Davinci Resolve does support .mkv files natively - Audio Pops - Premiere is going backwards.

[Will..]

Well we are now comparing free software to a yearly subscription that's in the hundreds of dollars. That being said, Davinci Resolve does support .mkv files natively and has since version 17. Seems like Premiere is going backwards.

As for Prores support, you can use the ffmpeg workaround to get the export in Resolve on Windows. For the cost of Davinci (free), I'm ok with that.

Mod note: off-topic conversation branched to the video lounge.

[R Neil Haugen]

I just have OBS set to record QuickTime/mov and AAC by default. Never have a problem with a recording.

[R Neil Haugen]

Wow, if you've had crashes, that's a bummer!

I've just never had one. And I've recorded at times for an hour or more to cut up pieces on editing.

It does get frustrating when you can't use certain codecs. And all of the major apps have 'missing' codecs in places. You can for instance export in ProRes in Windows with Premiere, but you can't with Resolve. No ProRes exports in Resolve for PCs. ProRes RAW in Premiere (mostly) ... not at all in Resolve. I've not tried mkv files in Resolve as I don't really do anything with it.

But yea, it's not as good as we users would appreciate ... ahem.

[R Neil Haugen]

Define "free".

Resolve started at what, something like $250,000/seat?

After BlackMagic bought it, they turned it into a loss-leader to sell hardware. Period. And I don't know any serious user working the 'free' version. All those I know are like me, running the Studio. Which was 'paid' for with purchases of BM kit, and I've got a couple extra licenses in a drawer.

So I don't see any "free!" to it, in any way shape or form. Different profit model, but the clients still pay for the software.

And fwiw, some QC systems don't accept the ffmpeg ProRes ... I've known enough folks hit that to know it does happen. Which is dang annoying.

So both software are professional, neither is actually "free", and both have their limitations. Among other things, BlackMagic does not allow anyone else's hardware to fully map to working in Resolve. So my Tangent Elements panel, a truly stunning do-everything device in Premiere, is ... a slightly used thing in Resolve.

By intent. Bluntly by intent, publicly stated on their forums.

Thankfully, the Tangent folks have their new "Warp engine" stuff so we can now use either the BlackMagic mapping or tap over to user-created mappings, though only a few more tools are usable. But it's something.

In Premiere, I can use that panel for audio track mixing, sizing/rotation/position of any screen elements, all sorts of things. And do.

[Will..]

There are 10s of thousands of people, if not more using the non-studio version, which they paid $0 for. That sounds like free to me. My point though was that .mkv works in Resolve, and not in Premiere, or even Media Encoder. Adobe has not a single program that I can use to play, edit or convert .mkv files, which is a file type that thousands upon thousands of people use all over the world. Not being able to even convert it in Media Encoder is wild.

Anyway, OBS now allows 'Fragmented .mp4' which will skip the need to remux. I'm hoping Premiere likes a non-remuxed file.

[RjL190365]

Lastly, I did try importing MKV into Resolve. The video imported with no audio at all. Then I realized that DaVinci does not support AC3 audio at all – not even with native Windows support built into Winows 10 and Windows 11 versions up to and including version 23H2! Plus, many MKV files have audio encoded with only the AC-3 codec. So AC3 audio must be re-encoded into LPCM or AAC using another third-party program just for DaVinci Resolve to use that audio.

That said, I am still baffled by Adobe's non-committal to support certain widely used container formats and codecs. In other words, that's completely lackadaisical on their part.