Resolve 12.5b broken Color Setting in the Dip To Color Dissolve (Yes I know it's beta.)

The Dip To Color Dissolve behaves erratically in Resolve 12.5b causing the app to crash. In the Inspector, the Color Setting doesn't show properly, any attempt at modifying the Color while in this state will result in a crash.

After several attempts at replacing the transition, the proper display of Color will show, and things will be fine - no more crash.  Eventually, after a crash, the Color setting will show its normal state.

Erratic behavior1:

 The Color setting has a slider and a box with "0.000" in it.

Erratic behavior2:

The Color setting displays a slider and a box with "--" in it.

Any attempt at modifying the Color in both cases will crash Resolve.

Normal behavior:

Here it shows its normal state, clicking on the rectangle opens the color wheel, and all is fine.

Color wheel pops-up on clicking the rectangle.

Premiere Pro 9.2 to Resolve 12.5b via FCP xml

Good news: Export Final Cut Pro xml works well.  Cuts are accurate, speed changes (including keyframing) are accurate, L and J cuts, scaling is accurate (including keyframing.)

All these work equally well on Merged Clips, ah!  I just transferred a small 30sec. project, so nothing big, we'll see how it goes with longer projects.

Retime preferences need to be reset in Resolve, as the Premiere settings do not translate.  No biggie.

Cross-dissolves translate perfectly and can be modified further into Resolve.

On the other hand, Dip to black dissolves translate fine, Dip to White dissolves turn into Dip to black dissolves for some reason.

You'd think: Easy enough to change them back to Dtwd I'll select the transition, open the Inspector, change Video Transition Style to something else, then select Dip to Color Dissolve again...  Nope.

Any attempt to change the transition either results in instant CRASH, or the BALL OF DEATH or if you're lucky enough to be able to open the Inspector panel, the Color Setting will CRASH Resolve. Interestingly enough, sometimes after the crash (but not always), the Color setting behaves properly... Go figure.

Note that after a crash, the Resolve Project comes back as it was the last time it was saved.  You will loose anything you've done between the last save and the crash. You've been warned.

I then tried to purely replace the Dip to Color Dissolve with the Resolve flavor... Well this transition appears to be BROKEN in 12.5b.  The Color setting behaves erratically, and when the Color does not appear, there is instead a slider with a box and "000" in it. Trying to change that value will crash.  Eventually after a few attempts replacing the Dtcd, the proper Color setting shows up: a rectangle with the selected color in it.  Clicking on the rectangle will open the color wheel.  So it's all Resolve fault.
http://humanuser.blogspot.com/2016/04/resolve-125b-broken-color-setting-in.html

Premultiply Alpha...

I just got bit by the Premultiply Alpha option in the Motion Export... Or so I thought:

What happened?  I edited my graphics into FCPX Timeline, and added Basic Titles above them, as seen in the below Timeline:

While cutting and previewing, all was fine (I never render in FCPX, Background Render is always turned OFF.)
After Exporting though, there were jumps in the background colors when the Titles appeared on-screen:

Clearly, before the Title shows up, the Background color is darker (wrong.)

When the Title pops up, the Background color changes.

Why you would ask?  Well, I had a semi transparent background in my Motion graphics, that's why.

OK, so I thought let's Export WITHOUT Premultiply Alpha.  I did and I got this:

Here it's all good, no changes before / after the Title.

Could it be that the proper way to export from Motion in this case is without Premultiply Alpha?  ...

Turns out, I should have added a Background to my graphics in FCPX!   Like so, in this case a Custom Generator (set to black):

The results:

All good this time!

DaVinci Resolve 12.5b

Kicking the tires of Resolve 12.5b:

- Much more responsive! I think BMD and Adobe are busting their chops to reduce FCPX advance, and that's a GREAT thing!

- Better playback speed, good. Although with some thingss like file overlay it chokes like before.

- The file overlay is not resized when changing frame size, not at the Project, nor at the Clip level. That needs to be fixed. Something I do often: work on the full size Timeline, insert a full size overlay, render a half size Proxy with burned-in overlay. Well the overlay does not get resized by half. Not right. By contrast, the "build-in" overlays, like Source TC, etc. do resize properly.

- And by the way, I would like to have a better preview of the output BEFORE hitting Render.  Adobe does it, one can even compare Source/Output, I would like to see this implemented in Resolve.

- Seem to me that rendering speed is improved as well, not by a lot more, but somewhere like 1.5 possibly, one and a half time real time, as opposed to real time before for a similar rendering task.

- Waveform display in the Viewer, multi Composite modes, yeah!  Full screen Playback, cool!

- The Auto-Sync works fine, I would like to be able to fine-tune the audio after it's been merged though. Except in Clip Attribute where there is a vague "Linked Audio", or in the Media Pool where it shows 4 channels (fro ex.) instead of the Clip 2 channels. I would like to be able to quickly see in the Media Browser that any Clip has synced audio, and the name of the audio clip attached.

