[Mike Most]

Well, for one thing, Resolve can’t recreate typical Avid effects like speed ramps, especially when keyframes are involved. It also doesn’t directly recreate things like multiple panels, push on effects, and the like. I know – round trip – but in many cases that’s just not practical, nor does it always suit clients, who often wants to watch a finished, feature complete show when they’re grading. Using a pre conform approach is very, very common, especially in television series, because it solves all of those issues. And while it’s true that things like resizing are much better done in Resolve (infinitely better quality, especially on blowups) that’s not always particularly practical, especially if there are a large number of editorial effects or separately supplied VFX shots – all of which would need to be either recreated or accounted for in the conform.

[Mike Most]

If you use the entire file name – without the extension – as the tape name in Resolve (you have to use the “conform assist” option with the path extraction control string for that) there shouldn’t be any problem as long as you’re on MC6. In the relink options select “relink tape sources to file sources” and that will allow you ro relink AMA sources.

You can sync any double system audio in Media Composer quickly and easily.

[Mike Most]

No, it’s not. What Baselight does is a bit hard to explain in Resolve terms, but basically they allow you to cache any portion of the processing pipeline. So you can tell the system to cache all input strips, and it will spin off a background caching operation that will make DPX files out of the inputs only and substitute them for the “live” originals. This can be very useful for formats like R3d, for instance, because it will create “living proxies” that are fully debayered and decompressed. This still allows you to change the R3D SDK settings, though, and if you do, the frames will automatically be re-cached, allowing you essentially work directly from R3D files but without the overhead of live debayering. You can also cache to any point in the correction stack, which would be analogous to telling Resolve “cache the first 2 nodes only and leave any other nodes live.” The end result is a kind of live proxy system that is controlled by the user. Very flexible and useful.

[Mike Most]

What you seem to be asking for isn’t really proxies, it’s selective caching. Autodesk Smoke does this in the background, and the upcoming version of Baselight has this implemented in a user controlled, flexible way. Perhaps Blackmagic will do something similar in a future version.

[Mike Most]

Until very thorny and unpredictable legal questions are answered regarding the open source Prores codec, don’t expect to see Prores encoding in Resolve on any platform other than the Mac.

In other words, don’t hold your breath and don’t move to Windows expecting that you will have Prores encoding now or in the future.

[Mike Most]

You could also try breaking it up into sections and using tools like the command line tools in QT Coffee to combine them after exporting. That way you’re not forcing any individual program to deal with the large files.

Terminal is your friend. Command line = power.

[Mike Most]

Define “very expensive.” Compared to almost free (i.e., Resolve), yes, it’s expensive. Compared to anything that’s actually comparable (i.e., Quantel iQ) it’s ridiculously cheap at around $16K.

If one is a hobbyist, I guess it could be considered expensive. If one is actually going to use it professionally and make money with it, the cost is relative to the business you generate with it.

[Mike Most]

You don’t have to use the Media Tool. When Avid starts up, it will create two files in the numbered folder you created, assuming you put it in the right place. Create a new bin, and drag the file that ends in .mdb into it. It will populate the bin with master clips for all of the files in the folder.

The fact that Avid uses a specific directory structure and doesn’t import its own native files is only odd if you think that Final Cut is “normal.” Neither one is odd or normal, it’s just the way the programs were written. Avid was designed to keep track of files via a database that is very robust, and in order to do that, they took care to design the program so that you wouldn’t be able to easily break that database. That was the reason for OMF files in the past, and MXF files today, because even if you change the name of the file – not easily done because they’re in that unique directory structure – the metadata used to access that media is written into the file headers, allowing the program to work even if you change the file names. Most users would rather have that kind of bullet proof media management than the free form approach taken by other programs in which you can all to easily break the links between media and your editing work.

[Mike Most]

You’ve got to be kidding. You’re actually complaining that turning all nodes on or off is mapped to two buttons that are right next to each other instead of only one button? If you wanted to complain that there’s no current keyboard shortcut for navigating up and down the node tree, I could see that. But this???

Some people just won’t be happy until great programs like Resolve are given away for free. Oh, wait, it IS being given away for free…..

[Mike Most]

Ale’s are simple text files. They rarely undergo “corruption.”

The problems with using Resolve dailies sessions and color tracing are numerous. The sessions all have to be separately traced. If the tape names are not exactly the same in the final EDL tracing will not work. And finally, if any LUTs are used, those LUTs must be available and properly placed to recover the original correction correctly. Using CDLs limits you to primary correction, but it doesn’t require the presence of any specific LUT or anything else. It also puts in everything from one list. And in most cases, the daily correction is not likely to be used directly, it’s going to be more of a visual guide for the final colorist, especially if you’re working with log format originals (such as Alexa LogC or Redlogfilm transcodes from R3D files).

Simpler is almost always better, especially when it’s a fairly good bet that everyone from production through final finishing is not necessarily on the same page.