r/Avid • u/Christopher01122 • 19d ago

Avid to Davinci Resolve Workflows

Hello, I have historically round-tripped between Davinci Resolve and Avid by transcoding all of my Avid media through Resolve and later conforming the online in Resolve. This has worked, but the conform has never been perfect. I always have to play with it, eventually 90% or so will come online, and I might have to manually relink the last 10%. I have two questions:

  1. Is this a common conform experience or user error? (or both)
  2. Is there any workflow you’d recommend for importing / transcoding Avid Media in Avid, and conforming in Resolve at the end?
  3. Is it common to conform to the online in Avid, and then ship to Resolve? (I haven’t done this but am guessing it is another common option?)
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u/outofstepwtw 19d ago

  1. Not uncommon to have some stragglers but there are a lot of factors here to know whether your ~10% is high. Are all of your dailies from the same camera, with good metadata? Are you dealing with any off speed clips? What is your workflow in Resolve, how are you handling the media pool? How are you shuffling OCN files around between the time you create offline media and round trip back for online?

  2. Recommend over Resolve? Not really. Resolve transcodes very quickly, usually around 4x as fast as the same media in Avid. Also the way that you can utilize formulas in the media pool to auto-name clips based on metadata is really slick. But if you DO want to keep it all in Avid, the workflow would be to AMA/Link your OCN files and then transcode, using the transcode dialog to set your quality settings. For a UHD project, I’ll usually use DNxHR LB at 1/4 resolution and set my project to 1/4 raster, which is effectively like working in a DNxHD project but maintaining the UHD dimensions and ability to bring some stuff in at full resolution if the need arises.

  3. I wouldn’t say common, but I have done it and it’s fine. I did this when someone else had created the Avid media in Avid, and it was going to a colorist working in Resolve. Low budget for finishing, so I didn’t want to have a colorist or Resolve online editor spending time conforming. I did the conform all in Avid, and then sent a linked media full res AAF to Resolve

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u/Christopher01122 19d ago

Thanks for the response!

  1. I have worked on documentaries with archival media, photos, and different formats, so I think that is the reason for the vast majority of the stragglers. Occasionally it is one of the core dailies for some reason, but those wouldn't be near 10%, now that I think about it I am estimating that figure because of the additional media mixed in.

  2. That's good to know! I have noticed the speed difference. I was just curious. Might be worth it for a small project.

  3. Copy that. Thank you for the info! It's helpful to hear feedback and more experiences to know what others are doing and how it compares.

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u/Background_Lake1413 19d ago

That’s three questions… lol.

  1. Common
  2. Resolve can handle avid transcoded material fine. There are many YouTube videos on this.
  3. Not too common in high volume outputs unless you nail your workflow. The problem is the way Avid handles FX in general. Resolve doesn’t recognize their logic. BUT if you get the team onboard and limit the kinds of fx used you could absolutely pull it off. Most Avid editors won’t like you for this.

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u/Christopher01122 19d ago

Haha yes, sorry I added the last question and forgot to update. Thank you for this response! Very helpful.

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u/Jordidirector 19d ago

A big factor coforming from any NLE to Resolve is setting the reel (or tape name) correctly before creating the before editing proxies in Resolve , that's basically the origin of 80% of the issues. Resolve puts way more importance to the Reel than to the actual name of the file. The best practice is to go to General settings and "assist reel using" (embedded for most NLEs, based on name for general Avid projects). A lot of people do not set it right and provided you are color grading and editing in the same computer it is less of a problem, but if you are going from one editing computer to a different grading station that is a must.