Upgrade from Resolve Free to Resolve Studio or FCP?

Hello all,

I have been in a big dilemma lately. I am filmmaker based in Nepal and I had switched from Premiere to Da Vinci Resolve a few years back and I have to say there has been no looking back. Resolve has been near to perfect and I ABSOLUTELY love it.

So, recently I purchased Gh5s for video and soon came to know that Da Vinci Resolve free doesn't support the 10bit video format of Gh5s so I was thinking of upgrading to the Studio version for this. But recently, Panasonic has announced update for Gh5s which allows it to record video on ProRes RAW and unfortunately even Da Vinci Resolve Studio do not seem to support the format and that was really really sad to know. So if I want to use RAW, the only option for me seems to be to switch to a different platform like Final Cut Pro (I don't want to go back to Adobe). I wanted to ask here if anyone has a solution which will allow me to stick to Resolve.

I can wait, it's no hurry for the switch but eventually in near future if Resolve will not support the ProRes RAW I might have to need to switch and that will be really heartbreaking. Or does anyone know if there's a way for my Gh5s to shoot in BRaw which will allow me to use the files in Resolve? Would love to hear from y'all, what do you think?

update for Gh5s which allows it to record video on ProRes RAW

Internally?

If not, then another option to consider is moving to a Pocket 4K, which can record RAW internally, which does work in the Free version, and which would allow you to continue using the world class Color capabilities of Resolve with your new RAW media.

You can even use the same lenses, and possibly even the same media cards, that you now own.

update for Gh5s which allows it to record video on ProRes RAW

Internally?

If not, then another option to consider is moving to a Pocket 4K, which can record RAW internally, which does work in the Free version, and which would allow you to continue using the world class Color capabilities of Resolve with your new RAW media.

You can even use the same lenses, and possibly even the same media cards, that you now own.

I am seriously considering your suggestion, however, getting a new camera body might be out of reach for now. So maybe, I will stick with 10 bit internal video recording and upgrade to Resolve Studio and later in future when possible upgrade to a new camera setup. Thank you for the suggestion.

I am seriously considering your suggestion, however, getting a new camera body might be out of reach for now. So maybe, I will stick with 10 bit internal video recording and upgrade to Resolve Studio and later in future when possible upgrade to a new camera setup. Thank you for the suggestion.

In case you didn't know, the Pocket 4k comes with Davinci Resolve Studio. That being said, it's still a bit of money upfront but that basically takes of $300 from the camera.

getting a new camera body might be out of reach for now

There's a couple things you have to add to the equation.

You'll need an external recorder to go with the GH5's RAW output. You'll also need to spend $300 on Final Cut.

Add that up and you're more than half way to a P4K. Sell the no longer needed GH5 and you've got more than enough.

And...you get the phenomenal colors of BMD color science. (That alone was a huge reason I switched from the GH4 to the original Pocket.)

It also depends on your machine and typical delivery.
If your machine (I assume a Mac since you consider FCP) has plenty of power, Resolve should be the better decision. If it may struggle with 10 bit HEVC in 4K, you may be better off with Apple’s NLE, which is using their hardware very efficiently.
OTOH, if you don’t need to deliver HDR, the internal 10 bit recording is good enough if there’s no extreme grading.

I am seriously considering your suggestion, however, getting a new camera body might be out of reach for now. So maybe, I will stick with 10 bit internal video recording and upgrade to Resolve Studio and later in future when possible upgrade to a new camera setup. Thank you for the suggestion.

In case you didn't know, the Pocket 4k comes with Davinci Resolve Studio. That being said, it's still a bit of money upfront but that basically takes of $300 from the camera.

I agree it's a super deal. I was actually trying to get BMPCC 4k instead of Gh5s in the beginning, however there was an extreme lack of shortage of that camera during that time so I decided to get the Gh5s.

getting a new camera body might be out of reach for now

There's a couple things you have to add to the equation.

You'll need an external recorder to go with the GH5's RAW output. You'll also need to spend $300 on Final Cut.

Add that up and you're more than half way to a P4K. Sell the no longer needed GH5 and you've got more than enough.

