Blackmagic Forum

I'm pretty new to this but getting things figure out. Just wondering if anyone is changing the format from h.265 to less compressed format for editing? I'm finding it difficult to fine tune cuts and mix in slow motion sometimes as it skips frames in the edit play back screen. Maybe I'm missing something. If i need to spend another 2k on a video card I will but if I can scratch by on the 1070 for a bit that would be cool too.

Cheers!

I'm a noob so please go easy on me

Are you using the free or the studio version of DR?

I edit 4K H265 footage just fine here with a GTX1060/6 using the Studio version (which has GPU-based acceleration)

Thanks for your reply,

Yes I am using the paid version.

D.Ireland wrote:I'm pretty new to this but getting things figure out. Just wondering if anyone is changing the format from h.265 to less compressed format for editing? I'm finding it difficult to fine tune cuts and mix in slow motion sometimes as it skips frames in the edit play back screen. Maybe I'm missing something. If i need to spend another 2k on a video card I will but if I can scratch by on the 1070 for a bit that would be cool too.

Cheers!

I'm a noob so please go easy on me

Yes I transcode to a more edit friendly format. I had a lot of issues editing H.264 or H.265, maybe its my particular workflow for editing, I don't know, but I often ended up with issues at render time where it would consistently crash out saying it could not read frames from the video etc.

Since I moved to transcoding, I don't get such issues and I also have much smoother scrubbing.

I Only have a 970M in my editing laptop and it's working fine for me.

@dave - what are you transcoding to?

asking cause i have some gimbol footage coming in from a samsung s5 and pixel 2xl...

No need to transcode as you will potentially loose image data. Use the optimised media or cache options in Resolve which create temporary transcoded media to edit like Pro Res that are easy on the computer but preserve the original clips for final output rendering.

Hey,

For personal projects (pro hardly include gopros), I've almost always batch transcoded to ProRes. For so many reasons it would be a waste of time to elaborate here, the main one being h26x are no editing but diffusion codec...

Leslie Wand wrote:@dave - what are you transcoding to?

asking cause i have some gimbol footage coming in from a samsung s5 and pixel 2xl...

Hi Leslie,

I transcode to ProRes 112MBit using a combo of FFMPeg and AnotherGUI as I don't like typing

I'm sure optimized media could be used or smart cache, but truth is I'm a control freak and like to know what is happening. You might need higher bitrate, depends on your footage I guess.

I offer a rule of thumb for consideration.

If you're shooting H.264/5, use proxies (Optimized Media in Resolve), regardless of machine specs.
If you don't want to use proxies, don't shoot H.264/5.

I recommend Cineform 10 bit at 1/4 resolution for Optimized Media. It plays soooo much better than H.264/5 originals, especially once effects come into play.

Please add "under Windows", Jim. Under MacOS, ProRes is smoother.

I frequently edit GoPro 2.6K footage w/ paid version. Playback works well most of the time unless I have mixed frame rate video in the same timeline. I use the GoPro generated *.LRV files as proxies after changing the extension to MP4.

FYI...I have noticed poor performance with playback in the source pane when the project setting fps is different than the clip fps regardless of what the timeline fps is. For example, if the project/timeline is set to 30 fps then 30 fps plays correctly but 60 fps doesn't (still plays poorly if I generate a new timeline at 60).
If the project was made using 60 fps initially then playback works correctly.

Dave_T wrote:FYI...I have noticed poor performance with playback in the source pane when the project setting fps is different than the clip fps regardless of what the timeline fps is. For example, if the project/timeline is set to 30 fps then 30 fps plays correctly but 60 fps doesn't (still plays poorly if I generate a new timeline at 60).
If the project was made using 60 fps initially then playback works correctly.

What retiming method do you have selected as the project default? If you use optical flow then you will get a noticeable hit in playback performance. I generally set my project default to "nearest" until I'm ready to render and then I'll switch to optical flow -- makes edting so much easier.

Uli Plank wrote:Please add "under Windows", Jim. Under MacOS, ProRes is smoother.

I always post from the point of view that one is using the de facto standard OS on the planet - Windows.

Guys who use non-standard operating systems have to make their own adjustments.

"Standard" ?
Come on...

John Griffin wrote:No need to transcode as you will potentially loose image data. Use the optimised media or cache options in Resolve which create temporary transcoded media to edit like Pro Res that are easy on the computer but preserve the original clips for final output rendering.

You won't lose any image data if you transcode to a better format. DNxHR or most flavors of ProRes 422 (particularly a 10-bit codec) is going to be more than GoPros need. You do need to be careful to make sure of Video/Full Data Levels and so on. For workflow purposes, I would always rather manually transcode all H.264 & H.265 interframe codecs to one of these first, to take some of the load off the CPU during playback.

Sam Steti wrote:For personal projects (pro hardly include gopros), I've almost always batch transcoded to ProRes. For so many reasons it would be a waste of time to elaborate here, the main one being h26x are no editing but diffusion codec...

We do encounter well-intentioned clients who use GoPros or DJI cameras using highly-compressed codecs, and it does make our lives miserable. We do standardize on ProRes 422 (or 422HQ) most of the time.

Now that very small, high-quality cameras like the Red Komodo and BMD Pocket are out there, we're hoping that more filmmakers will use these instead of the $399-$499 cameras (or even the $999 DSLRS), since higher-quality small cameras can shoot uncompressed 10-bit, even Raw in some cases. We'd be fine in not transcoding those, assuming a big enough Resolve rig.

Wow, I really wasn't expecting so many great replies. Thanks very much for the input I will point my head in the direction of some good info and have a go at it.

- Cheers!