The way the service works is you simply upload your audio files and get your transcripts back in near realtime and often faster than realtime. I just uploaded 4 hours of interviews yesterday and had all the transcripts ready in just over an hour.   What’s AWESOME is that the text is sync’d to the audio file.  Click anywhere in the transcript, click “Play” and you hear the audio play back as you read. No more searching through the video to hear what the SOT actually sounds like.  This sync to sound is just the icing on the cake for me.   Oh and if you highlight any portion of the transcript, Trint tells you how long that SOT is.

There’s also a Adjustable Timecode feature allowing you to set the start TC time for an interview.  Perfectly matching it up to the original TC from the video.

Just had to pass along this tip.  Hope it helps you too!

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WalterBiscardi.com is advice, inspiration & training from working creative professionals on all aspects of the creative industry from pre-production to post to growing your career and business. Learn from working editors, photographers, sound designers, colorists, producers, directors and more to not only learn the basic skills, but real-world, insider knowledge on getting the right job and then building your career in the Film, Television and Creative Media Industry.

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See how all of this started was a simple request on Creative COW from a local Director of Photography who needed help with his editing system.  I responded and when I got to his office, I noticed he had a stack of “Good Eats” DVDs on the desk.  That’s when I found out he was the DP of one of my favorite shows AND it was shot right here in Atlanta.  I honestly had no idea at that time.   When we were done with his system, I left behind a demo DVD that included some silly animations I had created for another client.

Well just a few days later, I got the email below that started a great 5 year run that’s still my favorite project I’ve ever participated in.  The episode was “Sprung A Leek” in Season 8 and Alton was looking for Monty Python inspired work.   As a huge fan of Terry Gilliam and all things Monty Python, AB and I clicked right away and the rest, as they say, is history.  It all culminates with AB proudly proclaiming me as his “Super Geek” in the “Behind the Eats” episode.  Oh I do also have two speaking lines in “Fishin’ Whole” where I get to taunt Alton for his fear of clowns.   Here’s a little article I wrote back in 2006 about the series workflow.  

For me that’s the most wonderful part about sharing knowledge about this incredible industry I get to be a part of.  You just never know who is connected to whom and where your little act of kindness might lead.

The post The Start of “Good Eats” Animations appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

Read about them here

The post 12TB Hard Drives on the Horizon appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

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The post Why I use Rampant Design Tools appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

Read the full details in the Adobe Blog.

The post Adobe moves to support ProRes natively on Windows appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

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It’s Day Three of my “real world” editing on DaVinci Resolve 12.5 and this is going to be the longest blog yet as I want to show you guys a lot of the “little things” that are making editing in Resolve a pleasure.   I know there are a lot of questions still out there whether this is really a professional editor.  For me it’s the small things that separate the applications making life efficient and fun for the the editor.   I also had a pleasant surprise today.  Alexis Van Hurkman, the man who literally wrote the manual on Resolve, called to point out some of the editing specific features that I might not be aware were there.

Day Three Editing.

Today I realized that DaVinci Resolve as an NLE is really the sum of all of its parts.  The Edit Panel alone is NOT the editor.  It’s the entire application working together.  So if all you do is look at the Edit Panel and say “well this is missing a lot of stuff” (like I initially did), you’re missing out on so much more that’s available, particularly in the Color Panel.   I looked at the Color Panel as what comes AFTER editing, but in reality, it’s part of the editing process.  Now that I realize that some of the elements I thought Resolve needed are actually in the app, they’re just in a different place.  Of course having Alexis walk me through a bunch of features for 30 minutes REALLY opened my eyes to a bunch of stuff I didn’t realize was there.   More on that soon.

Exporting

In the edit I started putting a bit more polish on the project, getting it to the point where we should be about ready to move to finish next Monday.  The biggest thing I had to figure out was the round trip to / from After Effects to create a few animated graphics.   Time being of the essence and me being new to Resolve, I reverted to my old FCP workflow.   Export audio guides (clips) from Resolve and use those to build the AE comps.  Very simple.

