[Mike Most]

Using only Element trackballs for grading would be a lot more practical if the Offset control was mapped to one of them. And contrast to another. I agree with another poster who mentioned that Scratch allows a lot of that kind of thing because it includes a custom mapping function. I’m not comparing the two, but at this point in time it’s clear that a lot of Resolve users are using and will continue to use third party panels, particularly the Element set. Custom mapping is something that would go a long way towards making those panels more useful and efficient.

[Mike Most]

>>Thing is, how many of us are going to be able to afford a digital cinema projector?

Hence the reason for not trying to fake one. If your monitoring environment is set up for Rec709 displays – which most “proper” environments are – then use that and rely on the DCP supplier (or software, if you’re doing it yourself) to make a proper conversion. The conversion won’t be perfect, but it will be a lot better than trying to simulate P3 in anything but a “proper” digital cinema environment.

[Mike Most]

No, not “worth a go.” You should really go back and read the article you referenced all the way through. Towards the end, Art wisely explains that P3 is a color space that is designed for large displays (primarily projectors, as it was essentially created directly from the visual characteristics of the original TI DLP Cinema projectors) in dark environments, such as a theater. Any other variation – namely, smaller displays or environments with reasonable amounts of ambient light – is inappropriate for the P3 specification. Human interpretation of color is not based solely on the source, it is very reliant on the size of the display and the environment. Accuracy of the display, as evidenced by a non-human meter, is not an accurate indication of how the human eye and brain will interpret that display when the size of the image is increased or when the viewing conditions are different. You cannot properly gauge what an image will look like on a digital cinema projector in a theater by looking at it on a 12 inch OLED monitor in a room with the lights on (or off, for that matter), regardless of the alleged “accuracy.”

[Mike Most]

I would add that “popping back and forth” is the method that I (and nearly all colorists who I came up with) normally used. Split screens are visually confusing and a bit time consuming to bring up. The only time I really used them were to closely match a particular item in the shot – a product shot of a bottle in a beer commercial, for instance. For “normal” continuity matching in narrative work, I would usually cut between my current correction and a still, then massage the current correction (continually popping back to the still) until I walked my way into a perceptual match. The problem with split screens is that they usually lead you towards matching specific items rather than the overall “feel.” That might work, as I said, in a product shot, but in narrative work, you’re looking for a comfortable flow, not specific item color matches. After I decided the “flow” felt right, I would play the last few shots to see if it was all working, and build the scene and the show that way. Getting the feel right sometimes requires doing things that seem counterintuitive if you only look at stills, because overall shot flow is based on mood rather than specific balance. In a warm scene, it is immediately obvious if one shot doesn’t have the same degree of warmth as the others, but it’s not necessarily as obvious if you just look at each shot individually as a still and see that the waveforms line up. Continuity is about feel, not necessarily precision.

[Mike Most]

Saving a still and wiping to it is the method colorists have used for the last 30 years (using dedicated still stores and a video switcher at first, and later the DaVinci Gallery), and for many shows that have a lot more than 500 shots. The key is to clean up after yourself. Once you have a match, don’t insist on comparing every single outgoing frame to every single incoming frame if the shots are being re-used. If they matched 2 cuts ago, they probably match now. Resolve has restored and maintained the ability to use single keystrokes to recall the last correction and the “second to last” correction, even if you don’t have the DaVinci panel set. That feature alone has allowed colorists to speed through narrative productions very, very quickly once the two or three angles being used are established. Speed has been a necessary part of the entire DaVinci approach for as long as I can remember (and I can remember pretty far back…), so you might want to try these time tested approaches before you decide that you need something more “automatic” to achieve efficiency.

Ooops, just saw Marc’s post. Similar experience, similar conclusions. Great minds think alike 😉

[Mike Most]

I didn’t read all of the previous entries in this thread and misinterpreted your question. Sorry.

The simplest way to do this is to grab a still of the outgoing frame. Then you can wipe to it and adjust your incoming frame as you described. Hopefully I’m not misinterpreting again…

[Mike Most]

https://software.blackmagicdesign.com/DaVinciResolve/docs/DaVinci_Resolve_11_Manual_2014-06-24.pdf

It’s all documented, if you would make the effort to look.

Of course, if everyone would actually RTFM, half the questions on Creative Cow would be unnecessary.

[Mike Most]

It doesn’t matter what bin(s) the AMA clips are in. What is important is that the bin(s) be open with all of the clips selected in order for the relink to work in the way I’ve described.

[Mike Most]

1. Open the bins containing the AMA master clips.
2. In each of these bins, select all of the clips.
3. Go back to the bin that has your sequence.
4. Right click on the sequence and select “relink.”
5. In the relink dialog, select the item in the top section that says “relink to selected items in all open bins,” or something like that.
6. On the source side of the relink selection, choose time code and source file name. Also check “ignore extension.”
7. Relink.

[Mike Most]

One of the things that very few people (especially those who aren’t normally Avid editors) understand is that unlike Final Cut, Premiere, and a number of other editing programs, Avid does not use the file name as a relink criteria. The media file names are irrelevant. What it does use is metadata, specifically time code and tape name, as the matching criteria. As long as those two items match, the file name can be anything. In fact, you can even change the file name on existing files in the numbered media folder and they will still relink properly. This is a strength and a weakness all in one. It’s a strength because unlike other programs, the file names can be changed – whether accidentally or on purpose – and everything will still come up properly. It’s a weakness because this is not particularly intuitive to those who think that the file name is critical. So, armed with this knowledge, it should be clear that what is important when trying to create files that will relink in Avid is to make sure the time code is the same, and the tape name is the same. I’m not sure whether the original poster is using a single file, assembled sequence from Avid with an EDL to cut it up, whether they’re relinking to original media, or whether they’re getting consolidated media from Avid. So depending on what the circumstances are, the trick is to come up with a way to repeatedly generate clips from Resolve that have the same time code and tape name as those coming from Avid. The other option, mentioned by someone else in this thread, is to export a new roundtrip AAF with the new renders. You can then edit that new sequence into a new track in Avid and the new shots will come up in place of the existing ones, assuming you place the sequence into a higher track than the existing material.