Ripple protections - Iterative Project BU in Collaborative

Hello,

I'm trying to incorporate Rippling more often in my grading workflow. I've always been a little nervous of it since you can't undo. However, I'm building some macros to provide a safety blanket.

I have Keyboard Maestro backing up the project to the internal hard drive, a back up drive, and an offsite cloud every 5 minutes. What's cool is that I have no limit on iterative project BUs. The macro timestamps the project folder name (so there are no duplicates in back up folders), and I can keep as many as I want.

This also allows iterative project BUs in collaboration mode.

I have a separate "restore" disk database if I want to open a backup. This is necessary because if there are two project backups in the same database, then it reads only the first one, since the actual project file is the same, regardless of the fact that the project folder is a different name (since each project contains a different timestamp).

Am I going to run into any database corruption or anything doing this? I understand it's not good practice for long term archival, like a .drp or database back up.

It's so much faster, and such a small file, It doesn't even produce a progress bar to back up a project this way.

Macro 1: (Ripple)
a. Project BU as described above.
b. Either Ripple to group or to selected clip (depending on a modifier).

Macro 2: (Ripple Undo)
This works best in Group Clip mode (or something like selected clips timeline filter) since you only have a thumbnail timeline of clips that have been rippled.

a. Jumps to first clip in the timeline.
b. Undo, then move to next clip, undo, move to the next clip, until the end of the timeline.

It's a bit clunky. I need to find something to feed an if/then clause to stop at the last clip, instead of just letting it error out at the end.

Are there any other gotcha's people run into with Rippling grades?

I don't really understand the practical difference between Unit change and Percentage change. They appear to do the same thing.

What I've done for years is, duplicate the timeline, call the dupe "Timelinename_BACKUP," and then make the changes on the original. If I screw up, then I just revert back to the original timeline. It doesn't happen that often, but it does happen, maybe 1 out of 10 times. And that 1 time can ruin your whole day.

Hi Marc,

Duplicating a sequence has also been my go to safety step for many things. I wanted to see if I could setup a macro to press one button to ripple, and have all the safety steps done in the macro without having to name anything, or do any additional steps until that 1 out of 10 times I need to go back. Then press another button to restore a backup and access the project/timeline state before the ripple.

Seems to work so far.

I might add the option of changing the ripple type as a step in the macro, as well as adding a version before rippling.

I also tried exporting a .drt, but on import to the same project, the new timeline created by the .drt did not retain groups.

Thanks!

Duplicating a sequence has also been my go to safety step for many things. I wanted to see if I could setup a macro to press one button to ripple, and have all the safety steps done in the macro without having to name anything

My opinion is no, it would not be possible to do a macro to undo a long ripple change throughout a timeline. The macro would have to 1) "go to next clip," 2) "go to the specific changed node(s), and 3) undo the change, and then continue. It's unwieldy and impractical. I think you're much better off doing what I suggested.

Global changes are risky in ALL color-correction software, not just Resolve. I've seen some real train wrecks in my time.