Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

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tadhgosullivan

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Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

PostMon Jun 17, 2019 7:06 pm

Myself and an assistant have been working on a feature documentary on Resolve for the last six months. It was a bit of a leap of faith but (touch wood) it has worked out pretty well so far... I'm posting here some thoughts in the form of a list of features we would love and bugs we have noticed. I'm not sure how universal our experience is as long-form editors are not the core users on here, but I would love BMD to look after us as the potential of this platform for documentary people is huge.

The film is approx 80% archive, and the source material for this is vast. Our bin structure is complex and our use of keywords extensive. 20% of the film is 16mm that comes in as DPX files - I make Prores proxies after a quick grade and will go back to the DPX files at the end. I intend to grade and online the film within the same project that I cut it in (or a version thereof). I'm not sure Fairlight is ready yet for what I do but I might look into it before going the dreaded but familiar ProTools route.

Anyway - here are some notes on things that would really help us...


Features

Conform: there are a lot of issues with conform, but having to 'Conform Lock with media pool clip' for every instance is painful. Working on 16mm we have 400ft/10min reels, which then get cut into many smaller clips. Conforming a Prores back to the DPX at the end means selecting each clip, clicking on the DPX in the media pool, clicking on the timeline clip again, and selecting 'Conform lock...'. If I could select every clip from the 10min file and conform in one go it would be a vast saving of time. Or, a window offering to 'Conform all instances of [file X] in Timeline'.

Relinking offline clips needs serious attention. When opening a project with offline clips there should be a window dedicated to relinking that can do searches, change source folders etc. This window should list all offline clips in the project. (Similiar to Premiere Pro's offline media window). Currently there is no way of knowing if anything in a project is offline, until one comes up against the file, possibly during a playout or a screening.

Search: with a huge volume of source material the search function needs an 'enter' function. Currently it starts searching as you type, but with hundreds of clips it hangs for a second or two as you type each letter. The only workaround is to set search to 'selected bins' and change it to 'all bins' when the search term has been typed in full. Our machines are pretty fast.

Zoom into audio waveform in the viewer, and use the larger part of that window to scroll. Of all aspects of Resolve this is the least functional in the simplest terms. The only way to make it work is to put a clip on a timeline so as be able to step through, zoom in and make proper selections. Audio in the viewer is essentially useless, for all but the most basic, short clips.

When creating a subclip, it should at least be automatically selected in the bin, but ideally its clip name should be selected and ready to immediately edit. This would save multiple actions. Currently the new subclip disappears into the bin, and has to be found again.

When having multiple project open, saving to have option Save All Open Projects

Render Cache - moving a clip (or many) by one frame (or many) should not require it to be rendered again. The generated files can surely be made independent of timeline placement. Same for duplicated timelines, and copy/paste of clips - even across timelines. For colorists and others this is not a big deal but for those of us who move things constantly it is unworkable.

In the Deliver page - retain in and out points marked in the Edit page. We constantly export and share scenes from within longer timelines and have to mark in and out in the finicky deliver timeline.

Rendering on the Deliver page in the background. Every editing assistant's dream.

Maintain subtitle settings across project - 'set as global/default style'. Currently the font and size must be set from scratch even when pasting in from another timeline - a pain. Again, makes sense for online editing with one subtitle track per project but with dozens of subtitled scenes and assemblies, just annoying.

Compound Clips to include subtitles. Offline edits on feature docs often include subtitled scenes or interviews - tidying the whole subtitle track into compound clips so they don't have to be worried about would be extremely useful.

Linked clips to include subtitles. Same reason...

It would be nice to be able to see the fps of an imported srt file if possible?

Imported srt file snaps to timecode of first subtitle. Currently we open srt in textedit and read timecode of first sub and use that to place

In dual screen mode, with full screen timeline selected, control-F brings up a full screen preview but only on the screen displaying the timeline - ie the 'main' monitor. I can change system prefs to have either monitor be the 'main' monitor in Apple OS and switch easily in Resolve which monitor is the primary display but for some reason I can never have timeline and full screen at the same time, which is how I work at fine cut. (Yes I gave in and bought an ultra studio mini monitor but the above would still be useful as I still can't have timeline and full screen display without three monitors)

Adjust text size. On a 4k monitor all text is so tiny I need binoculars.

If a key is already assigned when user tries to assign it, give option of unlinking it from previously assigned function. At the moment, user has to go to that function and unassign it.

Keyboard shortcuts for Edit / Deliver / Color etc pages.

Keyboard shortcuts for media pool

Keyboard shortcuts for track height

Make it possible to batch export multiple clips from a timeline using their project clip names

Bug/Feature(?): Replacing a clip with a file of the exact same name does not update the clip settings in resolve (like frame rate) to those of the new clip, despite it successfully relinking.


