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Conflict resolution/conform clip mismatches

PostPosted: Thu Oct 19, 2017 6:18 pm
by Travis Ward
Hey all! I'm having some serious problems when importing the Adobe Premiere locked cut XML into DaVinci Resolve. Specifically, I'm getting a TON of conflict resolution/clip mismatches during conform.
conform2.png
Timeline view
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Note all the red. This is basically how this ENTIRE timeline looks, for a ~2 hour feature.

As you note, resolve the conflicts individually is easy enough, but that's really not the route I'm hoping to go.

I'm not even sure what it's keying in on for the mismatch. Nothing here matches:
conform.png
Conflict Resolution view
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I've been playing with the Edit>Reconform from Bins/Media Storage options but have not figured out a combination to get it to play nicely. Any thoughts? I'm not sure why, given how unique the filenames are, it isn't possible to just match based on that. Here it is in Premiere (top) when I export XML and in Resolve (bottom) when I import the XML:
conform3.PNG
Premiere vs Resolve
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Re: Conflict resolution/conform clip mismatches

PostPosted: Thu Oct 19, 2017 7:39 pm
by Travis Ward
It seems more severe than previously thought. While most of the time it gives 1-2 clips to choose from (the correct one being one of the options), sometimes it gives no matches (although it gives options for plenty of ones that don't match). I have a ~2 minute sequence that Resolve isn't offering any correct matches for.

I have to think something is being lost or being passed over incorrectly. It's hard to fix because Resolve seems to think nothing is wrong based on what they imported, even though the right clips are in Premiere. Again, the clip names are completely different in multiple ways, so I don't know how or why this is happening.

Re: Conflict resolution/conform clip mismatches

PostPosted: Thu Oct 19, 2017 8:08 pm
by Timothy Montoya
Resolve is looking for matching clips based on timecode. For any particular edit, if there are multiple clips in the media pool that satisfy the timecode needs, it will pull one of them, and then bring up the little red box to let you know there are other clips that also satisfy the same timecode.

Other than manually going through and picking the right take, one suggestion I would offer that should help solve the issue is to play with the "Assist using reel names from the:" options within the Conform section of your Master Project Settings. Do note that upon changing that setting, you will have to re-import your XML for the setting to take effect.

Depending upon whether or not there were dailies made, how those dailies were made, and how Premiere brought in all the media, this may or may not help you.

In a perfect world, footage is shot, and then dailies are made in resolve to edit with, with the "Assist using reel names from the:" option selected (and the right config based on camera used).

That way those files have the reel and clip number burned into the "Reel" metadata for the file. So when you round trip back into resolve for finishing, Resolve will look for the specific clip and timecode based on that reel name.

Re: Conflict resolution/conform clip mismatches

PostPosted: Thu Oct 19, 2017 8:28 pm
by Travis Ward
Thanks, Timothy. From the additional research I've done, sounds like you're right. Here are two threads I found on this:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17491
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7928

It seems like part of the underlying issue is that, at some point, the reel/tape name (<reel> in the XML) is lost, or maybe not even passed over by Resolve? I exported an XML file from Resolve, took a look in Notepad++ and can't find any <reel> parameter. There is a <name> but it certainly doesn't seem like Resolve tries to match on this, or it's lower priority than the timecode match.

So, the initial Resolve XML does not include the <reel> parameter. It's not present at all. However, when exporting from Premiere, the <reel> parameter IS included. Of course, because it didn't receive any info from the XML (or the clips themselves? not sure if that's possible), it is left blank.

Is this what Resolve tries to key in on for the reel option during conform?

There are a few solutions in those threads but none have worked for me. The one that "works" (manually add the clip name as the reel/tape name in the Premiere metadata window) is just a Herculean task for a feature, since each clip has to be edited individually. But it does seem to add the <reel> name to the XML. I'm going to try playing with Conform Options more but this is a serious impediment for us. We've had the occasional clip mixup, but a solid third of the feature is currently mismatched.