Resolve does NOT have your standard File > Export command like most NLEs out there.  The Deliver Panel is primarily set up to deliver finished files at the end of the process, but you can also use that panel to export individual clips and selections for approvals and sending to other apps like AE.

First thing I discovered is that In / Out points set in the Edit Panel do NOT transfer over to Deliver Panel.   I set them first in the Edit Panel and when I went over to the Deliver Panel, they were gone.  Alexis explained the reasoning why and it has to do with the fact that the Deliver Panel can output many variations from the same timeline including different combinations of In/Out points.  So the Deliver Panel controls its own set of In/Out points.  Sounds a little confusing to read I know, but in practice it makes sense.   Setting up the video to export is pretty straight forward.    Here  you can see the controls are what you’d expect.  At the top you see you can render a single clip or if you have multiple clips selected, export them as individual clips.  In the File tab, you can either use the name of the timeline or set a custom file name.
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Deliver Panel: Video Format Settings
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And below is one of my guides in After Effects on the bottom most layer (Layer 4).  No fuss, no muss, super easy and then I just rendered a ProRes out of After Effects to send back to Resolve.   If I have to make changes I’ll render them as the same name and let Resolve reconnect to the new file.  Yes, Blackmagic has Fusion, but one application at a time……
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Resolve exported guide files on Layer 4 in After Effects
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Window Burns

Yesterday I could not figure out to get a window burn on my Approval copies.  That’s because I was looking in the wrong place.  Turns out window burn controls in the Color Panel under the Data Burn controls.  See what I mean about the ENTIRE application being the editor?  BMD is not cramming every feature into an “editor” and then having the “color grading” act like a separate app.  It’s all designed to work together.
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Data Burn panel in the Color Panel
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As you can see the options available in Data (Window) Burn go WAY beyond most NLE’s in what you can have displayed on screen.  In fact, most EVERY field of Metadata is available to be displayed on screen via the Custom Text options.  You can see that I have Codec_Scene_Take in my custom text as contextual items.  Every clip that has metadata information in the Codec, Source and Take fields will automatically be displayed as a burned in window on my output as you can see below.
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Data Burn panel in the Color Panel
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Very very slick.  So you set up you Data Burn info in the Color Panel and then you go over to the Deliver Panel to output.  After I did this one time, it was second nature.   For the purposes of this project I just output the Timeline name and the timecode.  This is one example of how the entire application is the editor, not just the Edit Panel.

Keyframing & Curves

One thing that’s not available yet is initiating key framing in the timeline.   You have to start the first keyframe up in the Inspector and then once that’s set, you can alter the settings in the timeline and keyframes are added as you would expect.  I’ve filed a feature request to allow for key framing to start in the timeline such as with a pen tool like so many other NLEs.  However, the Keyframe viewer in the timeline is awesome.
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Keyframe Viewer in the Edit Panel Timeline
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Just like how easy it is to see the labeling of the clips themselves, it’s very easy to see and edit keyframes in the Keyframe Viewer.  This is very nicely done.  Click that little half circle on the right side of the clip or the keyframe viewer and you now have access to the Curves where you can add bezier curves to the keyframes.
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Keyframe Curves controls
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You can see in the dropdown on the left some of the parameters I can add keyframes and curves to.   At the top of the screen you can see there are four curve options giving me a ton of control over the actions of the keyframes.

Composite Controls

Composite controls are located in the Inspector panel and they’re what you would expect to find in a professional NLE.
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Composite Controls in the Inspector
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I use a LOT of Rampant Design Tools in my day to day work so I’m using compositing all the time to overlay these elements on my work.  One thing I’ve requested as a future feature request is the ability to have the composite mode available via right click in the timeline.  That would be a little faster than going up to the Inspector.

