What is the largest media file size that Resolve can handle?

I have generated a 500+ GB AVI file using my Intensity Pro PCI capture card. I have never worked with a file of that size, and am wondering if Resolve Studio 16.2.6 has an upper limit on the maximum size of a media file that it can import. Or conversely, is the upper limit a function of installed RAM, or other factors?

I would *assume* that Resolve Studio can handle whatever you can throw at it, but after 20 minutes of loading time, it still has not completed the upload, so I am trying to figure out if the program (or my PC) can't handle it, or if it just takes a very long time to load a 500+ GB media file.

Upload means to transfer from a local computer to a remote computer over a network, such as the Internet.

You upload to YouTube.

You import into Resolve.

And depending on the factors, it could well take that long to import such a large file.

I have generated a 500+ GB AVI file using my Intensity Pro PCI capture card. I have never worked with a file of that size, and am wondering if Resolve Studio 16.2.6 has an upper limit on the maximum size of a media file that it can import. Or conversely, is the upper limit a function of installed RAM, or other factors?

I would *assume* that Resolve Studio can handle whatever you can throw at it, but after 20 minutes of loading time, it still has not completed the upload, so I am trying to figure out if the program (or my PC) can't handle it, or if it just takes a very long time to load a 500+ GB media file.

I'm not sure what the largest size is but I'm working with long multicam clips in resolve (one is HD prores 1080 that's 90 minutes long, and the other is AVCHD 1080 90 minutes long and Resolve is struggling to edit quickly with these two files in multicam. Popped the same files in Premiere and Final Cut Pro X for comparison, Premiere seems to have no problem and Final Cut was terrible. I even generated optimized media in Resolve and Premiere is still better on the timeline.

I love Resolve, but one of the areas it needs help in is working with larger files sizes with long recordings.

I have generated a 500+ GB AVI file using my Intensity Pro PCI capture card. I have never worked with a file of that size, and am wondering if Resolve Studio 16.2.6 has an upper limit on the maximum size of a media file that it can import. Or conversely, is the upper limit a function of installed RAM, or other factors?
I would *assume* that Resolve Studio can handle whatever you can throw at it, but after 20 minutes of loading time, it still has not completed the upload, so I am trying to figure out if the program (or my PC) can't handle it, or if it just takes a very long time to load a 500+ GB media file.

Resolve is more gpu than cpu. I think that your gpu is outdated and the possible cause of your woes.

Ricardo Marty

Once by accident I've left my BMPCC4K running on Q0 at 60fps and it has created something like 450 Gb BRAW file. I haven't noticed any difference in Resolve Studio later on compared to MUCH smaller files.

There's an important factor nobody is addressing here:

AVCHD and AVI type files or not "editing" files, they're a camera codec or container. The difference between the two is one is generated by the camera and is designed for data-efficiency in that particular hardware setup or, in the case of AVI files, for low-computer-power playback on a computer. Neither of them are designed to be "cut" or edited.

The only reason editing software packages can import and talk to non-editing type files is because of pressure that came from the consumer marketplace, not professional editors.

There's a long technical explanation of the differences between camera and editing files, but the short version is that you need to *convert* any non-editing type of file INTO something that is, such as ProRes, M-JPEG, Uncompressed (huge files being replaced by RAW workflows), JPEG2000, Animation etc.

These days the two most commonly used EDIT formats are either ProRes or DNxHD (Avid).

If you try to make any NLE (editor) work a massive single file that's long-GOP based, like AVCHD or AVI it will choke on it - because the software has to re-encode the file WHILE you're editing. You're making Resolve - or anything else work 3-4 times harder than it should and hoard every available resource in the GPU, CPU and RAM to do it.

Convert your files to ProRes or DNxHD and watch how much easier things get.

There's an important factor nobody is addressing here:

AVCHD and AVI type files or not "editing" files, they're a camera codec or container. The difference between the two is one is generated by the camera and is designed for data-efficiency in that particular hardware setup or, in the case of AVI files, for low-computer-power playback on a computer. Neither of them are designed to be "cut" or edited.

The only reason editing software packages can import and talk to non-editing type files is because of pressure that came from the consumer marketplace, not professional editors.

There's a long technical explanation of the differences between camera and editing files, but the short version is that you need to *convert* any non-editing type of file INTO something that is, such as ProRes, M-JPEG, Uncompressed (huge files being replaced by RAW workflows), JPEG2000, Animation etc.

These days the two most commonly used EDIT formats are either ProRes or DNxHD (Avid).