Bugs:
The autosave/save feature is NOT working as intended. Latest autosaves to not seem to loaded after a crash, instead reverting to last save. Entire recovery process extremely inconsistent even with Project backup saves set very frequently

Duplicating timelines: new timeline can be renamed in media pool but the timeline tab is called X-copy

Using "Edit Subclip" feature to extend subclip lengths does not extend audio with the video and instead disables the video for the entire subclip.

Copying a bin of subclips from one project to another removes all of the subclips assigned keywords.

Bug: replacing a clip (imported into resolve) in the finder with a clip of the exact same name causes Resolve to crash (100% of the time)

Bug: when dragging a clip with its corresponding subtitle clips from one timeline to another, the subtitles do not remain in sync, instead are added to the start of the clip.

Bug: waking from sleep on Mac OS, primary and secondary monitors are reversed

That's it... we've been keeping notes towards this post for two weeks - I'm sure there are more but that's plenty for now. Thanks
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Marc Wielage

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Re: Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

PostTue Jun 18, 2019 12:07 am

tadhgosullivan wrote:Bug: waking from sleep on Mac OS, primary and secondary monitors are reversed.

I have found that the primary/secondary dual monitor mode is fragile under Mac OSX. Some of that is the OS's fault, particularly when one monitor is HDMI and the other is Thunderbolt (as one example).

My advice is to never, ever, ever sleep the computer with Resolve running. Quit Resolve, then sleep the computer. If you need to come back, wake the computer up and re-launch Resolve. I find it's dangerous to sleep any computer with a complex program running (and I'd count Avid, Premiere, Pro Tools, and Resolve in that category). If you have a browser or a text editor or an email program running... that's fine in terms of sleeping your computer. Anything that hinges on using external drives can "break" if the computer sleeps and the drives spin down.
marc wielage, csi • VP/color & workflow • chroma | hollywood
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Jim Simon

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Re: Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

PostTue Jun 18, 2019 2:38 pm

tadhgosullivan wrote:Zoom into audio waveform in the viewer


You can do that now using the hamburger menu.

But it would be helpful to zoom into the "timeline" of any clip loaded into the Source Viewer. This makes precise navigation of long clips much easier.
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Re: Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

PostTue Jun 18, 2019 2:40 pm

tadhgosullivan wrote:When having multiple project open


How is that even possible? Opening a new project closes the currently open project.
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Jim Simon

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Re: Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

PostTue Jun 18, 2019 2:45 pm

tadhgosullivan wrote:Render Cache - moving a clip should not require it to be rendered again.


It doesn't for me using 16b4 for Windows. Moving the clip in the timeline keeps the cache, so long as it's on the same track.
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Re: Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

PostTue Jun 18, 2019 2:45 pm

tadhgosullivan wrote:In the Deliver page - retain in and out points marked in the Edit page.


Yes, please!
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Re: Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

PostTue Jun 18, 2019 2:49 pm

tadhgosullivan wrote:If a key is already assigned when user tries to assign it, give option of unlinking it from previously assigned function.

Keyboard shortcuts for Edit / Deliver / Color etc pages.

Keyboard shortcuts for media pool


These are all present in version 16.
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Re: Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

PostTue Jun 18, 2019 3:41 pm

tadhgosullivan wrote:When creating a subclip, it should at least be automatically selected in the bin, but ideally its clip name should be selected and ready to immediately edit.


Ironically the manual (for version 15) says this is what happens, but it doesn't. It says when you create a subclip it is automatically selected in the media pool so you can enter metadata. But whenever I create subclips, only the original clip is selected.

You can of course create a smart bin for subclips (which is what I do), since Resolve adds the word "subclip" to the clip name of all subclips, making it easy to create a smart bin that collects them all, but it would be better if you could create a smart bin within a bin -- so you'd have a bin for one set of clips and within that bin you'd have a smart bin for the subclips/selects from just the clips in that bin.

If you're diligent about using keywords, smart bins could be the solution; you want to be able to have separate subclip smart bins organized by keyword or other metadata rather than one big "subclips" smart bin for all subclips in your project (which could be hundreds in a long project).
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Re: Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

PostTue Jun 18, 2019 4:54 pm

tadhgosullivan wrote:Conforming a Prores back to the DPX at the end means selecting each clip, clicking on the DPX in the media pool, clicking on the timeline clip again, and selecting 'Conform lock...'.

The last step isn't needed if you have a keyboard shortcut assigned to Conform Lock To This Clip.

tadhgosullivan wrote:If I could select every clip from the 10min file and conform in one go it would be a vast saving of time. Or, a window offering to 'Conform all instances of [file X] in Timeline'.

