Offline/Online Workflows : Relinking Avid Footage to Resolve (Part 2/2)

[@Elazam]

The joy in her voice when she says "I don't need Avid Media COmposer anymore"..

[@bobhacket6103]

What gem of a series! There’s a real dearth of quality material for learning Avid on KZbin, thanks for filling that gap! I find your lessons clear, detailed and concise. Immensely helpful. Looking forward to your future videos 🙏🏼

[@jbushyhead]

Holy crap woman! You just put a HUGE lightbulb over my (thick) head. Like a total dummy I was trying to relink to the full-rez in Avid BEFORE I exported my AAF. Duh! Sooo simple now. Thank you for a hugely helpful video.

[@MrPresentador]

I did this. Lol

[@AbdulStoneJackson]

This lesson was awesome! 🙂 Thanks for this!

[@yatinparkhani]

very clear and to the point -- great explanation!

[@FastHatFilms]

Glad it was helpful!

[@richardhoney8895]

So good, this has been a huge help to me.

[@tompot99]

Great set of tutorials, thank you so much. I'd be interested to see your process for creating sync maps and then multi-cam groups. Working on reality TV shows I see many different approaches and many don't seem to work too well! particularly for creating an edit seq where you want to cut the visuals in multi-cam but preserve all the audio layers for a later mixdown. Thanks in advance!

[@FastHatFilms]

Great suggestion! Thanks for watching!

[@TheEditWiz]

Thanks for this tutorial series! It was very helpful.👏

[@AlwaysDrawing2012]

Really great video. Thank you!

[@fulviobartolucci]

your video was very helpuf, thank you for your work

[@senhuazhang2100]

Thank for this, it's really helpful, merci.

[@NinasPlayground]

Thank you for this tutorial. My timeline in Avid has many fx - work on it. Do I have to rebuild every fx? Or what would you suggest? Maybe goin back with the in resolve graded material to Avid. But this would mean more steps in loosing quality?

[@FastHatFilms]

In that case, I would recommend that you if you want to do color in Resolve, you do that, then roundtrip BACK to Avid again. I will do a video about that at some point, I hope. What you will need to do is basically re-export your colored timeline from Resolve as an AAF, and also create new Avid media at the highest resolution so you can do your finish in Avid. When you export your colored, high-res media, you would use a similar workflow to the initial workflow, except instead of using DNxHD 36 or whatever offline resolution, you would choose a 10- or 12-bit resolution at DNxHR, at your finishing aspect ratio (e.g. UHD). Then you would create a new Avid project at that resolution, import the AAF, and relink the media. Then re-apply any FX that are inside Avid that you need.

[@kennyvanwinkle1721]

So helpful thank you.

[@Toggly]

Love your stuff! You get right to the point don't waste time on lame stuff. When you say Resolve is OK with Avid's time effects clips does that also include the time based motion effect (like fluid motion or fluid morph?)

[@TheWaguilaS]

Great tutorial, and ur voice is amazing

[@lolomre]

THANKS FOR ALL..... PLEASE , MUCH MORE CONTENT OF AVID MEDIA COMPOSER. PLEASE.... MAKE A TUTORIAL “HOW WORK IN AVID MEDIA COMPOSER..... WITH MEDIA IN INTERLACE AND PROGRESIVE IN A SECUENCE AND DIFERENCES FRAMERATES

[@FastHatFilms]

Thanks for the suggestion. I will try to do some more Avid Media Composer videos in future.

[@olegtcherkas]

First of all I want to thank you for every video on your channel. These are is some great tips and they literally saved some of my projects. I'll cut to the chase. I am a colorist and some of my clients insisted on finishing in Premiere, Avid, Final Cut after color correction and effects. Would you be making a video about returning the colored project back to Avid? There is an export option for avid but I'm not having too much luck with it. Would you please share your experience?

[@FastHatFilms]

Thanks for watching! I should make a video about that at some point. What you will need to do is basically re-export your finished timeline as an AAF, and also create new Avid media at the highest resolution so you can do your finish in Avid. When you export your colored, high-res media, you would use a similar workflow to the initial workflow, except instead of using DNxHD 36 or whatever offline resolution, you would choose a 10- or 12-bit resolution at DNxHR, at your finishing aspect ratio (e.g. UHD). Then you would create a new Avid project at that resolution, import the AAF, and relink the media.