Crop, Lens Distortion and More in the Inspector

Speaking of the Inspector, I love how many controls are at our fingertips without the need to add additional filters or effects.
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Additional controls in the Inspector Panel
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I have missed having the Crop controls right there along with the ability to feather the crop.  It always felt like a needless stop to grab a crop filter in other NLEs because it’s something I seem to use ALL the time.  It’s one less thing I have to go get and adds to the efficiency of an edit.

The addition of a Lens Distortion control right in the Inspector is a nice touch.  Obviously a nod to all the GoPro and small cameras that use wide angle lenses.  No need to grab a filter, you can make adjustments to the image right there in the inspector.  There’s also Retiming Controls right there as well.  I have NOT played with these yet, so I can’t comment on how and how well they work.

Transform, Crop and Dynamic Zoom Directly in Monitors

If you’re like me and you like to just want to make quick adjustments in the Source and Record Monitors, changes to scale, position and crop, this is easily done in Resolve, you just have to activate the controls in the lower left of the monitors.
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Transform, Crop and Dynamic Zoom activation control in the Source and Program Monitors
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With the those controls active, you’ll now see you have options to make changes right in the monitors.  Change the scale, crop, position and you can play with the dynamic zoom.  Dynamic zoom is especially great for you FCPX users who like the Ken Burns effects.  Dynamic zoom interprets those movements correctly and allow you to make adjustments to them.
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Transform controls active, moving the video in the monitor.
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Crop Controls active in the monitor, can now make changes within the monitor.
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The ability to just grab and make quick adjustments in the Source / Record monitor is something I’ve missed since switching to Premiere Pro.  It’s in that app, just not as easy to use.  I’ve really missed this from FCP and it just one of those little things that make editing so much faster and efficient.

Drag and Drop Editing

If you’re a Drag and Drop Editor who likes to edit by dragging your clips from the Source to the Record Monitor, you’ll find all your usual overwrite and insert options along with some new ones when you drag your Source clip into the Record monitor.
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Editing options for drag and drop editing.
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I like the Place On Top option so it lays the video on a layer above where the playhead is sitting which is handy when I’m laying in all my Rampant Design effects.  Or if I want to stage multiple takes one above the other, Place On Top means I don’t have to go making track selections with each edit.  You also see the Append to End which is handy if your playhead isn’t at the end of the timeline.  Ripple Overwrite I’ll explain in detail towards the end.  It’s awesome.

Transition Options in the Timeline

Transitions have some nice ‘little things’ that make for an efficient edit.  Right clicking at the head, tail, or between clips not only brings up a transition dialogue, but OPTIONS for those transitions lengths
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Audio Cross Fade Controls
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Video Cross Dissolve Controls
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You can see there’s four options for both Video and Audio transitions right there from 6 to 48 frames.  How convenient is this?   I usually have a default transition set up to 1 second for my projects, but there’s always particular dissolves or cross fades I want to be faster / slower.  No need for that extra step to change the transition duration, I have four choices right there.  Done.  This ‘little thing’ I REALLY like a lot.

As you would expect, you can slide the transitions forward and back in the timeline to make them start, split and a end on the edit or you can make the adjustments in the Inspector.  Feathers and Ease controls can be added to wipes easily in the Inspector.  

Change the Transition Type In the Inspector

Changing the Transition can be done quickly in the Inspector.  
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Transition Controls in the Inspector Panel
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You can see the in drop down box, all the Resolve transition are available so I can just flip through them and adjust on the fly rather than having to drag them one by one to pick the one I want.

For additional filters and effects beyond what Resolve has natively, the application supports Open FX effects but again, the entire application works together as the editor.  Transition effects are found in the Edit Panel while filters are found in the Color Panel.  Both under the Open FX tab.
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Red Giant Universe Transitions in the Open FX tab in the Edit Panel
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Filters and Effects in the Open FX tab in the Color Panel
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I installed the Red Giant Universe filter package which gave me transitions and filters to play with.  I have not gotten the point of applying any filters yet in the Color Panel.  But at first I thought I was missing all the filters and effects, but Alexis pointed me to the Open FX tab in the Color Panel.

