Fri Mar 24, 2023 12:31 am
I commiserate -- we've all made this mistake... but hopefully only once.
Our advice:
• keep Live Save on
• manually save a few times during the session
• export a backup DRP session file once or twice a day (especially if it's a longterm project)
• keep the backup DRP file in different places, like a Cloud backup or on a thumb drive.
• consider using the automatic backup option, available in the User Prefs -> Project Save & Load options.
We're constantly vigilant about backups. Particularly for long-term projects (anything you're working on for more than a day or a week), I think it's a wise idea to manually export a backup at the end of each day. Create a "Color" folder in the source media folder of your project, and add the date at the end of the file name, like "client_project_episode_today's_date." Now, you can see at a glance what was done on any given day, and import that session and revert back if you really had to, or if you just needed to compare one version with another (as Walter suggests above).
As a double-secret backup, you can copy this file to a thumbdrive that goes in your pocket or to a Cloud backup. Over a period of time, you'll be able to check each version, in the (unlikely) event the client says, "hey, I prefer last Thursday's version to today's." You can backup sessions either with a Save-As, or with the Export function within the Project Database. In some cases, we'll do a "belt and suspenders" backup and save XMLs of each timeline edit list as well. In addition,
Resolve 17 & 18 can export individual timelines in the "DRT" format. You also have the option of using a Cloud database, provided you have a reliable internet connection. Resolve's built-in Live Save and Backup features generally work well, and both are covered at length in the v18.1 manual, Chapter 3: "Managing Projects & Databases," starting on page 65.
It may seem complicated, but it's honestly harder to explain than to do, and it's easy to deal with on a day to day basis. In 12 years, I don't think I've ever lost more than about 4 hours of work (total) with Resolve, and that was because of a drive failure -- not a Resolve problem per se. It's generally been a rock-solid system for us, and we've only had to resort to using the backup sessions maybe 5 or 6 times, just to solve a very specific (short) problem.
marc wielage, csi • VP/color & workflow • chroma | hollywood