And...you get the phenomenal colors of BMD color science. (That alone was a huge reason I switched from the GH4 to the original Pocket.)

You've got a good point, however it's not quite easy to sell Gh5s here in Nepal and anyways it's quite new so I might as well stick with it for now and use it to its full potential. I have decided to stay away from Raw for now and upgrade the software to support the 10 bit videos. That should allow me to learn a lot as well and when I am ready maybe switch to Raw in the future, let's see. Thanks for your advice.

It also depends on your machine and typical delivery.
If your machine (I assume a Mac since you consider FCP) has plenty of power, Resolve should be the better decision. If it may struggle with 10 bit HEVC in 4K, you may be better off with Apple’s NLE, which is using their hardware very efficiently.
OTOH, if you don’t need to deliver HDR, the internal 10 bit recording is good enough if there’s no extreme grading.

Yes, the thing that also worried me to jump to a Raw configuration was because I don't have a powerful system. I use a Macbook Pro basic model from 2016, which handles HD videos fairly easily but it should struggle with Raw formats. So deciding to go to Raw, I will have to not only update the camera but also the machine I think, so that will take a lot of financial stress. I will stick to the current setup and upgrade Da Vinci Studio in near future when it's possible for me so that I can use the 10 bit format.

I had one question, do you think my Macbook can handle 10 bit videos well? I wanted to try if Da Vinci Studio trial was available but there's not way I can tell if it's possible or not with this version of Resolve.

Please post the exact model and configuration and let’s hope someone on the forum has it too (and a license).

Please post the exact model and configuration and let’s hope someone on the forum has it too (and a license).

Sure, here's the configuration:

Macbook Pro, 13-inch, 2016
Processor 2 Ghz Dual-Core Intel Core i5
Memory 8 GB 1867 MHz LPDDR3
Graphics Intel Iris Graphics 540 1536 MB

And I am using Da Vinci Resolve Free until now.

It's a decent system and I have only worked with FHD videos up until now and it works quite well. I wanted to give 4K 10bit videos a go in my next project. What do you all think? Do you think my system will be able to handle the output? Oh also, I might be using an external SSD drive (thinking of Samsung) to work on the files, my laptop had a limited space of only 256 GB.

I feel sorry to have to you this. But you are lucky that it’s a Mac and runs Resolve at all actually it’s under specs, both it’s RAM and the GPU. Forget 4K and maybe even 10 bit might be a problem.
You could consider an eGPU. That’s what worked for my wife when she still had the same machine.
Let’s hope somebody can try, we don have that one any more.

I may be out of place here by saying this, and believe me I am a nerd that would love to use raw formats and all, but I think its important to realise that a good movie does not depend on resolutions and bitrates. If you take care of the filming, proper exposure etc, you mostly dont need 10 bit 422 and stuff to make a good movie. I'd rather watch a 720p good movieclip than a 4K HDR uninteresting piece of s#@$.

I hope I dont sound condesending, its not meant like that. I am just looking at myself, always chasing gear without first properly learning how to get the most out of the gear I already have.

I'd rather watch a 720p good movieclip than a 4K HDR uninteresting piece of s#@$.

I see this argument frequently. No one disputes it.

However, the idea with better technology, better formats, isn't to make a "better movie". The idea is to make the process of creating that movie easier, or to provide the viewer with better image and sound, which is something many viewers appreciate.

So look at it from that perspective. Would you rather watch the same interesting movie in 720, or 4K HDR?

Pranav, have you considered converting your GH5s HVEC files into ProRes first?
Of course file sizes will increase considerably.

I'd rather watch a 720p good movieclip than a 4K HDR uninteresting piece of s#@$.

I see this argument frequently. No one disputes it.

However, the idea with better technology, better formats, isn't to make a "better movie". The idea is to make the process of creating that movie easier, or to provide the viewer with better image and sound, which is something many viewers appreciate.

So look at it from that perspective. Would you rather watch the same interesting movie in 720, or 4K HDR?

My son and daughter where playing a videogame on a ps3 and ps4 next to eachother at a vacationresort we where at. Same game. Different resolution and graphics. Both had equal fun and didbt even notice the water on the ps4 looke a lot better compared to the ps3.

