Editing large projects, switching from Avid to Resolve

I am a long-time (since 1994) AVID user and have worked on over 100 network TV shows... Lately, I have been using resolve 17 studio with many small projects and really like it. It actually works faster on my heavily upgraded mac pro 5,1 than Media Composer which is buggy and unsupported.

Now I have a dilemma. I am cutting a feature documentary starting in a few months that I would always use media composer to cut with but the MC 2020+ software is just not stable enough for my aging computer (also unsupported). I am resistant to upgrading to the new mac pro due to cost and my old 5,1 is more than capable of using Resolve.

My upcoming project will have 4k Multicam, over 100 hours of footage and ultimately finishing on Resolve with a colorist. Media composer has "phrase find" and script sync which is super useful and Resolve has no equivalent so that sucks but I can live with it.

In your experience, everyone out there, is the Resolve editor up to the task of a huge documentary project? We use Saffire fx and lots of b-roll from various camera sources and frame rates and lots of stills with motion control fx and compositing.

Any feedback/options from Resolve professionals would be greatly appreciated.

Should I make the switch to Resolve for this project or upgrade my system to meet Media Composer specs?

Thanks

-Troy

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0210129-01

In your experience, everyone out there, is the Resolve editor up to the task of a huge documentary project? We use Saffire fx and lots of b-roll from various camera sources and frame rates and lots of stills with motion control fx and compositing.

Any feedback/options from Resolve professionals would be greatly appreciated.

Should I make the switch to Resolve for this project or upgrade my system to meet Media Composer specs?

Definitely can! I cut/edit and grade a few narrative feature with a few hundred hours of content down to 90 to 141 minutes, color grade it, and deliver all in Resolve 16. I'm working on a new feature, expected to be 88 minutes long, in Resolve 17 with no issues. I did one last year that's shot in 4K and was delivered in both 4K and 2K DCP. I think Resolve is a good and reasonable tool for my feature work.

And definitely stick to your old workhorse if you want to stay on MacOS. I wouldn't invest a single penny into Intel Macs anymore.
Stronger M1 machines are around the corner.

Great to know people are succeeding with feature-length editing in Resolve. I was very interested in the Sundance link provided above but only saw "graded in Resolve" projects - I couldn't find any that said "edited in Resolve." Wonder if they just didn't get that info or if none of those projects mentioned were edited in Resolve.

Great to know people are succeeding with feature-length editing in Resolve. I was very interested in the Sundance link provided above but only saw "graded in Resolve" projects - I couldn't find any that said "edited in Resolve." Wonder if they just didn't get that info or if none of those projects mentioned were edited in Resolve.

This is a 100+ minutes feature and was completely edited and graded in Resolve 16 late 2019 early 2020 (pre-pandemic).
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11157998/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

[Peter Chamberlain]

This Disney+ feature used Resolve, on set, for full editorial multiple concurrent user collaboration, initial audio, more than half the VFX, all grading and finishing.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10649016/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Thus project had more than 300 timelines and more than 10,000 media elements

Edited a lot of Multicam-Projects up to 180 Minutes in Resolve since Resolve v14 without any problems. (www.muehldorf-tv.info)

Due to the Pandemic there's actually no project longer than 60/70 Minutes. Therefore we have 5 Cam-Multiview and 8 Audio-Tracks. Runs in Resolve 17.1 without anything.

The only thing we experienced: Resolve doesn't like the Multicam-footage on a remote server/NAS if the network is only Gigabit.

Thanks for all the responses.

I'm am still on the fence. I was able to upgrade my Mac to Big Sur and now the system is fast and stable with Media Composer. Also, I downloaded Fusion studio 17 and it works like a charm with Fusion Connect and allows me to use fusion in AVID.

I leaning back to cutting on AVID simply for the fact that I am much faster at cutting on AVID. I need more Resolve practice. I am going to do some testing with an old project media syncing and multicam and see which one has better performance now that I have upgraded. If resolve is much faster I might still switch for this project.

Anyone heard any rumors about Resolve adding Phrase Find support?

I usually cut feature docs and that tool is invaluable to speed up cutting when needing specific words or phases to clarify interviews. Much faster than scanning through transcripts.

Thanks again!

I'm sorry to be a party pooper here but I use both Avid and DVR heavily and DVR is by far more system intensive and demanding than Avid. If you find Avid unstable on your unsupported older Mac you will almost certainly run into problems on long form editing with DVR. I cut mostly long form documentary and have done for many years on Avid and I can still cut long form offline on an old consumer laptop with current Avid, whereas it won't even run DVR 17; conversely my fully supported HP workstation needed the gpu upgraded to a 16gb Quadro for grading in DVR, whereas it was fine with a 6gb Quadro for Symphony - and on both Avid 2021 is absolutely stable too for me. If you stick to offline resolutions, such as DNxHD LB during editing, then I imagine DVR is much more tractable but IMV as it started life as a finishing system and therefore is heavily GPU reliant, which is not always ideal for pure cutting, and the way it handles media and proxies is both more complex and cumbersome than Avid too, or most other NLEs. Plus I would truly hate to lose Avid media management for DVRs on the long complex series I often cut, not to mention Scriptsync and Phrasefind. For finishing DVR is the current King for me, doing most of what I used to do in Avid for both audio and video, but for offline editing Avid still rules the roost.

Anyone heard any rumors about Resolve adding Phrase Find support?

We don't normally get info about new features until they show up in the software.

(And sometimes not even then.)