[@andrew98854]

@@FastHatFilms Yes please make that video. It would be very helpful!

[@kevinsmock1820]

Another great tutorial series! It's great to see someone covering the nitty gritty technical aspects of post-production. I usually do my relink to camera originals in Avid before bringing the AAF into Resolve, but that's usually only when I'm making my proxies right in Avid (which is obviously much slower than Resolve hah) - so it all depends, of course. What I especially like about this certain workflow is that it totally bypasses doing any AMA work in Avid at all. One thing I'm curious about, though, is how you go about exporting at, say, 5K or whatever the camera originals were at, when you've been dealing with 1080p sequences and 1080p media up until this point. How does that step look in Resolve? Is it as simple as changing the Project Settings? Or is that done on Deliver page maybe? To clarify, it's clear how you've relinked to the high res, but how do you output at that high res when you've imported a 1080p AAF. Also, one thing I often find myself doing is round tripping back into Avid after I've done my Resolve work. So perhaps that could be another topic for you to cover. Thanks again for the clear and concise teachings!

[@FastHatFilms]

You can change your timeline resolution anytime you like. Right click on the timeline, then "Timelines" > "Timeline Settings". Under the "Format" tab, click the "Use Custom Settings" button, then choose your resolution in the drop-down. Or choose "custom" to enter in your own aspect ratio. Note there is an option at the bottom that asks you how you want Resolve to handle mismatched resolution files--you can choose to scale them up/down, stretch them, or leave them at the original size. The only thing you can't change is the FRAME RATE. That's locked in Resolve once you create the project and start importing media. So you have to make sure you plan in advance what frame rate you want to work with. Maybe I will make a video on that at some point. And going back to Avid for final FX as well (e.g. Boris etc.). Thanks!!

[@AlmostFreeProduction]

@@FastHatFilms YES! PLEASE make a video about going back to Avid. I often run into issues where things have to be tweaked weeks or years after the first color corrected cut.

[@jackiefrog79]

Great tutorial! Thanks a a lot! What if I would like to bring the sequence back to avid with some handle so that I can do some revision or adjustment(ex. need to do some boris sapphire)? Should I export the colored footage with a new AAF from resolve, then import it in Avid? I mean the Davinci Resolve just for color grading, editing and finishing (boris) in Avid. Thank you for the videos.

[@FastHatFilms]

Thanks for watching! Yes, you can do an AAF export from Resolve, with consolidated media, and bring that back into Avid. I will try to do a video on that soon!

[@FastHatFilms]

Hi, I’m not sure about the details of the functionality of FIRST, but if you have it, I would encourage you to try and then let us know if you encounter any limitations or not! Thanks for watching :)

[@MoCo_Filmmaker]

Wow...these tutorials are amazing! Wish I had found this stuff when you put it out 2 years ago. Since you work with Avid & Resolve I'd love to see if you have input on dealing with alpha channels from a Resolve graphic and getting them into Avid and playing correctly. I think you may have an easier path being on Mac, but with Windows it's been something I've yet to find a way to properly do. I love Resolve for credit rolls or title screen creation but I cannot seem to get them into Avid as true alphas no matter what I've done!

[@FastHatFilms]

Thanks for watching! I haven't tried this at all in Resolve. My workflow is that I use After Effects for credits and titles that I make outside Avid. Those come into Avid fine as matte keys (with alpha channel). But it wouldn't surprise me that Resolve and Avid alphas don't play well together. Avid is weird/old fashioned about how it detects alpha channels inside files.

[@JohnnyMoniz]

Incredible Video series! I just watched/followed along with all 9 videos on this subject. I have 1 question/concern for the end: My sequence in Davinci does not play the audio from the offline reference clip (as described at 11:02) (I was able to get the video to behave as it does in your tutorial by selecting "show offline reference for non-conformed edits" within the preferences menu.) -Is there some sort of additional hidden menu option for the audio? (i'm using version 16) Thanks!

[@FastHatFilms]

Thanks for pointing this out... that's my bad...it seems to be a deprecated feature. It worked in old versions but looks like not anymore. What you will need to do instead is bring the offline reference video again as a regular clip (do it in a separate bin so as not to confuse Resolve). Then open it as a regular source and insert the offline reference audio on the timeline under your video. Cheers.

