DNx HQX, HQ, SQ & LB Data Levels being interpreted wrong by Resolve

[chrisbrearley]

Not quite sure when this happened but I know things used to be correct.

Resolve is wrongly interpreting any DNxHD or DNxHR HQX, HQ, SQ & LB files as FULL when they should be VIDEO, resulting in washed out files. This has not always been the case. I have pulled in a DNxHD HQX created in After Effects last year and Resolve interprets this correctly as VIDEO. DNx 444 are correctly interpreted as FULL.

This has probably caused us to send out potentially hundreds of TVCs with the wrong colour.

Colours are correct when these files are brought back in to After Effects so the issue seems to be with how After Effects has started to flag data levels which Resolve is not picking up correctly. The fact that an older file from After Effects seems ok leads me to the believe the bug has surfaced in After Effects rather than Resolve.

[chrisbrearley]

Further to this, MXFs created in Premiere are interprted correctly.

[Jose Panadero]

But are you usign color management in Resolve? I'm working on a project with some VFX in After Effects and they look correctly in DaVinci when RCM is active in Resolve.

[chrisbrearley]

No but even with RCM turned on the problem still persists. This is not an RCM issue, when Resolve Data levels are set to Auto it is incorrectly choosing DATA. Manually changing it to VIDEO sorts it but I shouldn't have to do this.

If you are using a current version of AE to export your files I would double-check this.

[chrisbrearley · Accepted solution]

I have disovered the bug has appeared in 17.5.1. If you have rendered out of AE with DNx HQX or less and have not manaully changed clip attribures in Resolve to Video then what you are seeing in Resolve will be incorrect. If you used DNx 444 then you will be ok. 

[chrisbrearley]

Fixed in v18 https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911311-after-effects/suggestions/42234835-dnx-export-data-f...

[Byron Cortez]

Make sure that both are working in the same color space, because if you interpret it well in Premiere Pro it means that DaVinci is the one that needs an adjustment of the color profile you are working with. You do this where Jose Panadero tells you in the Color Management tab of Project Settings in Resolve.

[chrisbrearley]

Seriously, guys. I appreciate your input but I have been using this workflow for over 5 years. Something is wrong.

Here is my Resolve window. I have rendered out a black solid from AE as DNxHR HQX 10-bit and dropped it into the timeline and moved it to the right. As you can see, what should be black is actaully grey. Data levels are set to Auto.

[chrisbrearley]

Spot the odd one out

[Jose Panadero]

Try to activate Resolve color management and use the Rec709 Gamma 2.4 as the input color space. Then in the Media Pool, right click on your DNX file and look at the Input Color Space Menu. Check if it is marked as Bypass or if if it using the Rec709 color space.

[chrisbrearley]

Again. Not a colour management issue.

[chrisbrearley · Accepted solution]

So I've done some more investigating, importing files rendered throughout the year to find out when the issue started. It's a very recent thing and seem to have happened in the November After Effects 17.5.1 update. Looking at the update release notes they were playing about with DNx codecs

Fixed an issue that caused QuickTime DNxHR files generated via Avid Media Composer's Universal Media Engine to import as audio-only.
Fixed an issue that caused all-black frames when exporting a comp to QuickTime with the Avid DNxHR 444 codec with an alpha channel.
Fixed an issue that caused import to fail for Quick Time ProRes files.
Fixed an issue that caused garbage pixels when exporting a comp to QuickTime DNxHR 444 with uncompressed alpha.

During these 'fixes' this bug has been introduced.