UPDATED 9/6/11 at the end of the article.
Today we had our incredibly awesome friend Ron Anderson in the shop to test out the workflow from both Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro using a native workflows into Resolve. The man is a colorist extraordinaire who has gone back to his roots on Davinci with the Resolve.
In Premiere Pro I cut a 6 minute piece using all the raw native files from XDCAM 422 HD 1080i / 29.97. That is all the files are .mp4. From there I created an XML file to send the project over to Resolve.
Resolve 8 read the XML perfectly and allowed us to select which of the 9 cuts in the original project we wanted to open. But once selected, it could not recognize the media. In fact, we tried to add the .mp4 files to the Media Pool in Resolve, but no go.
In Avid we had a native DNxHD timeline / files which of course refer back to MXF native files and could not get Resolve to read those files either. Reading up on the Avid support boards, it looks like we need to purchase a $500 plug-in to make Resolve read the native MXF files.
In the end, we seem to have come up with a very simple, low-tech way around both of these problems.
For Premiere Pro, since we have the AJA Kona boards, simply play out the PPro timeline into another Kona system or into the AJA Ki Pro to create a ProRes file in realtime. Send that file into Resolve, use the automatic Scene Detection in Resolve to slice up the timeline and grade.
For Avid, simply export a ProRes Quicktime and again, use the automatic Scene Detection in Resolve to slice up the timeline and grade. When Avid supports the AJA Kona, this could be even simpler.
So for the moment, ProRes files are the simple workaround for getting both Premiere Pro and Avid native timelines into Resovle at our shop.
UPDATE 9/4/11
Thanks to Richard Harrington and his “Moving to Adobe Premiere Pro” Facebook Group, I have a good workflow suggestion.
Use Project Manager to create a new project of just my final timeline
Compile that media into a folder.
Drop that folder into Adobe Media Encoder and convert all the footage to ProRes. This only converts the actual footage used in the piece rather than all the raw media like would be required in FCP prior to editing.
Relink the timeline to the new ProRes footage
Now create the XML to send the timeline to Resolve. This allows me to send a timeline with all the raw clips and even include handles where necessary.
I’m going to test this tomorrow but if Richard says it works, I’m sure it does. Thanks so much for his help!
UPDATE 9/6/11
Ok, have tried this process and while it does work, it’s a bit ugly at the moment.
I created Trimmed Project from the final timeline.
The created a new watch folder and made the ProRes files. I set the format to 1080i Interlaced ProRes to match the original footage setting at the proper frame rate of 29.97.
Media Encoder created the new ProRes files.
I moved the ProRes files from the Watch Folder back into my Capture Scratch Folder.
But the relinking the media part had to be done manually, shot by shot. There was no “Relink Media” type of command in the timeline, it had to be done in the bin using “Replace Footage.” I had over 100 shots that each had to be done individually so it was a bit time consuming.
BUT the shots did automatically update in the timeline as I replaced them. Correct In / Out points and everything looked good.
The one caveat here is that the Media Encoder only does the first two channels of the digital audio, it does not include channels 3 and 4 which in my case, there is one interview that the good audio is on Channel 3. So I’ll have to manually convert that audio from the original timeline.
So the process does work, it’s just a bit convoluted at the moment. I figure the time offset for the immediate editing still outweighs the time spent at the end to make the conversions. This is definitely something I would like to see Adobe automate moving forward along the lines of FCP’s Media Manager, but obviously better!
Take your final timeline, tell Premiere Pro to make a duplicate project from that timeline and convert all the raw media to the format of your choice. ProRes, DNxHD, MP4, whatever you want for your final output.
A big thank you to Richard for steering me in the right direction on this and showing us how the pathway works.
What is the $500 plugin needed to go from AVID to Resolve with XDCAM footage and will the same plugin work going from Premiere to Resolve?
This process of moving from FCP to either PP or AVID I almost enjoying but it is beginning to be a costly proposition with all the s/w and hardware upgrades that go along with the NLEs.
-Andrew Stone
Here’s a thread on the Avid Community forums with a link about the plug-in. The plug-in allows Resolve to read the native MXF files from Avid.
I believe Resolve would accept .mov wrapper for XDCAM files without a problem.
Yes, we would have to go through a Log and Transfer type of process to convert the footage to something the Resolve can read.
Hey Walter,
Going through the same thing here in a promo I’m cutting in Premiere Pro CS 5.5. There are two very different cameras cut together on this piece…
Panasonic Varicam “2700” which recorded 1080p/23.98 in AVC-Intra 100 codec to P2 cards (MXF)
Canon 60D DSLR which recorded 1080p/23.98 in Canon-standard h.264 MOV files.
Cutting natively in Premiere Pro CS 5.5 has been a dream. PPro Performance outstanding on my 2008 8-core Mac Pro w/QuadroFX 4800 card. There are several “box builds” in the timeline where I’ve scaled and cropped and placed 2-3 images in the frame. My desire was to see how well this translated over to Resolve as I am just getting my feet wet in Resolve after years in Color. Of course, I need to be able to color correct each of those shots in the “box builds” individually, so exporting a flattened Quicktime/Prores is less desirable (I could “window it” in Resolve if needed but…
…I never got that far because, as it turns out, Resolve can’t display the AVC-Intra footage. So I’m going to try a few workarounds and still try to get all the tracks over to Resolve via XML. That’s where it’s at. Don’t have further answers yet.
…and if you’re wondering what I’m doing working the holiday weekend, it’s because I just came off a 5 day vacation yesterday…LOL! Took my holiday early! (and…this is a spec project which has to work around paying clients anyway).
When you’re in business for yourself, there’s no such thing as a holiday weekend. I’ll be working tomorrow / monday myself. 🙂
LOL true.
I was hoping for the ability to use he premiere pro project manager like the FCP 7 media manager to trim my sequence media with handles and also transcode to the codec of my choice (would have been prores hq on this job). Alas, couldn’t do the prores transcode In that way
Tabled the project for now and worked on archives. Back at it when the edit is near completion.
Walter, there may be a faster way to relink everything then “replace footage”
When you get to the relink stage, instead of using the “replace footage” command, select everything and make all the footage offline. Then, with everything still selected, select “link media”
I have no idea if that works when the format of the footage changes, but if it lets you relink to the ProRes, it will be anywhere from marginally faster to completely automatic.
Just an idea I thought I’d offer. Let me know if it works.
Thanks for chiming on that. I will have to give it a try.
What I ended up doing for the series was just making a ProRes file in realtime by playing the footage out of Premiere / AJA Kona directly into another edit system. Then exported an XML from Premiere, took the file and the XML into Final Cut Pro and chopped up the ProRes file. Then sent THAT into Apple Color for the color grade. I know that more than Resolve at this point, so I decided to just take it into Color for the time being, hence jumping over to FCP and just using the Send To Color command.
But I will definitely play with your suggestion when I have some time!
Walter
Success! It works!
With one caveat though. You must offline all the footage yourself. The first time I tried it, I simply moved the old footage to a new location and the transcoded footage to where the old footage was. When Premiere noticed that the files were gone, it sent them off line, but I had to relink to the transcodes one at a time. If you simply put your transcodes in a new location, send the old ones offline and then relink to the new files, it will relink everything automatically to the new files.
Let me know if it works for you!