You can already select every clip, disable Conform Lock and then right click on the Timeline to Reconform From Bins, making sure that the material you want to reconform to is as separated from other clips in its own bin as it needs to be, depending on how unique the reel name/timecode/other factors you might like to select in the Reconform dialogue is

tadhgosullivan wrote:In the Deliver page - retain in and out points marked in the Edit page. We constantly export and share scenes from within longer timelines and have to mark in and out in the finicky deliver timeline.

Wouldn't mind as long as this was optional, there are certain advantages to having a clean slate in the Deliver page especially when you have multiple similar instances of the same basic timeline. In the meantime you can right click on thumbnails and mark in/out that way, which isn't so finicky.

tadhgosullivan wrote:It would be nice to be able to see the fps of an imported srt file if possible?

SRT files do not contain fps data. Ask your supplier to put it in the filename.

tadhgosullivan wrote:The autosave/save feature is NOT working as intended. Latest autosaves to not seem to loaded after a crash, instead reverting to last save. Entire recovery process extremely inconsistent even with Project backup saves set very frequently

Auto save is for backup copies.
Last edited by Tom Early on Tue Jun 18, 2019 5:09 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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John Paines

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Re: Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

PostTue Jun 18, 2019 5:05 pm

Brad Hurley wrote:You can of course create a smart bin for subclips (which is what I do), since Resolve adds the word "subclip" to the clip name of all subclips, making it easy to create a smart bin that collects them all


The current version is not not adding "subclip" -- the name is identical to the parent clip, and no highlighting of the just created subclip. Wondering whether these are new features, or bugs....
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Re: Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

PostTue Jun 18, 2019 5:33 pm

John Paines wrote:
Brad Hurley wrote:You can of course create a smart bin for subclips (which is what I do), since Resolve adds the word "subclip" to the clip name of all subclips, making it easy to create a smart bin that collects them all


The current version is not not adding "subclip" -- the name is identical to the parent clip, and no highlighting of the just created subclip. Wondering whether these are new features, or bugs....


Version 16 beta 4 is indeed adding "subclip" to the clip name (note it's the clip name, not the file name); this also worked in version 15.
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John Paines

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Re: Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

PostTue Jun 18, 2019 5:40 pm

Yes, you're right, it's on clip name. I'm trying to remember how Premiere does this, but can't.
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tadhgosullivan

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Re: Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

PostMon Jun 24, 2019 4:36 pm

Jim Simon wrote:
tadhgosullivan wrote:When having multiple project open


How is that even possible? Opening a new project closes the currently open project.


Turn on 'Dynamic Project Switching'
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Re: Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

PostTue Jun 25, 2019 4:38 am

tadhgosullivan wrote:Adjust text size. On a 4k monitor all text is so tiny I need binoculars.

My workaround for this is not to use a 4K display. I instead use two different Dell 2550x1440 UltraSharp monitors for GUI, then a widescreen LG for scopes.

Keyboard shortcuts for Edit / Deliver / Color etc pages. Keyboard shortcuts for media pool.

Those have always existed. In Resolve 16, the defaults are under Workspace -> Switch to Page, and then shift-2 through shift-8 for changing pages. All this is covered extensively in the manual (15.3 for the moment; the 16 manual will be out soon).

Image

Some keyboard shortcuts exist for the Media page in terms of navigation and a few other things, all covered in the manual.

Make it possible to batch export multiple clips from a timeline using their project clip names.

You can do that already in Delivery -> Single Clip mode. Just mark those clips, then under the Clip menu bring up only Marked Clips, then export those clips on the Delivery page.

Bug: waking from sleep on Mac OS, primary and secondary monitors are reversed

I have seen this myself, and my take is that it's an OS problem, not a Resolve problem. I think the OS forgets how the monitors are assigned. My workaround for this is never to sleep the computer when Resolve is running. If I have to leave for a meeting or lunch or whatever, I might save the project, export a backup, exit Resolve, then sleep the computer until I return.

The problem with sleeping the system when a lot of external drives are connected is that any computer accessing these drives (particularly Resolve) could get thoroughly confused in sleep mode. This could be a mission-critical problem if you have an external database and lots of linked files on external drives.
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Re: Features and bugs - notes from a feature doc edit

PostTue Jun 25, 2019 3:48 pm

tadhgosullivan wrote:Turn on 'Dynamic Project Switching'


OK. That doesn't quite do what I expected from your wording.

In Premiere Pro, you can actually have multiple project open in the GUI at the same time, no need to "switch" between them. I was pretty sure Resolve couldn't do that.
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