[@aguiarolando]

You are the best!! thank you a lot!!!

[@FastHatFilms]

You're welcome! Thanks for watching!

[@mariopistolese]

Thank you, all the videos you make are beautiful! Compliments. I have some questions, I hope you will have the patience to answer: 1 - with this workflow you put Resolve at the center as I necessarily have to finish the process in resolve and export the final file in hight res from there. Instead, the delivery often takes place from Avid media composer where I need to re-import the colored clips and arrange the entire timeline for the final delivery of the project. 2 - there is no video where we can see how to reconnect the original footage in high res? 3 - With the current new versions of avid and resolve do you think this workflow is still usable? Can't I connect all the red files in Avid with AMA and then send the AAF to resolve for the color and send the audio to post? 4 - the timecode stamp you made on the dailies, does the editing on Avid happen with the printed clips? Thanks

[@FastHatFilms]

Hi, thanks for watching! Sorry for the delayed reply. I haven't made a video about bringing high-res footage from Resolve back into Avid, but many people have asked for it so hopefully I will have time to make one soon. You probably already figured this out...But in a nutshell, once you have your Resolve timeline ready (high-res, with all your color correction done), you can export that timeline using "Generate New AAF". Then, in the DELIVER window, choose an Avid-friendly MXF format like DNxHD HQX (10-bit) or Apple Pro Res 4444. Make sure to export at high resolution (note that the free version of Resolve only allows exports up to UHD, if you want 4K or higher you need to pay for Resolve Studio). Once the media has been exported, move it into your MXF folders, import the AAF into Avid and relink (be sure to create a new project at your finishing resolution, or change the project resolution before importing). Open the bin that had your locked cut sequence in it, and if you want, you can even paste that sequence on the video tracks ABOVE your high res one, then just drag all the effects down to the new footage.

[@katharineneville5919]

I'm working on my sequence as I watch down your great tutorial, but I'm wondering about titles. Your sequence doesn't have any so I'm not sure how to proceed - do I remove them before I create my AAF or can I leave them? Also, do resizes transfer over to Resolve? I've just left myself a bunch of locators with the resize info but I'd love to keep them if possible. Thank you!!!!

[@FastHatFilms]

Hey thanks for watching! Resizes will translate to resolve, the titles won’t. You can either re-create them from scratch in resolve (or another app, like after effects or photoshop), OR you can do your up-res and color in resolve, then re-export a new AAF (“generate new AAF”) from resolve and finalize your titles back in Avid. I have been meaning to do a video about that but I haven’t yet.

[@RelaZation]

Export for resolve starts at 3:25 (Commenting for future personal info)

[@RamBhupathystudios]

very informative.

[@Digitalcutter]

This was very helpful. I do have one dumb question ... once my timeline has been imported into Resolve, my clips seem to carry the temp offline LUT. is that metadata coming in from the Avid? I'm sure it's a stupid button here ... but what am I doing wrong? Why can't i see my entire timeline in RAW format? Thanks in advance for any and all help.

[@FastHatFilms]

Hey! Thanks for watching. It sounds like your timeline is linked to your Avid media rather than your RAW files. When you import the AAF, make sure check the import settings in the pop up dialog to match what I’ve done in the video.

[@chadwarner8051]

Thank you so much!, any suggestion for moving avid markers to resolve?

[@FastHatFilms]

You can export the markers from Avid as a .txt. file, and then (I think) reimport them into Resolve.

[@ModernRabbitProductions]

You're the best!

[@sebastianneville24]

Thanks for your excellent videos! I don't edit much double sound systems, only need the rendering speed of Davinci but prefer to finish in Avid. (I was able to start in Davinci-edit with proxies in Avid-back to Davinci to color correct-back to Avid with 4K seq. corrected)...is there a way to link this 4K high rez sequence of one video track with the proxy sequence i still have in one of my bins in Avid? I finished the job by simply deleting the V tracks of the proxy and replacing it with the 4K corrected from Davinci. I hope there is a better way. Thanks!

