Slow 3rd playback compared to Premiere?

[Dean Butler]

(EDIT: Title should read "r3d" not "3rd"... my bad.)

So I'm looking at trying to crossover to resolve (from Premiere) as my primary editor.

I'm working on a pretty simple mini-doc corporate project Shot on 5k/4k Scarlet-w 8:1 - 10:1 compression. (There's also some 4k prores 422 recorded on a Ninja from an XT3).

I have a 1080ti and get real time 5k playback in red cinex (since the update). Premiere doesn't quite manage that, but 1/2 res super smooth playback with no grading. (I'm on a 24tb g-tech raid connected via thunderbolt3) 64gb ram.

In Resolve 15.3 (andin 16 beta which I tried). The playback stutters and plays back out of sync. (The video is delayed behind the audio playback by a good second or two, it's not a consistent difference though).

I thought Resolve playback would be much improved on Premiere??? GPU processing is set to CUDA...

Any ideas? I'm on a UHD timeline, outputting 1080 via SDI to a 10 bit osee monitor.

Do I need to create proxies? Haven't done that in years!! The 4k 50fps prores files are playing back smooth as butter.

Thoughts? Is this normal? Is resolve just rubbish for r3d playback? Should I consider only using it for grading? I'd love to move away from adobe if I can (multiple crashes everyday for what I'm paying has me very frustrated).

 

[rand thompson]

Dean,


There's a couple of ways to improve playback of .R3d files in resolve


You Can change the "decode" quality but be aware this can greatly affect you ability to do Noise reduction, Sharpening and Qualifying.

First under "Preference" under the "Davinci Resolve" header in the top menu, In the " Memory and Gpu" tab, you can change how much System memory you allocate to Resolve and how much "Memory Cache" you allocate to Fusion. I allocate A lot less to Fusion since I only use it for Titles.

Next,

you can use choose to use "Use Optimized Media if available" or a "half" or "quarter" resolution "Proxy" setting under the "playback" header.

To use "Optimized Media" in the "Project settings" choose "Master settings" then "Optimize media and render Cache" then whatever "Optimize Media resolution", "Optimized media format" and "render cache format" you what they gives you the best playback and editing experience.

Next, be sure to choose "Use Optimized Media if available" then select the R3d files you want to use and right-click on them and select "Generate Optimized Media"

Then Unselect it in the "Deliver" Page so that the Original R3d files are used.

 

[Dean Butler]

Wow Rand, thanks so much for the detailed response! Much appreciated. I had tried lowering the decode quality and various proxy settings. I was just still getting out of sync audio and stuttering video. Think I'll just have to use optomized media.

If I may ask another question. Say I'm working in a 4k UHD timeline, and the source files are 5k UHD and 4k UHD respectively. Can I make the proxies just 1080p and automatically upscale them in the timeline (to save space etc). I'm certainly going to grade and deliver using the r3ds.

Or would/should I make the timeline 1080p and change to UHD later?

THANKS!!!!!

 

[rand thompson]

Dean,


I'm on my tablet right now and won't be able to get back to my computer until about 4 or 5 hours from now. But this is my thinking on this, and maybe others can chime in to voice their opinions.

(1) Choose the resolution that you will deliver in.

(2) Bring in all of your .r3d files, hopefully in the same Aspect Ratio which in this case is UHD ( HD in red in-camera and 1.78:1 /16:9 if you plan on cropping a non HD r3d file down to match in Redcine-X, the best place IMHO to perform crops of reds not in Resolve)

(3) Next, I would set a "Red Raw" Decode quality no less than "Half Resolution Good" , as to see reasonably good sharpening, noise reduction and qualifying results, before disabling "Use Optimized Media" in the "Deliver" console before final export.

(4) finally, I would select an " Optimized Media Resolution" of "Half" and the same "Optimized media format" and "render cache format" and choose the highest quality codec that gives you the smoothest playback.


I wouldn't do a 1080p upscale to 4kUhd