I should note that the New Blue FX filters crashed Resolve 12.5.  I honestly don’t use those filters at the moment and forgot they were installed, they installed as part of my Avid installation.  But after uninstalling the New Blue FX everything started working correctly.    Hopefully New Blue FX is updating their products to keep working with Resolve.

Switch To Timeline After Edit controls

Here’s a neat little setting that Alexis pointed me towards.  In the Edit Menu, there is a Switch to Timeline After Edit option that can be disabled.
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Switch to Timeline Option
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When the control is enabled, which is a default for any editing system, when you make an edit from the Source Window, your keyboard control automatically follow the edit to the Timeline.   The assumption is you just made an edit, so now you want to control the Timeline.

But in the case of long rolls with multiple takes, interviews or just longer files that we want to string out, we can turn OFF the automatic switching and the controls will remain with the Source Window.   Mark In / Out, Insert the clip, scroll in the Source, Mark In / Out, Insert the Clip, etc…. without the need to keep re-selecting the Source Window.  That’s actually pretty cool and Alexis was saying this was developed primarily for keyboard editors.

One less click, one less motion to make as you’re editing.  Another ‘little thing.’

Ok, let’s talk about the Ripple Overwrite.

I saw this when I tested the Drag and Drop editing and honestly ignored it.  Then Alexis called and this is the one feature he really wanted to show me because it’s super SUPER amazing and efficient.  Basically what Ripple Overwrite does is allow you to replace a shot in your timeline with one of a different length, and Resolve will automatically ripple your entire timeline keeping all of your edit points and edit timing intact.  Your shot can be longer or shorter and Ripple Overwrite will re-assemble your timeline.   Here it is in action.

I have an edited timeline, music is timed to fade out where I want it, SFX are timed to the action on the screen, Rampant style effects are located at each edit point and even titles are in the timeline.  This is a 4:30 timeline and the 17 second shot highlighted has to be replaced.
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Ripple Overwrite Step One – 17 second clip needs to be replaced with a shorter one.
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If you look up there at the previous image, note especially how I have my music fading out exactly where we want it as the SFX comes in.  Now the replacement clip is only 7:16.  About a 10 second difference.
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Ripple Overwrite Step Two – Replacement shot is 7:16. 10 seconds shorter than the original clip.
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Now, I simply drag the 7:16 clip over to the Record Monitor, lay it onto Ripple Overwrite and…..
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Ripple Overwrite Step Three – Edit is completed and the entire timeline is rippled holding all my timing points automatically.
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The 17 second clip is replaced by the 7:16 clip and all of my timing remains completely intact.  Note the music fade is still precisely lined up with the SFX.   The Rampant Design overlays are still exactly lined up.   In fact my entire timeline is still perfectly and all it took was one click.  This works both for shorter clips and longer clips, the integrity of your timeline and your edit points are held.

Now I will point out that Resolve made a cut edit in my music in order to shorten it up and keep the fade out lined up.  So I have to go back in and make some adjustments to that to ensure that the music remains on the beat.  I’m going to be asking if there’s any way to make the edits more intelligent whereby that fade in the music can be rolled back or forward to accommodate the ripple, instead of cutting it.   BUT one click, ripple my entire timeline and all I have to do is slip my music a bit.   That’s efficiency and something I wish I’ve had for a long time.

Relative Adjustments to Multiple Clips

Here’s another neat feature Alexis pointed out, Relative Adjustments to Multiple Clips.  So if I have clips in the timeline that are Scaled 70%, 80% and 50%.   I can select all three of them and make a Scale reduction of 10% and Resolve will make that change relative to their original sizes.  Making the three clips 60%, 70% and 40% scale.  I can do an absolute change to make them all 10% scale, but this relative changing of multiple clips, is pretty neat.

