Friday, September 25, 2015

BMD DaVinci Resolve 12.0, 12.0.1 and 12.2.2 on Mac - What a pain!

RESOLVE 12 (and 12.0.1) BUGS AND AGGRAVATION

- Crashes A LOT !!!

- Crashes when deleting or duplicating a Timeline (opened or not.)

- Takes forever to load a project and to save a project, and there is a long lag after the save window closes and before you can get back to work without any kind of feedback (is it doing it?) Each time you save you loose 1min. Each day you loose hours.

Apple is leading the charge in terms of functionality, EVERY SINGLE PRO APP must be saving in the bkg like FCPX does, save your every move until the last before the crash, and restore the project to the last move so that you do not loose anything.

- With Resolve 12, one looses work when the app crashes.  Again, should be like FCPX: nothing is ever lost when it crashes. Not only but you have to go through this cumbersome loading of backup projects from the Settings window / Auto save. Why can't backups be accessed from the Project Manager window????  This takes too long and is unnecessary. Just save the damn project once properly and do not corrupt project files to start with.

- Sometimes it crashes without telling you it does, great, project gone, app closed. You come back to the Projects Manager window and they are new projects files here... Or EMPTY Sequence Containers, all with weird names.  Open your project just saved a moment ago you will see that ALL THE TIMELINES ARE EMPTY!!!!  What the hell is that?  Yet again, the only way to go back to your hard work is to load a backup project.  Forces you to auto-save every 5min. (and of course loose 1min. every 5min.)  Still you've lost the last 5min. of work.

- There are ghosts lines that appear in the Node window, making it hard to visualize links.

- Copying a grade to another clip or multiple clips in the Timeline hangs/crashes the app once in a while.

- When mouse-dragging a value drastically (like Saturation) the timeline jumps to some random clip before or after the one you're working on. Yes, I do drastic moves sometimes. This is a pain, please fix this behavior.

I will continue to vent my frustration here as I battle Resolve 12, otherwise a great app... If only it would WORK!

--- Update and more aggravation ---
Updated to v12.0.1 ... promises more stability... right... Nope.

- I need to EDIT the Timeline (1), supposedly that's what Res is all about now, but when I select a large number of audio clips (that are unlincked from video) and delete them, it crashes. Great!

- I need to EDIT the Timeline (2), but when I select a single clip and try to Trim Edit, it crashes. Awesome!

-  And now it crashes on loading the project... This can't be better!

- All right, reloading a recent backup through the stupid Auto Save page...

- Project opened, worked on, saved several times, closed, opened again, all is well.  Except I cannot use anything but copy and paste, select and move clips around, delete one or two clips her and there, and that's it.  Any attempt to Trim, delete a bunch of clips.... Crashes the app immediately.

- Project saved the day before, opened the following day ... make the app CRASH. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the dreaded "this project has not been saved..." etc. bullshit message that pops up without any reason - I just saved the Project and waited 3 min. before closing to be sure.  But no, it had to ask again, all right, I clicked SAVE, I had to close Resolve what else can I do?  What do you know, instead of saving, it CORRUPTED the Project file.  Well thank you so much.  Yet again, back to restoring an Auto Saved Project... And making sure all your last moves are still in there. Great way to start your day.

--- More updates and more aggravation ----
Another thing that's driving me CRAZY!  Why does UNDO work on certain things and not others???  If I do a color correction, and then I do a resizing and undo, it ONLY undo the CC, not the resizing.... What?  This is utterly confusing.  Please undo the LAST MOVE whatever it is, resize, tracking, pasting...  Or at least give us the option to choose what gets undone.

--- Update
So I installed RESOLVE 12.2.2, created a project.  Then I quit the app, came back a few minutes later, tried to open the project I just created... It CRASHES. And again generates the stupid ".tmp" files ad nauseous.  At least the auto-generated ".tmp" opens fine.  But then I have to do the dance: trash the original project, rename the ".tmp"... Pfff, come on BMD, fix the code please.

--- What's your experience with Resolve12.x.x on Mac?

I know my config is not optimum: MacPro 5,1 Quad, OSX 10.10.5, AMD Radeon HD 7950, Dual 1980x1080 displays, Decklink Mini Monitor PCIe, Desktop Video Utility 10.5
II am OK with real time (or less than) rendering, I'm only dealing with HD ProRes files, not exotic formats.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Automated Photo stitching in Photoshop - Photomerge

Great Photoshop tool to stitch photos together: File / Automate / Photomerge

I wanted to stitch a couple 4k background photos together to give me a super wide background image that I can move and pan within.

I used "Auto" Layout and checked "Blend Images Together" - obviously, "Vignette Removal" and "Geometric Distortion Correction".

Selected my source files, one Left file and one Right file and a few seconds later, perfect wide background image.

Great time saver.