So no, I am convinced that this whole resolution and 4k thing is highly overrated. Yes, the difference I gave between 720p and 4k is massive. But the difference betwee 1080p and 4k is in my opinion nonsense. The movie itself is what captivates you, not resolution.

And yes, room to correct is nice with 422 10 bit etc. That is why I specifically said that if you take care of filming it properly, that will be less of not an issue.

I dont want to derail the OP topic, so I will refrain from answerimg futher

Both had equal fun and didbt even notice the water on the ps4 looke a lot better compared to the ps3.

I didn't say every viewer would appreciate it. My mom can't tell the different between VHS and Blu-ray.

But my dad can.

the difference betwee 1080p and 4k is in my opinion nonsense.

I'm kind of with you on this one. I think the benefits of "4K" are to be found more in HDR than in Resolution.

A good example here is John Wick. Part 1 is SDR 709. Part 2 is HDR 2100. Both are 4K resolution.

Part 2 is quite noticeably the better viewing experience.

My point here is that I agree with your sentiment - shooting RAW and using Resolve won't necessarily make a "better movie". But...it can improve the image quality of that movie, or make it easier to get the desired results, which it's a worthwhile goal.

I feel sorry to have to you this. But you are lucky that it’s a Mac and runs Resolve at all actually it’s under specs, both it’s RAM and the GPU. Forget 4K and maybe even 10 bit might be a problem.
You could consider an eGPU. That’s what worked for my wife when she still had the same machine.
Let’s hope somebody can try, we don have that one any more.

That's pretty sad to realize but thanks for pointing out the eGPU system, I didn't know about that. I will take note of it.

I may be out of place here by saying this, and believe me I am a nerd that would love to use raw formats and all, but I think its important to realise that a good movie does not depend on resolutions and bitrates. If you take care of the filming, proper exposure etc, you mostly dont need 10 bit 422 and stuff to make a good movie. I'd rather watch a 720p good movieclip than a 4K HDR uninteresting piece of s#@$.

I hope I dont sound condesending, its not meant like that. I am just looking at myself, always chasing gear without first properly learning how to get the most out of the gear I already have.

That is a valid argument. I have to say that the run to acquire new and better gears is sometimes very tiring and not as satisfying when the system is finally bought.

But I think I need to clarify why I came to the point of wanting to try out ProRes RAW in the first place. So after purchasing the Gh5s camera and trying out both photo and video, I was very disappointed with how the photos turned out. I shot them in Jpeg and the output was very bad in my opinion- lots of artificial sharpening (I had put camera sharpening to the minimum!) and the textures felt overly polished, I was very very disappointed. Then recently I shot some photos in 14bit RAW and put them through Luminar software and I was utterly AMAZED by the difference between the jpeg and RAW version! The difference was waaayyy apart. The RAW photos maintained lots of details, the artificial sharpening I mentioned earlier was completely gone and it had a rather more natural sharpening effect. Needless to say, the highlights and shadows were very much preserved and overall the photo just had a complete new feel to it! I was amazed by the Gh5s sensor to capture so much detail and I wanted to see if the same difference happened when I switched to RAW in video.

I have only shot 8bit FHD videos in my camera, mainly because I can't process 10bit in free Resolve and (I have to admit I am quite very new to video color correction) I feel the artificial sharpening I mentioned before seems to be prevalent in the videos as well and I was wondering if there's a way to get rid of it and bring out the details like in RAW photos in videos too.

And just very recently Panasonic announced support of ProRes RAW in my camera so I wanted to instantly jump in the bandwagon and see the difference. But reading replies from you all, I have come to feel there's a lot to learn in this area. But I have to say I am truly very thankful for all the replies until now. They have been invaluable to make my decisions and is so much better than just going through and listening to the Google searches

Pranav, have you considered converting your GH5s HVEC files into ProRes first?
Of course file sizes will increase considerably.

No, I haven't. In fact, I am not quite sure what the difference will be? Could you direct me where to look for this topic? I have to admit I am quite lost.