My Impressions and Next Steps

Well I think if you’ve read all three of these blogs you can tell I’m pretty darn impressed with DaVinci Resolve 12.5.  I have barely scratched the surface and continue to review Alexis’ tutorial on the features.   Is Resolve 12.5 a professional non-linear editing platform?   I would honestly say “Yes” with this release.  I’ve gotten pushback on forums from folks who have tried 12.0 and didn’t feel it could edit well.  I totally agree, it was a step in the right direction, but wasn’t there yet.  I suppose the .5 moniker makes folks thing it’s just an update.   12.5 is an entirely new release that probably should have been called Resolve 13.   This is a solid editing tool that I have enjoyed cutting in and again, I have barely figured this thing out yet.  It’s very feature rich and each time I use it, I’m discovering another one of “those things I wish Resolve had.”

I’ll be finishing the corporate piece this week and I’ve now committed a reality television pilot to Resolve 12.5 next.  I think it’s up to the task.  We have seven episodes of this series shot and one of those will become the pilot.   I’m running the entire series through Resolve.   One thing I’ve been advised on is to keep the project sizes manageable.  HUGE projects with thousands upon thousands of clips can get unwieldy. So I’ll employ the same workflow we used for Good Eats and This American Land where each episode is its own project.

As far as video editing for narrative, corporate, commercial, etc….  Resolve 12.5 is a great tool.  Very efficiently designed and all of the features I’ve found so far are the “little things” that make life easier.   I found myself having fun again in the edit suite.

Look this entire blog series isn’t about “My NLE is better than Your NLE” and the other NLEs suck.   This blog series is about DaVinci Resolve being another option for video editors.  It is a tool that can do the job today.  Whether you choose to use it, well that’s entirely up to you.  I’ll still be using Adobe Premiere Pro for projects because it’s a solid system and Resolve works well with it.  But Resolve is something that is now going to take a bigger place in the toolbox.  Kudos to Peter, Rohit, Alexis, Paul and of course Grant Petty for having a vision to make Resolve more than just one of the best color grading tools on the planet.  And for doing it right, making this a useful tool.

With that, these “Day” blogs on Resolve are done.   I’ll definitely chime back in when we get rolling on the reality series.   Thanks for reading and have an awesome day!
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Some updates on the issues from Day One.

The need to Transcode to ProRes.  Paul Saccone from Blackmagic Design reached out to me and told me I didn’t need to transcode the 4k H264 to ProRes to get better performance.  I can use “Generate Optimized Media” instead.

This basically makes a proxy file that’s easy on the playback and editing but then I can simply switch back to the original H264 files for color grading at the end of the process.   Yes, I still have to generate another set of files, but these go pretty darn quickly and are much much smaller than the ProRes files I generated yesterday.   I thought the Generate Optimized Media was really for use with large files like RAW, but it looks like it’s just as useful with the DSLR stuff too.

Not Automatically Scaling my 4k to 1080 HD

I knew this was a setting that I wasn’t finding and thanks to Dmitry Kitsov’s response on Twitter, I now know where the “magic button” is.   It’s in Project Settings > Image Scaling Preset.

The default was Scale Entire Image to Fit but what I really wanted was Center Crop with No Resizing.  Seems like a long mouthful but as you can see there are four different options for mismatched resolution files so I guess that’s the easiest way to describe it.

So on to Day Two.

Everything so far has been very intuitive, even in my sleep deprived state last night, I was finding new functions simply by doing what I always do with certain keystrokes.

Duplicate a clip is simply Option+drag which I used a LOT last night because I was duplicating the heck out of comedic sound effects.  You can see 09829_SFX down below duplicated 5 times to coincide with the action.

Speaking of those clips, see how CLEARLY labeled the audio clips are?  There’s a delineation between the clip name and user controls that’s fabulous.   With Premiere Pro, the audio labeling frequently disappears with the audio clips so I have to double click them back up into the Source Monitor to confirm the clip name.  The labelling is also plenty large and easy to read.  Really nicely done.