If you try to make any NLE (editor) work a massive single file that's long-GOP based, like AVCHD or AVI it will choke on it - because the software has to re-encode the file WHILE you're editing. You're making Resolve - or anything else work 3-4 times harder than it should and hoard every available resource in the GPU, CPU and RAM to do it.

Convert your files to ProRes or DNxHD and watch how much easier things get.

I get what you are saying (and a little off topic) and I agree with you but I don't get why after generating optimized media Resolve still stutters over simple editing even on my system. Generating optimized media should do exactly what you described yet I have problems all the time in DR even after generating optimized media (DNxHR HQ). I am sure it works fine with native RAW files but I always feel like it doesn't work as well with anything else even after generating optimized media.

Keep in mind "optimized media" is simply the "cache" files Resolve creates to help playback non-editing type files or, if you don't have enough system resources to playback all the streams you have in your timeline.

It will never playback as smoothly as real, transcoded footage for the same aforementioned reasons: Everytime you make ANY change, Resolve has to then re-render new optimized files. So you're still making the software work harder than it should.

Refer to my previous post and convert your files into edit files and keep your NLE from doing unnecessary heavy-lifting.

Keep in mind "optimized media" is simply the "cache" files Resolve creates to help playback non-editing type files or, if you don't have enough system resources to playback all the streams you have in your timeline.

It will never playback as smoothly as real, transcoded footage for the same aforementioned reasons: Everytime you make ANY change, Resolve has to then re-render new optimized files. So you're still making the software work harder than it should.

Refer to my previous post and convert your files into edit files and keep your NLE from doing unnecessary heavy-lifting.

Optimized media is "real, transcoded footage". If you choose to generate optimized media for your media pool, it will transcode full Prores or DNxHR clips from these (based on your project settings). Optimized Media does not get re-rendered when you make changes to your timeline. You are confusing Optimized Media with Render Cache.

Optimized media is "real, transcoded footage". If you choose to generate optimized media for your media pool, it will transcode full Prores or DNxHR clips from these (based on your project settings). Optimized Media does not get re-rendered when you make changes to your timeline. You are confusing Optimized Media with Render Cache.

Exactly.

I don't get why after generating optimized media Resolve still stutters over simple editing even on my system. Generating optimized media should do exactly what you described yet I have problems all the time in DR even after generating optimized media (DNxHR HQ).

Are you also specifying a smaller size? I generally use Quarter resolution. This makes a huge difference to the optimised media.

If DNxHR HQ is too heavy, try SQ. You really need to experiment to find out what works best for your computer.

EDIT: Wait. Your computer is a power-house compared to mine. You should be having no trouble at all. Bizarre!

Others reading this might benefit from the document DaVinci Resolve Performance Tuning, which can be downloaded from my blog. I also have a tutorial video on performance tuning.

Just to clarify, this is an uncompressed 10 bit YUV file that was generated by an old Intensity Pro PCI card; the input was 720p @ 60 fps for over an hour. Needless to say I am revising my work flow to avoid generation of such large files. Even 5 minutes of capture at this resolution and frame rate generates over 10G of uncompressed files, BUT Resolve Studio on my PC has no problem uploading and transcoding a 10G file into a much much smaller MOV file format.

And can anyone recommend a good "standalone" program to transcode large uncompressed files into a format more suitable for editing?

BTW: unfortunately, the Intensity Pro and 4K cards apparently will lose synchronization between video and audio the longer the capture time is, so by default I will have to break up the capture process into small time durations.

So to revise my original question: can Resolve upload, edit and transcode media files that have file sizes in excess of the RAM available to Resolve on the PC (or Mac)? I do not believe that it can do that, unless it has some sophisticated mechanism to switch back and forth between data in RAM and data on the hard drive (much like the old days of SWAP files).

Resolve does not load full files into ram, this would fill ram up very fast on even the simplest timelines. Decoders give single frames on request.

That is interesting, you are apparently correct. I generated a 35 GB file, which loaded, edited, and transcoded just fine on my 32 GB machine.

Hello.

I'm having a digital file created from an archival photo. I anticipate panning within the image, possibly zooming in to about a quarter of the image size. The company that makes the file offers jpg resolutions of 16-25 MB or 56-100MB. Can Resolve handle that larger file or should I stick with the smaller?

Thanks.

John

Megabytes don’t measure resolution, what is their resolution?

Hi.

I won't know that till they are scanned. Guess it will depend on the size of the negative the Archvies have and send over to the company that does the scanning for them. The shot is c. 1872 so I suspect the negative is large.