And just very recently Panasonic announced support of ProRes RAW in my camera

Since you didnt mention it, I want to make sure you understand you need to buy a atomos ninja v external recorder (at least 1100 dollar before you can start using it) to record prores raw. The GH5s by itself cannot record prores raw.

And just very recently Panasonic announced support of ProRes RAW in my camera

Since you didnt mention it, I want to make sure you understand you need to buy a atomos ninja v external recorder (at least 1100 dollar before you can start using it) to record prores raw. The GH5s by itself cannot record prores raw.

Yes, I came to know about that. I was ready to buy the ninja because anyways I needed a bigger screen to shoot outdoors. But yea, I have come to realize that my system won't be able to handle Raw at the moment, so I won't be making the jump right away.

Pranav, have you considered converting your GH5s HVEC files into ProRes first?
Of course file sizes will increase considerably.

I have come across couple of videos on youtube showing how to convert the 10 bit 422 videos to ProRes so that they will be able to run in Resolve free but I had a question: will the quality of the video be compromised when the conversion is made? Has anyone experienced this process?

ProRes is a high quality codec which won’t effect the quality of your video.

ProRes is a high quality codec which won’t effect the quality of your video.

Curious - How true is the claim that every re-encode results in a loss of quality when dealing with lossless codecs?

There is no visible quality loss with ProRes 422 HQ, you can use it for grading. If you have a lot of fast storage, you can go even higher with ProRes 444. But it doesn't really make sense with recordings which originated in HEVC or AVC. And then, since your hardware can realistically only handle up to HD, you won't see a difference anyway with 4K sources.
Please stop being too concerned about details only people like us can spot by pixel peeping and focus on making good films, as already discussed here.
BTW, a nice transcoding software for free (actually, donations are not objected) is Shutter Encoder.

I may be out of place here by saying this, and believe me I am a nerd that would love to use raw formats and all, but I think its important to realise that a good movie does not depend on resolutions and bitrates. If you take care of the filming, proper exposure etc, you mostly dont need 10 bit 422 and stuff to make a good movie. I'd rather watch a 720p good movieclip than a 4K HDR uninteresting piece of s#@$.

I hope I dont sound condesending, its not meant like that. I am just looking at myself, always chasing gear without first properly learning how to get the most out of the gear I already have.

That is a valid argument. I have to say that the run to acquire new and better gears is sometimes very tiring and not as satisfying when the system is finally bought.

But I think I need to clarify why I came to the point of wanting to try out ProRes RAW in the first place. So after purchasing the Gh5s camera and trying out both photo and video, I was very disappointed with how the photos turned out. I shot them in Jpeg and the output was very bad in my opinion- lots of artificial sharpening (I had put camera sharpening to the minimum!) and the textures felt overly polished, I was very very disappointed. Then recently I shot some photos in 14bit RAW and put them through Luminar software and I was utterly AMAZED by the difference between the jpeg and RAW version! The difference was waaayyy apart. The RAW photos maintained lots of details, the artificial sharpening I mentioned earlier was completely gone and it had a rather more natural sharpening effect. Needless to say, the highlights and shadows were very much preserved and overall the photo just had a complete new feel to it! I was amazed by the Gh5s sensor to capture so much detail and I wanted to see if the same difference happened when I switched to RAW in video.

I have only shot 8bit FHD videos in my camera, mainly because I can't process 10bit in free Resolve and (I have to admit I am quite very new to video color correction) I feel the artificial sharpening I mentioned before seems to be prevalent in the videos as well and I was wondering if there's a way to get rid of it and bring out the details like in RAW photos in videos too.

And just very recently Panasonic announced support of ProRes RAW in my camera so I wanted to instantly jump in the bandwagon and see the difference. But reading replies from you all, I have come to feel there's a lot to learn in this area. But I have to say I am truly very thankful for all the replies until now. They have been invaluable to make my decisions and is so much better than just going through and listening to the Google searches

If you use the Leeming Lut and the camerasettings mr Leeming advises, you will not have he artificial sharpening. If you follow his "exposure to the right" advise and his zebra settings, you will have good exposure pretty much every time. The lut for the gh5/gh5s is a LOT cheaper compared to a ninja or a new pc, I would recommend it

ProRes is a high quality codec which won’t effect the quality of your video.