I mentioned last night how the volume / level control in the timeline is super useful because you have full control of the amount of level rather than being limited to just 6db +/- like in Premiere Pro.  Below you see an audio clip that clearly has low audio, it’s a manufacturing floor with audio from the camera mic.  What Resolve does is shrink and enlarge the audio waveforms giving you a really good representation of the amount of volume in a clip at a quick glance.

And here’s that same clip with the clip volume raised.

You can see visually how much louder the clip is now vs. the original picture above.   At first I thought this was gimmicky when I saw it in the online demos, but actually it’s really handy to be able to just look at the timeline and without even seeing the volume control settings, I can tell what’s full volume and what’s not.

I finally played with the Text Tool and it’s quite good and useful.  Is it as feature rich as Adobe’s?  Not by a long shot, but can you create titles with it?  Absolutely.   You actually find the titles in the same place as the effects.     They have them laid out to be pre-positioned for ease of use, but I generally just start with Text.

You drag a title out onto the timeline and then the Title Panel becomes active.

As you can see, all the basic controls you’d expect and all the fonts on my Mac loaded up.   I’ve only used it for placeholders so far, but will create some titles for the final.

I mentioned yesterday the ease of video and audio track assignments.  Here’s a look at that.

Just a single control to turn the track on and off.  Renaming the tracks is as simple as double-clicking the name and naming it as you can see I did with the audio tracks.  It’s intuitive and easy.

The Wacom Tablet Works!!!

I had to bold that one because if you’re a user of Adobe Premiere Pro and you use a Wacom tablet, then you know the joy of the “jittery pen.”   Basically any adjustment you make with a Wacom tablet in Premiere Pro results in the keyframe / parameter changing when you release the pen.   Completely maddening to say the least, so many of us resort to using a mouse when doing fine tuning such as audio mixing.  But in Resolve, I’ve found the pen to be very accurate and stable.  It’s little things like this that really make a long long day in the edit suite pleasant.

A  little thing that’s functional but could be more efficient.  Right now the only way to send out a burned in timecode copy to a client is via the Color Panel.   I couldn’t even find this last night (this morning) so I went out of Resolve and into Adobe Media Encoder.  But if you open the timeline in the Color panel, you’ll find options for timecode and other things to burn into the media.  I made a request to the Resolve team to consider either making a filter for TC Window or simply adding the option to the Delivery panel.   When editing, I definitely don’t think much about Color and I never even thought to look at the Color panel just to find TC burn-in.   So it’s there, but I’m hopeful it might be a bit more intuitive for editors who have no interest in using the Color panel.

One other thing that’s not working quite as it should is the ability to double click a parameter in the Inspector Panel and change it.   If you go back up at look at that Title Panel and I want to double click the Size to change it from 74 to 50.   If I try to double click it, the numbers simply change say up to 80 or down to 63 and they keep changing every time I double click.  Or the last number will be selected but not all of them.  So I have to manually backspace, backspace then type.   Most likely a Beta issue and remember this IS beta software right now.  Remarkably STABLE beta software too I might add.   Had to restart the machine twice last night because the system got a little wonky but the software is not crashing, it’s not disappearing, just gets a little “tired” from time to time so I just reboot and keep going.

Here’s a look at my timeline so far.  Nothing remarkable as you can see, just your good old fashioned basic timeline but sitting inside one of the most powerful color grading tools on the planet.   It’s been super easy and quite pleasant cutting.

What’s continued to impress me is how efficiently the workspace is laid out and how intuitive all of the necessary panels are.  I’m editing on a SINGLE monitor.  I HATE editing on a single monitor, I love having all that extra real estate for all those windows I need open.   But here I am, editing away in Resolve and when I need to access a panel, it’s there.  Panels move and replace themselves as you set about doing different functions while editing.  It’s so well thought out and I’m not searching for windows, or dragging more windows out, or losing windows under windows.  Granted I have a 5k Retina iMac, but the interface is so efficient I have no need for the second window.   It’s absolutely remarkable so far.   Keep in mind I am doing a pretty simple project right now, but this does give me an insight as to how the app will work for larger projects.   The interface seems to have really been thought out from the editor’s perspective first and not from an engineering / coding standpoint.   It’s a very light and nimble application.

