Davinci Resolve Roundtrip with FX3, FX30 or A7S III and four audio channels

[Peter Sinter]

I know there are already lots of posts about rountripping to resolve from premiere.

I have tried the XML, EDL and AAF - way. None of them worked.

The main problem is the audio format of the FX3s four-channel-audio file, so all audio from this camera is offline when I import the XML in Resolve.

So as the FX3, FX30 and A7S III all record in the same formats (in this case XAVC-HS 422 10 bit 200mbit with four channel audio), and those are very common cameras I thought maybe somebody already has come up with a good workaround.

I was thinking of maybe consolidate and transcode the whole sequence to prores and then go to Resolve, grade those consolidated clips and relink them in premiere. So I will not loose all my audio (effects) work.

Did anyone try this?

[Michael Grenadier]

Wait, if you're just using Resolve for color correction (as I mainly do), why are you bringing the audio over beyond a reference mixdown?    Not challenging you, just wondering...  

[Peter Sinter]

Thanks for your help, a good question. Mostly I have to grade before "picture lock", because of the tight deadlines. So I am thinking of a way to get back to premiere and still have all the options to change my edit.

You are right: I could place the rendered files on top of the others or replace the video track and relink every edit one by one to my "original" audio clips on the timeline. But wouldnt it be faster and easier just to relink the source files?

[Michael Grenadier]

well life is never simple...  In this situation, I'd do preliminary color correction in Premiere and then send to resolve when you have picture lock...  bwdik...    And yeah, the sony audio formatting sucks...  Probably a way to track this somehow or other, but I have no idea.  Hopefully someone else will pipe up...  Are you sending the audio to a sound designer?   Might ask him or her if they have any ideas...   What if you add "handles" in Resolve so that at least some of the adjustments would be doable in Premiere...  I have checkerboarded and split tracks in Resolve to have extra material available after returning to Premiere...  Actually, usually do this in Premiere before outputting the xml file.  If I was facing this workflow on a daily basis, I'd probably spend some time trying to figure out a workaround...  Good luck.

[Peter Sinter]

"If I was facing this workflow on a daily basis, I'd probably spend some time trying to figure out a workaround...  Good luck."

Thanks, thats why I was asking here, if someone already found a solution.

"I have checkerboarded and split tracks in Resolve to have extra material available after returning to Premiere..."

Why arent you exporting as individual clips with handles?

[Michael Grenadier]

If I understand your question, sometimes I'm working with multicamera elements and isolating each camera to it's own track allows me to quickly apply the same color correction all usages of that camera where appropriate...  

[Peter Sinter]

Whats your way to go back to Premiere? I am very curious.

[R Neil Haugen]

There's two ways back from Resolve to Premiere ...

First, export a video only media from Resolve, import into Premiere, duplicate the sequence (safety first!) and in the dupe sequence, delete the video, drop on the video from Resolve.

Second, from Resolve, export individual clips with the identical file names as in Premiere. Including handles of course.

In Premiere, in the bin, select then "offline" the original files.

Now "locate" the media, navigating to the folder with the Resolve graded files.

[Michael Grenadier]

Neil, I think you've missed the OP's issue.  The audio from the sony cameras is not compatible with the xml output from premiere...    so the audio does not survive the round trip

[R Neil Haugen]

Not at all. I was talking about bringing the graded video back into Premiere, to mate with the already present audio in Premiere.

Although on reading again, the second method, yea, I left out a key step ... export an audio only multitrack file of all audio tracks, set to re-import, before off-lining the clips. Oppsies!

[Peter Sinter]

Thanks Neil, to be honest right now I am not sure if its better to switch to resolve completely. The only reason to edit in premiere is that some editors I work with only use it - and maybe dynamic link to AE is nice.. But Resolve Studio has much more effects and grading capabilities plus better playback performance.. (FCPx has even better performance and is much more stable on a mac - and Avid has a way more robust workflow for team collaboration, so I have to find a reason to use PP at all, yet.)

[R Neil Haugen]

What works, works. They're tools.

I simply do not like Resolve's UI ... it's ugly and weird to me. And the layout is bizarre. Virtually no customization allowed. But i've got good friends who love love love it!

To each their own.

From the discussions I've been through, the essays I've read ... Premiere has the widest non-Avid set of keyboard shorts by far, and also Resolve still lacks some features and editing processes/effects that both Premiere and Avid have.

Well, Resolve came from a total grading app, and is being built by a company who's profit model is to use Resolve as a loss-leader to get people to buy BM hardware. And I've enough BM hardware I didn't need to pay for Resolve Studio ... I have the 'chits' for it from my purchases.

I work in it, and teach pro colorists how to work in Premiere when they must. So I need to do things in both apps all the time, right? Well, I prefer all my custom workspaces in Premiere.

But again, that's me.Not anyone else. Just me.

Things that they swap on ... Premiere's "Adobe" style documentation has improved over the last few years, but ... the "manual" is not nearly as complete as it should be. And many things aren't fully explained in that document, you have to hunt up other places to find the information.

BM provides over four thousand pages of highly detailed manual. Wow, great, right?

Well .... two rather major problems. First, there's no index. So finding any specific thing might take a while. And probably isn't in the section you thought it was in if you do find it.

Second ... they use their own, unique nomenclature for so many things ... so you often have to read what something does to figure out what it is.

I do appreciate all the color tools of course, AND ... the ability to select color and media managment in great specificity and depth. Oh ... my ... yes.

But if I'm going to work on a project just to do something, it will be in Premiere. You ... do what you need!

[Peter Sinter]

Thats right. I didnt want to complain.. and its getting a bit off-topic now. 😉

To be honest I am still searching after working with each application for about four years now..