[@FastHatFilms]

Hi thanks for watching! Glad the videos are helpful! You should be able to relink your low-res Avid sequence to the high-res media without having to copy and paste things. Assuming you have rendered out 4K color-graded Avid media from Resolve (all as "individual clips" using the same tape names and TC), and it's all in an Avid-friendly resolution (e.g. DNxHQ) in your Avid MXF folders, and also you have changed your Avid project resolution to whatever your high-res finishing resolution will be, then you can: Right click the low-res Avid sequence > Relink managed media. Choose your drive, and uncheck "Relink only to media from the current project". Also uncheck "match case when comparing source names". Then in the "video parameters" section, relink to "video format of the current project only". Under "relink method" choose "specific resolution" and pick only the resolution of your 4K stuff. Make sure you have "create new sequence" checked. Then let Avid do its thing. Once you have the new sequence, what you will find is that Avid relinked anything it could find to high-res footage. The stuff it couldn't re-link, it leaves low-res. Hope that helps!

[@sebastianneville24]

@@FastHatFilms Thanks a lot! I actually did everything as you listed yesterday but instead of following the last part > i imported the 4K CC clips from DR : import > Avid MediaFiles > .mdb file > selected them all in a new bin > selected the proxy sequence (HD) in a separated bin > (I checked Avid's raster size) > right click on proxy sequence > relink > Manage Media > Relink selected items to: "Selected items in all open bins" > left all unchecked in "Relink by" > Video Parameters: "video format at current project only: 3840x2160/23.98) > Checked all the others under in "tracks to relink" > and under it > OK It turned the my seq. to a 4K seq and all the effects and title where there and working. Worth mentioning: i was not sure how to turn off the quick LUT I applied before sending out the proxy to Avid...you need to highlight all the original clips in the EDIT tab, right click, "no LUT selected"> footage goes back to LOG. Thanks for your help and guide, great videos, do more please!

[@Toggly]

Love it if you did a roundtrip video. If, for example, you have your high end footage in Avid already and want to Color correct or Fusion vfx then have the Avid sequence automatically relink what you did, how would you do that? Would you still output an empty AAF and then just tell use Resolve's Deliver screen to make new clips? Or would it be smarter to consolidate the Avid seq during the AAF export so you don't destroy your orig clips? And once you got back into Avid how would you tell it to look for the new Resolve clips instead the original ones it currently was using?

[@trelstudios3068]

Do you ever figure this out? Does the owner of this channel know how to do this? Seems like there’s a big gap information regarding how to deal with visual effects that were created on avid do not work in resolve that need to be colored in resolve and then export back into avid and relink to avid master sequence and has all the visual effects in Avid for final renderings.

[@Brett.Hatfield]

what if you have frame flex clips in avid... UHD clips reformed to fit full DCI 4k..will these clips relink into resolve with the Frameflex effect applied? or will i need to find out how to reframe flex those clips in resolve? thank you!!!!

[@FastHatFilms]

I'm actually not sure if Resolve recognizes frame flex or not. I know it recognizes normal resizes easily. I would say, try it! Let us know how it goes :) You may have to manually resize those clips in Resolve, however.

[@brentmcreynolds]

This has been a huge help for my situation. I do have a question.....If your offline DNx36 material is created from ProRes 422 camera proxies will there be any issues when going to online to the RAW 6K footage? Or will it only look for the ProRes 422 proxies? I figured since the proxies and the RAW have the same tape# it shouldn't be an issue correct? Thanks for the insight!!

[@FastHatFilms]

Thanks for watching! I haven't tried the workflow you mention (i.e. making Avid proxies FROM other proxies). I would recommend making the Avid proxies from the Raw originals if you can...however yes, in principle, you can match back to the originals in Resolve, but you will have to do it manually, and the TIMECODE in the proxies and Raw needs to match. I'm pretty sure that if you use the "link to original camera files" option, Resolve will match back to the Pro Res because it thinks those are the originals. What you could try, is making a new Resolve project and import ONLY the Raw into the Media Pool, make sure the Tape/Reel is exactly the same as it was in the Pro res, import the AAF, and then check the box. The auto-relink *may* work in that case. But it might not. It would be great to know what works if you try it! Cheers.

