dealing with "Scale to Frame Size" in DaVinci *from pPro XML

We work with raw camera footage mostly red dragon shot at 5K.
Editorial is done on nMP trashcans and loaded cheesegraters, our resolve system is a supermicro CentOS box w/ a K4000 and two Titan Black GPUs.

We do lots of work with 4k< footage in a 2.61:1 aspect (~2808x1080) sequence from premiere pro cc2015.
With the given format within premiere pro it's most efficient for editors to opt to "scale to frame size" using pPro's mercury playback engine which essentially live transcodes (as best as your GPUs allow) and treats the 4k however your sequence format is set up.

Many times editors will need to do "punch-ins" on shots with 4k< footage, in which case the best option seems to be to make cuts around what you want "punched in", deselect "Scale to frame size" and simply use the scale effect in the effects tab of premier to scale out to the desired composition.

All great in premiere, but when an XML is exported from premiere and brought into resolve, the AE gets stuck needing to manually scale the shots appropriately as when importing the XML from premiere into resolve, there does not seem to be a solid option for handling premiere pro's "Scale to frame size" math to scale and place the footage in the frame within resolve as it appears in premiere.

How are folks handling this? Is there a better way?

Hey Rob!

If you are using scale to frame size and then need to resize using the scale effect on individual shots, then in Resolve those individual shots have to be resized to match. Resolve isn't able to mix scaling methods on a clip by clip basis the way Premiere does.

The other option is to use only the scaling effect in pPro for all the scaling, that way it will be consistent (from Resolve's point of view) and in Resolve you can use Center crop with no resizing.

To whom are you delivering a 2.61 aspect ratio? This is very non-standard for broadcast, for the web, for cable, and for theatrical.

Size changes generally do not translate well with Premiere. I have seen size changes (even dynamic sizing) work well with Avid and I'm told it works well with FCPX. I generally do the size changes manually by using a reference video from the client and matching it within Resolve.

Thanks Mark & Marc for your reply.

Hey Mark!
That's all about what we'd gathered. We've also just been matching to a reference movie and just doing the scaling manually within resolve. Using "scale to frame size" in premiere is a much more performance effective option than using the scale effect. There is a numbering system in the XML which seems to be altered when using the "scale to frame size" toggle, perhaps future versions of resolve will know how to deal with this coming from premiere.

To whom are you delivering a 2.61 aspect ratio? This is very non-standard...

Fair question. We do events which very often require strange non-standard aspects. last project was 2.61, previous was 12:1.
Regardless, standard aspect or not, the question still applies.

Fair question. We do events which very often require strange non-standard aspects. last project was 2.61, previous was 12:1. Regardless, standard aspect or not, the question still applies.

I still think going with bizarre non-standard aspect ratios is fraught with problems. The two possible exceptions I can think of would be 1) a convention exhibit or theme park ride where there's multiple monitors all over the place for some kind of advertising/promotional/ride kind of experience, or 2) a concert venue or play where there's monitors all over the stage to create a theatrical effect. (I'm thinking Barco Escape or something like that.)

Either way, I have never seen positional accuracy between Avid, Premiere, FCP, FCPX, and Resolve. They all change position. I have recently (in the last year) seen Avid 8.x do correct size changes and even dynamic repositions, but speed changes are still very dicey. I have never had a color correction job in 25 years that involved sizing changes for which I haven't had to do some degree of manual fixing. The Avid job was generally very close.

One thing I think is still an issue is how different resolutions get reinterpreted in different kinds of software. For example, if they're using 1920x1080 proxies in Premiere, and you're using a bizarre aspect ratio in Resolve, then the sizing will be remapped inconsistently. I've also seen this happen with HD proxies and 4K or 5K or 6K originals.

Yes, this is a headache because you can only choose one import scaling method in Resolve, and there is no way, clip to clip, to change that. I have requested per clip manual scaling options, but so far no love from BMD on that.

There is no good reason to change 'scale to frame size' in Premiere unless Premiere is the final output tool. If the editor is working to prep for color, they should be made aware that scale to frame size is appropriate, even when adjusting framing on clips, as the values in XML will work well in Premiere (I've never had to interfere when this combo is used). I do have trouble getting editors to be consistent, but when I physically show them what works I find they 'get it' and stick to what works.

It's either that or leave it all alone and use transform scaling throughout, then use no input scaling in Resolve. But scale to frame size conforms to the default import scaling preset in Resolve, and with very high res material the power windows default to be too small and require extra steps to be functional with unscaled 6k material, for example.