- Fine tuning of the synced audio is possible in the Media Pool: Show the Audio Offset Column, and it will display (in Sec. and 1/100th of a Sec?) the Offset applied to the audio file.  Double click in this box, and you can adjust the value for perfect sync.

- There is also a convoluted way of doing it via the Media page, with the audio tab open, use Option Comma/Period to offset by one frame before/after, or Option Right/Left Arrows to offset by 1/10th of a second.
In my test, I can only offset one way: in advance with Comma and Arrow Left.  Period and Arrow Right seem to be non operant.  Maybe a bug?
The biggest bug is that it has no provision for appending tracks... It replaces the embedded tracks with the separate ones - Even if I first Auto-Sync to append audio...  So for appending tracks, the above Fine Tuning is the only viable one. For now.

- There is a way to add Timecode to a non Timecoded Clip (from TC less DSLR say), LTC recorded onto the camera audio track will be used to generate a Timecode track - Right-click on the clip and select "Update Timecode from Audio-LTC." I got to try this.

- Note on audio recorded without Timecode: Set the Timeline Frame Rate in the Master Project Settings BEFORE importing the audio, else just like FCP legacy, Resolve will stamp the imported audio to the FR of the Settings - and then audio will eventually DRIFT if on the wrong FR.  Double check Frame Rates for all clips in the Edit page /Media Pool.

More to come.

Premiere tips from Oliver Peters

The audio mixing part is a good read, most of the time use the same, or a similar processing chain in ProTools. You can do the same in Logic, Premiere, and even FCPX - using Compound clips.  When Apple listen to its users and implement some sort of audio bussing, FCPX will be even more powerful.
https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/adobe-premiere-pro-cc-tips/

How to "unstuck" Frameio uploader

My uploads to Frameio sometimes get stuck to some 88%-94% never to reach 100%, nothing moves.

When this happens, I noticed that if I click the Pause (||) and then the Play (>) buttons situated on the left of the video placeholder when you hover over with the mouse, it seems to trigger something and the upload resumes and finishes - it backtracks to 80%-90% usually and then goes to 100% from there. 

Not sure why this happens in the first place, in any case this beats having to start again a complete upload from the beginning. Do not click the Stop button (X) on the right of the video, else game over...

The World's Longest Invoice

Freelancers waiting to be paid for their services... This is slowing down the economy as a whole.
https://www.worldslongestinvoice.com
https://blog.freelancersunion.org/2016/03/28/add-your-ious-worlds-longest-invoice/
https://blog.freelancersunion.org/2016/03/29/he-went-undercover-get-scoop-serial-deadbeat-client/

How to sync mixed audio into FCPX

After the cut is locked, I export a fcpxml of the project, then run X2Pro to create a ProTools Session. (See: http://humanuser.blogspot.com/2016/04/fcpx-to-protools-via-x2pro-ironing-out.html)

Mixing is done into ProTools, and a 4 tracks mix (Stereo Dialog stem/ Stereo Music stem) is Bounced out of ProTools to sync back into FCPX.

In the Timeline, select the original Music and click (V) to mute it.  Select all the video clips, and then "Expand Audio Components" (Control+S), then select the audio portion only of the clips and click (V) to mute the audio only.

Now all your audio is muted. Collapse Audio/Video (Control S.)

Import your mixed stems, make sure to select the proper Pan Mode - stereo in this case, and sync them to the In-point. Done, now your final image plays with your final mix, ready for Share / Export.

FCPX to ProTools via X2Pro - ironing out the hiccups

1) If the ProTools session shows mono music where it was stereo in FCPX, chances are the music clips are connected to a video clip as opposed to the "empty" Primary Storyline.

How to fix:
- Select the video clip(s) and Lift From Storyline so that the connected music connects to a Gap in the Primary Storyline.
or (faster),
- Select all the connected music clips and Create new Storyline. Make sure the newly created Storyline connects to a Gap in the Primary Storyline.

2) When using L and J cuts - or overlapping audio in FCPX, X2Pro will checkerboard the audio onto multiple tracks.

How to fix:
- No need to fix this as it is a necessity going from trackless FCPX to tracked ProTools.

3) ProTools is showing the same audio clip multiple times: 2 instances on two different tracks, even up to 9 instances on 9 different tracks!

How to fix:
- The same separate audio clip got connected twice to the video clip, probably confusing X2Pro, or FCPX XML Export. Select the clip in question, Reveal In Browser (Shift F), Right+Click the Clip to Open in the Timeline.  Check the presence of dupe audio, delete the extra audio.  Now go back to your Timeline and for each instance of the clip, Matchframe (Shift F) and replace the clip in the Timeline with the "fixed" synchronized clip from the Browser.

How to fix a problem installing Frameio extension for Premiere Pro CC2015

Update:
There is a new installer from Frameio:

It came to our attention that some Windows users and some Mac OS X users running 10.10.x were having trouble with the installation. We've since fixed the issue so you should be able to download again. Please grab the new installer below. 