[@brentmcreynolds]

@@FastHatFilms Thanks for the reply!! I've talked to a couple colleagues who work in the Online world that said there shouldn't be a problem as long as the proxies' reel / source TC match the RAW masters. I would prefer to make the DNx36 from the RAW as you suggested but whenever I do that I can't relink to the MXFs. So frustrating! When creating the DNx36 from the camera proxies I have no issues relinking. Footage was shot on Sony Venice. Any suggestions??

[@Grey778]

Thank you for all of your videos. I have been going through the process of creating dailies for my Avid system using your videos as reference. Instead of exporting the entire clip I assembled a selects sequence and exported that to DNX36. Then I created the ALE file to match those selected clips, but when I imported the ALE into the Avid bin, the start timecodes did not reflect the source timecode of my selected footage. Instead the start timecode was from the very beginning of the clip. When processing dailies like this, does Resolve need to export entire clips for it to work properly? Is there a setting that I missed? If I repeated the process but used entire clips everything worked fine and roundtripping worked as well. I hope my question makes sense.

[@FastHatFilms]

Hi thanks for watching! I think with the ALE it will do the entire clip. But if you do an AAF export instead, you may get just the segments you want. I will try to do a video on that soon.

[@RoadJournal]

Very Nice!

[@FastHatFilms]

Thanks!

[@ionluv]

You are the best.

[@IgorMariniuk]

What is the way back to AVID? How to export a AAF from DaVinci with some cuts?

[@FastHatFilms]

Thanks for watching! I should make a video about that at some point. You can export a Resolve timeline as an AAF if you have already done some edits. Just be careful because if you only have certain sections of the clips on the timeline and you create media that way, you will not have full clips in Avid. I suggest you first do the workflow as I did it, that way you have ALL clips in their full length in Avid. And then if you ALSO have a timeline in Resolve with some cuts in it, export that as an AAF and then bring it into Avid and relink it to your existing media.

[@kenoaladjuz]

When editing offline in Avid with dailies from resolve, how should I continue when doing VFX? I came up with the following workflow myself: Send the offline aaf to resolve and make online (like shown in this tutorial). Then, make an aaf with the online clips in resolve. Open it in avid and send the VFX needed shots out. Add the finished vfx shots to the timeline and create another aaf to send back to davinci for coloring. Is this the way or is there a better pipeline?

[@FastHatFilms]

Hi, thanks for watching! When I do VFX pulls, I do as you describe - export a video AAF from Avid to Resolve, then relink to high-res media in Resolve. But actually, I usually then do the exports directly from Resolve. I think Resolve has easier, better options for batch exports (like you can take a sequence of clips and export them in one batch, add handles, etc.). Resolve supports EXR exports which a lot of VFX houses want to use. So I export from Resolve to send to VFX houses usually. Then, when they send the finished files back, I re-import them back into Resolve and cut them into the high-res timeline there. I personally don't do color correction, but sometimes I do the conform and then send the high-res sequence (in a Resolve project) to the colorist. Cheers!

[@kenoaladjuz]

@@FastHatFilms That makes sense! Thanks for the quick response :)

[@raktimeditor]

Thank you so much.

[@FastHatFilms]

You're welcome!

[@shohreshafie3574]

👍🏾🙏🏽

[@marcotombstone]

Great tutorial! QUESTION: Why use Avid to edit when you can use Davinci to do editing/coloring/effects/audio design? I'm a premiere pro user deciding if I should learn AVID or just focus on mastering Davinci, just to give some context to my question.

[@FastHatFilms]

Thanks for watching! I use Avid for a few reasons, first of all, where I am it is still really the industry standard for professional editors. Most TV series use Avid in their post workflows. I also find it to be much stronger with metadata than Premiere, which means when you are working in an environment with many large departments (e.g. separate editorial, sound, VFX, color departments), Avid is better at sending sequences, bins, and metadata back and forth between different types of software used specifically for those departments. HOWEVER, that being said, Resolve is coming up in terms of being able to be used for its editing functions. I know a couple of TV series that have started using entirely Resolve workflows, which is super interesting. In the end, only you will know what the best software is for your purpose. For example, when I am working on a small project that won't have many other departments, I really like using the Adobe suite because I can easily pop back and forth between Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop, etc. So it's always about finding the right tool for the right job! Cheers.