Somebody asked me today “why does editing in Resolve interest you?”   Well it is my color grading tool of choice.  It’s completely free, and by the way, I’m cutting this project using the free version of Resolve.  My Studio version sits on another machine.

So if I find the Resolve can handle the bulk of our editorial load and especially if I get my new Contemporary Living Network funded, we can have every editor, no matter where they are, no matter which NLE they currently cut with editing on Resolve.  Why?  We can completely eliminate XMLs and any issues that arise with moving projects between NLEs and Resolve.  Now we’re simply passing project files back and forth and staying inside the same application.

The workflow to / from Photoshop and After Effects will be different and not as elegant as the Adobe Suite for sure, but then we had a really good workflow between the old FCP and After Effects in the past and I can draw upon that knowledge to create a simple workflow as needed.  BUT completely eliminating XMLs from our editorial to editorial workflow and from our editorial to color workflow makes the idea of cutting inside Resolve very appealing.   Now when I want to work with my colleague who is an AMAZING 30 years (and counting) colorist it’s as simple as hand him the project file.

Does Resolve have the rich feature set of Adobe Premiere Pro or Avid?   No, not even close.  Does Resolve have a very good, useful feature set that any editor can cut a narrative story and is easy to adapt you muscle memory to?  So far, from what I see, the answer is yes.  Especially with the latest additions with Resolve 12.5.

I really like that Blackmagic Design has spent a lot of time under the hood ensuring that the basic operation of editing is smooth and easy.  That’s the most any editor can ask for.   As for what comes next, well that all depends on what the editors ask for.  From what I’ve been told, Blackmagic Design is listening quite well to their editing base just like Adobe.

Two days in, call me impressed.

Read Day Three here:

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For those who don’t know the history, DaVinci Systems’ Resolve has been around a very long time in the film industry and was the de-facto standard for color grading and color enhancement in the industry.  At one time it costs millions to set up a single Resolve color grading suite.  When Blackmagic Design purchased the company, it was on its last legs and after first shoring up the product and bringing it into the modern era, Grant Petty and his team began evolving the product into a full fledged video editing system.

The Media Panel on the new DaVinci Resolve 12.5 (Beta)

Today I spent my first full day editing a real project on the 12.5 Beta.   The first thing I did was to purchase Alexis Van Hurkmann’s tutorial “DaVinci Resolve 12.5 New Features” from Ripple Training.   He’s such a great trainer and I kept that open on the second screen as a reference while working.  It’s the best $49 dollars you’ll spend if you want to get up to speed on the new features in a hurry.  Use the code resolve40 when you check out.

The editing system is a new 27″ iMac 5k Retina  4.0 Ghz with 32GB RAM and all the top of the line graphics card.   Media is stored on our 48TB Studio Network Solutions EVO media share connected via 10GigE converted to thunderbolt.   The original materials were shot on a Panasonic GH4 at 4k UHD resolution in the H264 format.

Ingesting and organizing the bins was very straightforward if you’ve used any non-linear editing system before.  Can either select and drag individual items over or drag in folders from the Media panel.   The new layouts and options in the Media Panel are very intuitive as is the metadata editor.   After watching Alexis go over this panel in his tutorial, I jumped right in and started adding the Scene and Take numbers along with Comments on the good takes.   Really made it super simple to organize.  I really like the dual Metadata / Inspector Window.  Nice use of space to make them both share the same window.

Alexis Van Hurkmann’s “DaVinci Resolve 12.5 New Features” open on the right hand monitor. Entering metadata into my project on the left hand monitor.