Mac OS X Installer 

Windows Installer 

If you're still having trouble please shoot me a message. Im happy to help! 

Best,

Thomas, Frame.io Integrations Engineer

----------
Original post:

I was trying to install the Frame.io Extension for Premiere Pro only to find out that Window/Extensions was greyed out in Premiere.

After running the Frame.io installer a couple of times, no luck. Window/Extensions stayed greyed out:

Obviously something was missing.

So I then went to Window/Browse Add-ons, which started a Safari page with Adobe Add-ons on it --- and... No Frame.io add-on there, but I got the Wipster Review Panel add-on for PP.

That synced fine to my CC and then appeared in PP under Window/Extensions - not greyed out anymore!  Cool, great...  Except Frame.io still did not show under Window/Extensions.

Somehow it looked like the Installer was not installing, so I searched for Frameio on my HD and under User/Library/Application Support I found a Frameio folder with a PremiereInstaller folder in it, and inside this folder was a install.txt with the following:

2016-04-13 18:08:52.625 Frame.io Premiere Installer[1870:197477] Launched installer
2016-04-13 18:08:55.105 Frame.io Premiere Installer[1870:197477] SUCCESS download json
2016-04-13 18:09:03.201 Frame.io Premiere Installer[1870:197477] SUCCESS download zxp
2016-04-13 18:09:03.201 Frame.io Premiere Installer[1870:197477] FAILED setting permissions for /Library/Application Support/Adobe/CEP

All right, we're getting somewhere, I then looked into /Library/Application Support/Adobe/CEP/extensions and found out that the Wipster "widget" was in there:

I also noticed that permissions for the Adobe folder looked OK, on the other end, the permissions for the CEP and extension folders looked funky:

Notice the "Fetching..." in the extension folder permissions?  To straighten this up, I went to the Adobe folder info and "Apply to enclosed items" the same permissions, and this fixed the "Fetching..." oddity, to "system".

I installed the Frameio for Premiere again, and this time it appeared in the extensions folder:

And this ultimately fixed the problem, now Frameio extension shows as it should under Window/Extensions:

FCPX crash

Whoa!  Today FCPX crashed for something unrelated to BMD Desktop Video.

Process:               Final Cut Pro [724]
Path:                  /Applications/Final Cut Pro.app/Contents/MacOS/Final Cut Pro
Identifier:            com.apple.FinalCut
Version:               10.2.3 (276640)
Build Info:            ProEditor-27664000056000000~1
App Item ID:           424389933
App External ID:       815823966
Code Type:             X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:        ??? [1]
Responsible:           Final Cut Pro [724]
User ID:               505

Date/Time:             2016-04-12 11:48:12.814 -0700
OS Version:            Mac OS X 10.10.5 (14F1713)
Report Version:        11
Anonymous UUID:        162D488E-82D0-5A77-9E01-6CD6CDC5D94C


Time Awake Since Boot: 5600 seconds

Crashed Thread:        15  com.apple.helium.rq.gpu-ru1.vs0

Exception Type:        EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes:       KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000021

What happened?  I grouped a bunch of clips in a Compound Clip, and applied a global grading with Color Finale plug-in to the CC. I tweaked Wheels and Curves and I was happy with the result.

Then I went to Share my cut and Export the Timeline to ProRes422 ... and ... Crash.  A meager 120MB out of 2.4GB got written to disk.

On Reloading, my Project was exactly where it was before the crash - Compound Clip created and Color applied.  No need to retrace and redo my last steps!  Now that is one thing I appreciate about FCPX. :))

From there I went on to Share and export again.  No crash, Done.

Premiere and Nested Sequences

Why can't I nest an empty Sequence? It's an odd Premiere behavior: I cannot nest an empty or a 1 frame long Sequence, it has to be at least 2 frames. OK fine.

Let's say I nest a non-empty Sequence, and then I delete some material from it, the nested Sequence still shows the entire length from when it was drop-nested.

OK so then why can't I nest an empty Sequence, with say a default duration of X frames, and adjust its length to what is needed later?

Also, if I specify a IN and an OUT to my Sequence, and then I nest it, I can extend the boundaries on the nested version.

- Original Sequence with IN/OUT @ 3:18 and 9:28, total length about 30 sec.

- Nested Sequence was nested when it was longer (42 sec.), so it's showing "missing material", Premiere is not updating to its current length. Nowhere does it show its current IN/OUT @ 3:18 and 9:28.






This behavior is counter intuitive to me. Most of the time I use nested Sequences to assemble several individual Sequences/scenes. As I modify the individual Sequences, I want the assembly Sequence of nested Sequences to update its content. It's not.

And I can't see a way to quickly hand adjust the assembly Sequence either, as it does not take into account the new IN/OUTs of my individual Sequence.

Premiere will ignore any IN and OUT set in the nested Sequence and will nest from the start of the Sequence to the end of the last clip contained in the Sequence.