Saving The Day With Input Sizing in DaVinci Resolve

This is a solid roundtrip checklist. You may want to watch a few of the “In the Shadow of Giants” Insights from that conform nightmare. I followed the same basic routine you outline here – and it was a disaster… partially because of these Input Sizing problems. Partially because of a host of other problems that don’t get captured by the XML.

Wonderful! Extremely helpful! The resizing issues from Premiere to Resolve had always perplexed me, and I wasn’t sure how to figure out a bulletproof workflow. Thank you!

Keep in mind, with the right mix of mis-matched formats and a particularly industrious editor who changes their habits every day… it’s possible to find yourself in a situation where *something* needs to be eye-matched. So technically, there is no bulletproof solution. But yes, once you understand what’s going on, the perplexing becomes manageable.

Patrick… This series is amazing. A lot of work went into it. I come back to it often to refresh my memory and to restore my sanity. Thanks!

Interesting and informative. Thank you!

One question on the easy ease issue. I tried to add an ease in Resolve after importing the XML, but it wouldn’t let me. Is this a bug? Anything I can do to allow Resolve 15 to change the XML keyframes from linear to ease in?

You’re welcome!

If you open the keyframe editor on the Edit Page then you can choose your keyframes to change the interpolation. Just be aware, unlike Adobe, BMD easy ease doesn’t match zoom and position easing, so you’ll get weird easy eases on resizing animations that include zoom + XY repositioning.

One more thing: I haven’t checked the most recent version of Premiere, but with CC 2019 it stopped exporting XY coordinates in its FCP XMLs. We made Adobe aware of the bug but it hadn’t been fixed as of a few weeks ago. So matching those repositions is a total eye job, right now.

Hey Guys! So a basic fundamental question that I see all over the forums but can’t seem to find a DEFINITIVE answer. When working with say UHD footage in an HD timeline (and delivering final render in HD) Should I be working in Scale entire image to fit or center crop with no resizing?

I believe “scale” is fine because I am delivering HD BUT if I do a repo to match the editors cut then aren’t I zooming in on HD footage now? Also sometimes I need to send things over to the graphics dept at full frame and source resolution. What I have been doing is making a copy (removing all sizing done in the inspector) going to deliver page and rendering an “individual clip” and checking the “at source resolution” button. I just wanted to confirm that this workflow is valid.

Where I really see an issue is when working inside a fusion clip. As you may know, fusion/compound clips default to timeline resolution when made. In my case almost always HD, so when I go into the fusion comp I have already lost resolution (again this is fine if delivering HD) but if I want to send that new fusion comp to graphics at source resolution I cannot.

A definitive answer on how to handle this workflow would be great. As Marc Wielage commonly states:; when delivering 4K work in a 4K timeline (or at least change it at the end before render) SO is that the workaround? Before I render any fusion comp do I change my timeline to UHD? And does scale to fit effectively down rez the clip?

(Paul Saccone recently responded and said yes scale image scales it down to HD resolution! So whenever doing repo-ing are you changing that clip to center crop)

Thank you all for your great help!!!! I am sure this is a common question

First: I STRONGLY recommend you read Chapter 9 of the Resolve User Manual. It’s titled, “Image Sizing and Resolution Independence”. It deals precisely with these questions. Specifically, Page 206 (August 2018 pdf), “Using High Resolution Media in Lower Resolution Timelines” is your definitive answer – no matter what anyone else says.

On Page 210, is your answer about Fusion comps. It turns out the Transform node maintains resolution independence while the Resize node breaks Resolve’s resolution independence and rasterizes the image to the size you specify.

On Export you do NOT need to removing sizing info in the Inspector. Just set ‘render at source resolution’ and enable ‘disable edit and input sizing’ in the Advanced export settings on the Deliver page for clean UHD-sized color graded plates for VFX.

Make sense?

Hey im working with transcodes in premiere that are at 1920×1080. The LOG footage is 4k and and 6k. I’m working with multiple timelines are 1:1. 4:5. and 16:9.

I did a bunch of position key framing and blowups in premiere. Once i bring the XML into resolve the scaling is messed up. I feel like input sizing may help me here… Non of my clips are “scaled to frame size” so I’m good there.

But moving over to larger footage is crippling me…

Where can I find the Resolve User Manual? None of the documents on the training site have this name. The two most likely candidates, “The Beginner’s Guide to DaVinci Resolve 16” and “Advanced Editing with DaVinci Resolve 15,” do not contain any such chapters nor the phrases “image sizing” or “resolution independence.”

Documentation seems to be something of a struggle for BMD…

Hi David – With DaVinci Resolve running go to the menu:

Help > “DaVinci Resolve Reference Manual

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/

The reference manual is, at current count, 3,300+ pages long! So I always search it by phrase if I’m looking for something specific. Or, go through the Table of Contents to find a general topic you want to know more about. Then at each section within the manual there’s usually a more detailed ToC for each section, to help you hone in and what you want to find.

lol I did not think to look in the application help menu. Thanks!

Thanks Patrick for this Premiere Pro Detective series! I really appreciate all of your hard work. Saved me hours of resizing. Love doing things the right way!