new file name. I’m not sure where abouts you are doing your replace method but I’ve never had an issue doing it this way.

[Michael Gissing]

You can enable or disable features in the mixer view. Select the three dots at the top right of the mixer view and enable what you want

[Michael Gissing]

Can you tell the difference without a difference matte? Are you also taking into account things like frame blend, vs optical flow etc. I would hope both systems did their calculations based on timecode so the in frame for both should be identical.

I should add you might have to interrogate the xml from PP and the return xml from Resolve to see if the correct timecode match is an xml problem and where that error is generated