Curious - How true is the claim that every re-encode results in a loss of quality when dealing with lossless codecs?

ProRes is NOT a lossless codec. But the loss of quality for one re-encoding is quite negligibly.

Correct. There is a huge difference in mathematically lossless and visually lossless. In size too.

There is no visible quality loss with ProRes 422 HQ, you can use it for grading. If you have a lot of fast storage, you can go even higher with ProRes 444. But it doesn't really make sense with recordings which originated in HEVC or AVC. And then, since your hardware can realistically only handle up to HD, you won't see a difference anyway with 4K sources.
Please stop being too concerned about details only people like us can spot by pixel peeping and focus on making good films, as already discussed here.
BTW, a nice transcoding software for free (actually, donations are not objected) is Shutter Encoder.

Thanks for your advice and also for the direction with the Shutter Encoder! I will check it out and see how the 10 bit footage perform compared with 8 bit in my Resolve, I have been wanting to compare the two for along time now.

I may be out of place here by saying this, and believe me I am a nerd that would love to use raw formats and all, but I think its important to realise that a good movie does not depend on resolutions and bitrates. If you take care of the filming, proper exposure etc, you mostly dont need 10 bit 422 and stuff to make a good movie. I'd rather watch a 720p good movieclip than a 4K HDR uninteresting piece of s#@$.

I hope I dont sound condesending, its not meant like that. I am just looking at myself, always chasing gear without first properly learning how to get the most out of the gear I already have.

That is a valid argument. I have to say that the run to acquire new and better gears is sometimes very tiring and not as satisfying when the system is finally bought.

But I think I need to clarify why I came to the point of wanting to try out ProRes RAW in the first place. So after purchasing the Gh5s camera and trying out both photo and video, I was very disappointed with how the photos turned out. I shot them in Jpeg and the output was very bad in my opinion- lots of artificial sharpening (I had put camera sharpening to the minimum!) and the textures felt overly polished, I was very very disappointed. Then recently I shot some photos in 14bit RAW and put them through Luminar software and I was utterly AMAZED by the difference between the jpeg and RAW version! The difference was waaayyy apart. The RAW photos maintained lots of details, the artificial sharpening I mentioned earlier was completely gone and it had a rather more natural sharpening effect. Needless to say, the highlights and shadows were very much preserved and overall the photo just had a complete new feel to it! I was amazed by the Gh5s sensor to capture so much detail and I wanted to see if the same difference happened when I switched to RAW in video.

I have only shot 8bit FHD videos in my camera, mainly because I can't process 10bit in free Resolve and (I have to admit I am quite very new to video color correction) I feel the artificial sharpening I mentioned before seems to be prevalent in the videos as well and I was wondering if there's a way to get rid of it and bring out the details like in RAW photos in videos too.

And just very recently Panasonic announced support of ProRes RAW in my camera so I wanted to instantly jump in the bandwagon and see the difference. But reading replies from you all, I have come to feel there's a lot to learn in this area. But I have to say I am truly very thankful for all the replies until now. They have been invaluable to make my decisions and is so much better than just going through and listening to the Google searches

If you use the Leeming Lut and the camerasettings mr Leeming advises, you will not have he artificial sharpening. If you follow his "exposure to the right" advise and his zebra settings, you will have good exposure pretty much every time. The lut for the gh5/gh5s is a LOT cheaper compared to a ninja or a new pc, I would recommend it

Thanks for this! This is very exciting, I didn't know about this before. Thank you!

Thank you all for your valuable insight, I think I have found a direction and I am not as confused as before. This really really helped me!

Glad we could help Pranav. Now have fun and shot

Glad we could help Pranav. Now have fun and shot

Yes !

Also I wanted to let you all know that I converted the 10 bit files into ProRes using Shutter Encoder and the files work perfectly in Da Vinci Resolve! The original files actually lagged a little in Final Cut demo but they work so smoothly in Resolve free!