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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Davinci Resolve Dailies - Avid Workflow

Steve Sherrick

Steve Sherrick

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This discussion began in another thread, so I figured we'd isolate it and address some issues when using Resolve as a dailies tool that provides feature set that editors and assistant editors are used to, especially in high end feature and television work. Mike Most and I were discussing whether Resolve can transfer the Display Name in Resolve to the Name Column in Avid. You can use render tags to get scene-take-Camera ID into something like this 201-5_A. In the past you used a string such as %{scene}%{take}%{camera id} but version 12.5 makes it even easier as when you pull up the % it lists the tags you can use. So we can use this Display Name column to view the scene take info in a way that many editors like to see it. Which is great. You work with the sound recordist to set up the metadata exactly the way you want and that metadata populates the fields in resolve. But now we want to get that Display Name Column to travel via ALE to Avid so that we can potentially copy that column into the name column or keep it as is if they want to work that way. Well, I have yet to figure out how to do it. I've been testing today and so far, still no luck. Mike is looking into it as well, and I know Michael Philips has been too. If anyone has found a way, and I'm simply missing something, jump in with solution. This was a workflow killer on a project that I consulted on. The Assistant editor had to have the names come in properly set which is easy in Scratch, nextLAB, and other dailies programs.
 
Here's what it looks like in Resolve

Resolve%20Display-L.jpg
 
Gunleik, I still need to test out GAMP. I've got a volume set up on my system now that I will use for testing.
 
For a number of (basically "actual productions using it") reasons .ale support has been postponed.
Shoot me a mail at:
groven@mixedrealities.no

And I'll set you up with the latest dev builds (if you want that) being used on sets we support directly.
That supports Amira and DSCM 2.0 with a few nice features, which I'd love you to look into.

If you check out the test project posted on gamp.io, you can see how we get a similar naming into edit/dailies as what you ask for here.

Currently I'd say it's a pretty great data wrangler/project structuring tool.
But in the current projects we'll also conform VFX/post bundles post edit and export .fbx and a few other nice things.

The transcoding and LUT/color capabilities are currently hardcoded for specific productions.

But these options should be pretty welcome for DSMC 2.0 users:
prefs.png


Currently the workflow illustrated in this film works with FCP7 compatible apps and Drylab Dailies Viewer, but AVID is up next (and was halfway implemented already, but is not yet sufficiently tested)


https://vimeo.com/167411302


Best,
G
 
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I interpreted the original question to be one about naming generated files according to sound metadata. That works exactly the way I described, by using a custom file name constructed from metadata fields. The ALE is another story because as Steve has pointed out, DaVinci does not currently contain an option to use the Display Name as the ALE Clip Name, only as a display name within Resolve. Most likely, they have not included this (yet) because of their orientation towards making Resolve the one-stop shop, where you will make dailies, edit, color, and finish. However, for many this isn't the case, and as much as they might want it to be the case, most high end editors will continue to work in Avid or other programs for creative editing. However, I agree they should include an option to at least use the Display Name as the ALE clip name. In the meantime, there are a few options. One is to name the rendered files the way you want (using metadata tags) and populate the Avid bin by dragging and dropping the .mdb database file from the Finder. Unfortuately, this is not ideal because rendered files from Resolve do not contain much of the metadata you usually need and want. Another option - also less than ideal, but better - is to export a full ALE/CDL from Resolve and import that into an Avid bin, then relink the files. Assuming you have Scene and Take populated, you can then duplicate the Scene column into the Name column, and drag the Take column next to it in the bin display (or, alternatively, edit the Scene name to include the take while still in Resolve). This comes pretty close to getting you the clip names that you want (albeit without the take) while still maintaining the metadata. It also allows you to perf slip the sound, assuming you enabled the Film option when you created your Avid project.

The workarounds should get you a pretty good start. Anything more elaborate is likely to take some scripting and text processing to massage the generated ALE to contain the specific clip names you want. At Technicolor, we have custom code in our dailies software that lets us specify the clip names for all file types using metadata tags, and separately specify the clip name in the ALE, so we don't really have this problem ;-) That said, I certainly agree that allowing use of the Display Name as the clip name in the ALE would be a very reasonable thing for DaVinci to add to Resolve.....
 
M Most said:
Unfortuately, this is not ideal because rendered files from Resolve do not contain much of the metadata you usually need and want. Another option - also less than ideal, but better - is to export a full ALE/CDL from Resolve and import that into an Avid bin, then relink the files.
Click to expand...
I'm assuming there is still no way to use ALE files with Premiere or Final Cut Pro.

I agree, there should be univeral access between all of these programs to exchange dailies information like this. And I would also extend that to Track Names and Sound File names on all the WAVs that are part of the project.
 
Now that I think about it, it really doesn't require DaVinci to allow use of the Display Name directly. All it really requires is to include the Display Name as a custom column in their ALE export, along with the other metadata they already provide. That way, all you would need to do is import the ALE into an Avid bin, and duplicate the Display Name into the Name column. Pretty simple, and doesn't require any real architectural changes......
 
M Most said:
Now that I think about it, it really doesn't require DaVinci to allow use of the Display Name directly. All it really requires is to include the Display Name as a custom column in their ALE export, along with the other metadata they already provide. That way, all you would need to do is import the ALE into an Avid bin, and duplicate the Display Name into the Name column. Pretty simple, and doesn't require any real architectural changes......
Click to expand...
Exactly, which is all I was looking to do. So they just have to allow that, which they currently don't. Which is a bit strange. I put a call into them yesterday to try and get this pushed up the priority list.
 
Peter or Rohit if you are monitoring this thread, can you please help push this through. For two days I have left messages with Resolve tech support and have not received a call back. Although the workarounds that have been discussed in this thread could work in certain situations, the reality is we need to be able to deliver the display name column via ALE for those times when editors and assistant editors need things delivered ready to go. Trust me, this was absolutely a showstopper for a feature film that wanted to grade in Resolve (DP does more than a primary, CDL grade on his dailies) and editorial needed the bins delivered with the Name of clips to have scene-take already populated. Because Resolve couldn't deliver this, the footage was sent to the lab where it was run through dailies software that could.

I can't imagine this is a huge fix, and the net result is huge for your DIT clients out there.
 
Just for the record, no response on this issue, including no call backs after multiple messages left at BM.
 
UPDATE:
12.5.2
Added support for Display Name on ALE export.
Thank you BMD!
 
Marc Wielage said:
I'm assuming there is still no way to use ALE files with Premiere or Final Cut Pro.

I agree, there should be univeral access between all of these programs to exchange dailies information like this. And I would also extend that to Track Names and Sound File names on all the WAVs that are part of the project.
Click to expand...
Both Premier Pro and FCP 7 (not familiar enough with FCP X) can import batch lists. These were originally intended for capturing from tape when material was externally logged, but you can use them to populate some bin columns. It is by no means as comprehensive as ALE, but it is possible to use a spreadsheet to convert an ALE (which is a tab delimited text file at the end of the day) into a .csv for Premiere, for example. If you wanted to do something more sophisticated, you would need to write a script which parsed the ALE and created an XML. I have done similar things for clients in the past, and also written scripts which converted particular XML formats to ALE, to go the other way.
 
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