All audio was recorded separately on a Zoom H6 recorder and as always, we made sure to audibly slate each scene and take along with a proper slate or hand clap.    After placing all the video and audio clips into a single bin, I used the “Auto-Sync using Audio Waveform” command.   There were about 50 clips to sync and it was done in about a minute or so.  I LOVED that no new clips were created.  No multi-cam clips or extra clips to be sorted through.  The audio from the Zoom recorder was simply placed on a new audio track on the video clips.   Double click the video into the Source and I heard the clean zoom audio.

For the most part it worked perfectly.  There were 7 B-Roll shots that had no Zoom audio recorded for them, which I should have left out of the Sync bin, but forgot.   Resolve sync’d some random Zoom audio to those B-Roll shots.   I tried using the Clip Attributes function to select the original camera audio for those B-Roll clips but it didn’t work.  Most likely a bug and this is beta software after all, so that’s to be expected.  I reported this issue via the Blackmagic Design forum for the Beta software.

At first I set up using the FCPX keyboard shortcuts but almost immediately switched over to DaVinci Resolve shortcuts.  They’re definitely modeled on the FCP 7 shortcuts and I picked them up very quickly.

At first the system seemed very snappy but after I made just two edits it became sluggish.  I had a feeling it was the 4k H264 files.   Even Premiere Pro gets sluggish with 4k H264s.   The file sizes are very small, but there is a lot of processing involved to let them play smoothly.   Each time I loaded a clip into the Source window, it took a few seconds to draw out the frames and then when I hit play, there was a delay.  So I used the Media Management tool in Resolve to Transcode everything to ProRes.   Time well spent because the system was EXTREMELY responsive as soon as I started editing with the ProRes files.   Instant loads, instant JKL response on the keyboard.

Everything about editing in Resolve 12.5 so far is intuitive.  The Trim commands are fabulous and I especially love that some features are active by simply hovering over a different area.  Hit Trim and hover over the thumbnails in the video track and you’re automatically Slipping the video.  I use slip a LOT and loved this.  It was very intuitive and easy for me to poke around and discover stuff.

The ease of video and audio track assignments was refreshing.  I’m used to double setting the audio and video in Premiere Pro and then having a second set of commands for Pasting or snapping the playhead along the timeline.

The audio level control within the timeline is fantastic.  Full range of volume and loudness just by raising and lowering the volume without the need for any sort of gain control.   So simple.

The biggest thing I’m trying to figure out now is how to force Resolve to leave my 4k material at full 100% scale instead of scaling it down to fit my 1080 HD editing timeline.   I’m sure the moment I ask on a forum I’ll have the answer, but that’s about the only thing I couldn’t figure out on my own today.

There were some hiccups to be sure and I’m still trying to find some of the controls but as far as editing, it felt like trying on a new pair of shoes.   I was walking for a bit and then in an hour I started jogging.  Not up to full speed yet, but for a first day editing on the system, it was easy and intuitive.

Grant, Paul Saccone and the entire Blackmagic Design team have done an incredible job building up this app to be really useful, intuitive and simple to move into one of the most powerful color grading tools on the planet.  That’s Day One, I’ll update as we move along in the project.

Read Day Two here.

Grant Petty and I at NAB Show 2016. The man behind the Magic.

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Adobe just responded on their blog and it appears that editing ProRes could be a problem right now if you uninstalled Quicktime on a Windows Machine.  Click the link for the full announcement.

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As someone who first edited video in 1986, I have borne witness to a wholesale revolution and evolution of the creative industry. Well actually, just creativity as a whole. Amazing creative work now comes from all corners of the globe, all age groups and all skill levels.

Creative professionals used to have very defined roles. Producer, Director, Writer, Camera, Lighting, Sound, Editing, Graphics, Animation and so on. When I started at CNN in 1990 I was a video editor. That’s it. I arrived at work each day and when I left 9 hours later, the only task I did all day was to edit video. In Hollywood, New York, Georgia and other locations were major film and television project are happening, those roles still exist on set, in part mandated and governed by unions. For the rest of us, however, being a creative professional is wholly different.

Read the rest of the article here.

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