My main keyboard shortcuts are Avid-Shortcuts and I try to adapt them to every application so I can switch seamlessly - and you are right, even the naming of the shortcuts is VERY different in every application. Even the simple navigation shortcut "go to next/previous edit point" is hard to find on every LNE..

If I would just work with native linked clips on my own I would definitely stick to FCPx - it has less shortcuts but you definitely NEED less, because a lot is done automatically. No need to enable/disable tracks or toggle linked selection n and off. Its by far underrated and even Apple promotes new apple silicon devices with premiere instead of FCPx so I dont think they believe in their own software that much.

Then the highest quality longGOP-codecs of the FX3, FX30 and A7s III (back to main topic 😉 are still challenging every system so I guess I have to stick to transcoding, and then AVID is becoming an option again, as Avidlink is horrible, but transcoding/ingesting is much more robust and faster.

In premiere, working with direct link in "standard" projects becomes VEEERY slow right now. Even on an M2 Max 32 GB ram, just opening the project (about 11 hours of footage and 30 min timeline) takes a few minutes.. And "using team projects" unlinked all my footage and I couldnt get it linked back. So for me the avid way if far more proven and premiere is just trying to copy their workflow with productions but I am not sure if they are already there. 

And then again Resolve.. was getting a bit annoying - they did the same mistake as adobe some time ago stuffing more and more features into the app and thus sacrificing performance and stability. The first versions with fairlight were a mess.. it was swallowing all CPU resources just for audio editing. But they are catching up again. And the Ui could be a bit more flexible.. right. But I didnt miss any features I find in premiere there.. plus better performance. AND effects like deflicker, denoise.. etcs.. so no roundtripping necessary.

Maybe the new Loudness match feature plus audio ducking can save some time in adobe, I dont think resolve has that - only avid has some kind of ducking but then FCPx has a very detailled waveform where you can see and adapt the volume of your clips in a very detailled way and hit loudness.

[R Neil Haugen]

Ain't none of these ... "systems" ... perfect. Not Avid, nor BlackMagic, nor Adobe. And all have good points.

Interesting you find FCPx as your preferred NLE ... the same things you cite that you love, are blasted by so many other editors. Well, we are all, always, divergent from each other.

Sony's medium/small camera media is ... by design ... giving their cameras the ability to record files fast and furious to relatively small space on the card. And ... they are also, because of the very things that make them fast to write and small of file (relatively)  ... horrible codecs/settings, for general NLE work.

I hear about that from colorists all the time. DJI media from the client? OH heck, that's an immediate transcode. GoPro? Yup, t-code those suckers now! A7x ... xxx whatever? Probably t-code.

But FX cameras ... maybe t-code, maybe just proxies, they'll often have to think about it.

Upper Sony, the "major" project cameras? Great stuff.

[Peter Sinter]

Sony Fx3 can record in XAVC-I as well - so in an Intra-Codec. But then again those express-a cards get very expensive when you need to record LOTS of hours on a single day for a documentary. So generally I prefer working in xavc-hs 200 mbit and dont care too much about transcoding. If you are editing on a fast SSD it could be even faster to transcode XAVC-HS immediately from the card to proroes on the SSD than copying XAVC-I (Intra) which a much higher data rate from the other card, as the read speed of the reader will be the bottleneck. Plus you have to think about backing up and archiving your footage, that will become very expensive if you want to have at least three copies in during the process and then later on archive everything. 

[Peter Sinter]

If I started grading and heavy effects work, I would transcode most of my footage. To question is: Do you need to transcode ALL of your footage just for simple editing. Which means - simple in and out points, no multicam..

[R Neil Haugen]

I think everybody does that differently ... literally.

I still know editors that t-code all long-GOP stuff, finish the project, dump the t-codes. They can create them again if the project comes back up for some reason ... which realistically, doesn't seem to happen too often.

Others have beasts that can actually do what they need with it even with long-GOP media. So it isn't an issue.

I saw a presentation via zoom style of a DIT recently.  There was a Q&A after his demo of his cart and listing of his normal duties and steps with apps used. And of course, the question ... whaddya do with long-GOP came up.

Well ... most of the productions he works on, the Offiicial Printed Protocol requires him to take the long-GOP media, archive it identically to all other media, and also produce all-I copies that are sent throught the process to be used for all editing & etc.

So, says he, they archive the original clips, but never actually use them in the production.

Well ... those productions go through many terrabytes of storage a day at times ... sheepers. This is just a tiny little blip in the mountain of data. 

Don't ever expect to be on one of those jobs, personally ...

[Peter Sinter]

I would be curious how other machines handle XAVC-HS 422 10 bit UHD 50p.. (So basically H265).

The only reason for me to use the originals would be to use metadata. 

You can stabilize footage with sonys gyro data for example, BUT if you try it with the plugin in premiere you relly get lots of problems. So you have to do it in catalyst browse and render out prores anyway.

[Peter Sinter]

In terms of speed and reliability on a mac I prefer FCPx, not in terms of features for example - then its rather resolve.. I think most editors just try a different NLE for a few days. Thats why I worked for a few years with every NLE so I get used to the workflow. Even in FCPx you have to be precise about assigning audio roles and disabling tracks you dont want to use before you start editing for example. If you dont then you have a lot of work in the end. But every NLE has its own workflow if you want to get very fast. I was just looking for a feature that makes premiere stand out from the others, but couldnt find one.

[Peter Sinter]

I think maybe the best Idea is just to transcode to prores and roundtrip to resolve with a one way ticket. I can still import the source footage if I need to change anything.. and finish there.