Remote Versions: How to Automatically Share Grades Between Timelines

An update on sharing grades between timelines

What if a project you’re working on, the producer suddenly delivered an alternate edit of the timeline you’re color correcting?

And what if you were expected to color correct both of them, simultaneously? What would be your options in DaVinci Resolve?

You could try to Color Trace your corrections.

Using the Color Trace function would certainly work – unless you make revisions after Color Tracing… then keeping both timelines in sync? That could prove to be a nightmare.

What you’re looking for is a mode of operation that keeps the shots in different timelines synced with each other. If you modify the color grade in one shot, that color grade would ripple through the shot in all your timelines – at once.

Remote Versions allows one shot in several timelines to share the same Node Tree.

If you make changes to a node in ANY timeline, you’re changing that node in all the timelines.

It used to be this was the default behavior in DaVinci Resolve. Back in DaVinci Resolve 9 and earlier, any time you added a clip to the Media Pool that clip would get added to a default, unchangeable timeline called the Master Session (today, Resolve calls it the Master Timeline). And when you created or imported a new timeline? Those timelines were all ‘cut downs’ of the Master Timeline and color grading a shot in one timeline meant you were color grading a shot in every timeline.

Unfortunately, many users found this behavior confusing and unexpected and Resolve 10 changed the default behavior to always work in Local Versions – where the Node Tree of every shot is independent of every other shot. Resolve 10 also eliminated the Master Session.

The Question Is: How do Remote Versions and Local Versions work in Resolve 10 & 11?

After all, since the Master Session is no longer available once we’ve added footage to the Media Pool – is the Remote Version somehow hobbled or working differently than it did before?

Not Familiar with Remote Versions or Local Versions?

Then it’s time you started thinking about this functionality. There are times when Remote Versions are extremely useful. For those times, I’ll show you how to enable Remote versions. In a later Insight, we’ll take a look at another useful function of Remote Versions that’s not immediately obvious.

In this video, you’ll learn how to work with Remote Versions in the latest versions of DaVinci Resolve.

And as always, ask questions in the comments!

Comments

Homepage › Forums › Remote Versions: How to Automatically Share Grades Between Timelines

• Creator
  Discussion
• October 9, 2014 at 4:59 pm #33710
  
  Patrick Inhofer

  Keymaster

  This is the discussion thread for the Insight: Remote Versions: How to Automatically Share Grades Between Timelines

• Creator
  Discussion

Page 2 of 2

← 1 2

• 
  JJ Sereday

  Member

  February 23, 2023 at 6:07 pm

  Hey Pat, Question related to sharing grades between timelines… (I have a REALLY large docu project and trying to figure the best color workflow)

  I have “selects” timelines for each day that ideally would be the “Master” timeline for that set of clips.

  I’d like to keep the color grades synced across all timelines, however it looks like Remote Grades won’t work because many of this clips have exposure changes and various other things that require different color corrections per clip.

  Based on my limited knowledge of Resolve so far, it seems as though I would need to use Groups. My concern is that I will need to create A LOT of Color Groups. What is the largest amount of Groups you’ve seen in a project? And will creating so many group cause any issues with slowing down Resolve?

  Thanks
  • 
    Patrick Inhofer

    Administrator

    February 25, 2023 at 10:07 am

    JJ – I’d stick with Remote Grades during editorial. Don’t worry about riding exposure levels. The editor/director/producer can decide during the editing process if the effort to fix those issues is worth keeping those shots in the edit. It’s one of the factors they can consider during editing.

    Once you get a locked picture, you can flip a shot (or the entire timeline) to local grades. At that point, every shot becomes it’s own instance but it retains the original ‘dailies grade’ that you applied.

    Make sense?
• Author
  Replies

Page 2 of 2

← 1 2

Log in to reply.

• Public
• All Members
• Only Me

• Public
• All Members
• Only Me

• Public
• All Members
• Only Me

• Public
• All Members
• Only Me

• Public
• All Members
• Only Me

• Public
• All Members
• Only Me