Re: Conflict resolution/conform clip mismatches

PostPosted: Tue Oct 24, 2017 10:59 pm
by Timothy Montoya
If you go into the media window in Resolve, and into a bin that has some of your original camera media in it, look at the "Reel" column. Then go into the project settings and play around with the "assist using reel names", you'll see different reel names populating in that category for each option.

In a offline/online based workflow with Resolve, you would select the correct option that fills in the "Reel" column correctly (EX: "A005C006_R0PF"), do whatever initial grade is done for the dailies, and then render out the dailies/proxies. That "Reel" name that shows up in Resolve gets rendered into the metadata of the proxy files.

So when you edit in Premiere, and then spit out the XML, for any file that has the reel name metadata in it, it will populate that field in the XML. Then back in Resolve, when you use the same setting for "assist using reel names from:" it will link everything up correctly.

My suspicion is that it sounds like that information isn't in the proxies, so Premiere is leaving the "reel" tag empty because it doesn't have anything to put there.

If you haven't yet, I would try importing the XML again after you've changed the "assist using reel names" options. Run through all the available options, re-importing the XML after you've changed it (changing this setting does not affect existing timelines). And play around in the settings in premiere to see if there's a similar reel name option to try and get it to populate in the XML

Re: Conflict resolution/conform clip mismatches

PostPosted: Wed Oct 25, 2017 8:53 am
by Marc Wielage
Very good advice from Timothy above.

I would also give two more tips:

1) sometimes an AAF will work better than an XML, and you can try that and see what happens. When I see issues like this, generally it happens because the camera was a non-timecode source (like a DSLR) or it's a camera that did not have a timecode lockbox for time-of-day timecode.

2) MixingLight.com did a very good series of Insights on conform issues some months back, and they presented a couple of hours on different very complex situations where things can go horribly wrong, along with some solutions.

Note that in general, you would run into trouble if you tried to conform this in Avid or FCPX as well, so it's not necessarily a Resolve problem per se. A lot hinges on file names, reel names, and timecode. If those three things are absolutely unique, you'll never have a problem. I have had some very complex conforms go smoothly to the point where the only thing that didn't come in was VFX and graphics, and those are generally a case-by-case basis anyway.

BTW, I would strongly advise you for a feature to break the show down to 20-minute reels, because it's much easier to conform 6 x 20-minute reels than a single 120-minute timeline. Once the reels are each conformed in Resolve, color correct them, then at the very end, create a nested timeline made up of Reels 1-6 and you'll have the complete film as one file.

I also generally ask the editor to give me a low-quality reference copy of the show with source file name & timecode at the top and record timecode at the bottom, so that in case I get lost (which sometimes happens even with the best of edit lists), I know what clip is missing and what the start frame should be.

Image

Re: Conflict resolution/conform clip mismatches

PostPosted: Thu Oct 26, 2017 3:08 pm
by Rakesh Malik
Timothy Montoya wrote:In a offline/online based workflow with Resolve, you would select the correct option that fills in the "Reel" column correctly (EX: "A005C006_R0PF"), do whatever initial grade is done for the dailies, and then render out the dailies/proxies. That "Reel" name that shows up in Resolve gets rendered into the metadata of the proxy files.

So when you edit in Premiere, and then spit out the XML, for any file that has the reel name metadata in it, it will populate that field in the XML. Then back in Resolve, when you use the same setting for "assist using reel names from:" it will link everything up correctI'm ly.

My suspicion is that it sounds like that information isn't in the proxies, so Premiere is leaving the "reel" tag empty because it doesn't have anything to put there.


In attempting to troubleshoot a disastrously failed conform since we're going to be doing the same for the feature film soon, we have yet to find a way to convince Premiere to ingest much of the metadata that we added to the test proxies.

Not that that will help with our film; the editor handled the dailies by syncing them in Premiere and rendering them in Media Encoder, so the metadata is completely broken already, but the timecodes in the intermediates are also seriously hosed, so I'm stuck with using a method that Marc and a couple of other posters described in another thread that I didn't succeed in finding just now, based on the reference clip. It's a bit tedious but it's effective.