If you’re working with Camera Raw footage, you may find it taxes your system and destroys real-time playback, making it impossible to accurately judge your color corrections. Creating Optimized Media allows you to pre-render your Camera Raw footage and use that new media for playback when editing and color correcting. Learn how execute this nifty workflow.
- There's another solution for increasing playback performance, and to me, it's kind of the sledgehammer solution. It's just, "You know what, "I don't care about the quality of the image, "I just want you to play back." And that's what we're gonna look at right now, and it's for proxies workflow, or working with proxies. I mean, what's it really good for? It's good when you don't wanna wait. The Render Cache: you turn it on, you wait for the renders. You decide you wanna use an Optimized Media workflow, well you have to wait for all that media to become optimized, to render.
Proxy Mode throws all of that away, and we've got two choices here: Half Resolution, or Quarter. Let's just do Quarter, and see what the heck that does for us. I'll select Quarter Resolution. I'm gonna Shift + F. Let's hit Play. And on the R3Ds it doesn't have a huge effect. Why? Because remember: R3D is camera raw. The really big hit on this particular shot, is in Debayering, taking this raw data, turning it into a digital image. So the Proxy Mode won't help with that, I'll have to find another solution for that R3D shot, but let's take a look at this Pro Res footage.
I'll continue hitting Play, and notice it's gotten all noisy. Look at this. There's all this fine detail in here. Let's put this into Loop, and it's just crawling on us. Really low resolution. If I go ahead and turn off the Proxy Mode, here's what the image actually looks like. It's very nice, very clean. I'm getting a little shimmer, which is probably from the atmosphere, because it's such a long shot. But if I drop this Proxy Mode down to Half Resolution, and hit Play, I'm starting to get a little bit more noise, but what'll happen is, I'll also get more playback performance, because it's only playing me back a very small portion of the image.
At Quarter Resolution, you just take a 1920 by 1080 image, divide that by four, and that's literally what we're looking at here. At Half Resolution, we're playing back an image that's 960 by 540, and filling it into a 1080 screen, and so that's how DaVinci Resolve increases your playback performance when you're in Proxy Mode. And that's why I call proxies the sledgehammer solution.
It's very over-the-top, it's kind of an extreme solution, especially if you're just working with 1080 footage in a 1080 timeline. You're just, you know, a Quarter Resolution, it's like a postage stamp blown up into the entire window. It looks terrible. You can't really evaluate your image, so when I get to the point where I feel the need that proxies are the way I wanna go, I start rethinking, am I working on the right rig for this particular job? The one time where it does actually make sense, is if you're playing back larger than 1080 footage in a 1080 timeline.
We have to downscale UHD, we have to downscale 5K footage, and we may find that we get a performance improvement, if we use that pull-down, say you know what, just do it at Half Res, or Quarter Res. Boom, get it done. It does it, and you may find that you actually, at that point, get a performance and playback without that big, dramatic hit in image quality.
Author
Updated
11/17/2016Released
3/4/2016Indie feature film and broadcast colorist Patrick Inhofer puts these more sophisticated features to practical use—color-grading shots from a documentary. Along the way, he covers the Resolve Studio databases, media management, advanced primary and secondary color-correction techniques, and even Resolve performance optimization. Follow along with the three "In Action" chapters to learn how to create a base grade, match shots, and build cinematic looks. Plus, get a glimpse into the advanced features available only in DaVinci Resolve Studio, such as motion effects and noise reduction, to help you decide if you need to upgrade to the paid version of DaVinci Resolve.
It doesn't matter what kinds of projects you shoot or edit. This training will help you develop your color correction "muscles" and deliver better results more reliably every time.
- Understanding Resolve's database structure and options
- Managing and relinking media
- Using the advanced primary and secondary tools
- Working with the sizing menu
- Advanced tracking
- Comparing shots in split-screen
- Reducing noise
- Increasing playback performance in DaVinci Resolve
- Rendering, delivering, and archiving footage
- Applying Resolve's tools to real-world projects
- Learning a repeatable workflow for the entire color grading process
Skill Level Advanced
Duration
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Related Courses
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Premiere Pro: Documentary Editing
with Jason Osder3h 48m Intermediate -
DaVinci Resolve 12 Essential Training
with Patrick Inhofer15h 43m Beginner
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Introduction
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Welcome4m 28s
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Using the exercise files4m 58s
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1. Advanced Database Concepts
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Studio databases: Postgres6m 14s
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Restoring databases1m 39s
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Working with multiple users3m 42s
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Unlocking users2m 11s
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2. Additional Media and Edit Page Concepts
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Using the Take Selector5m 49s
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Compound clips: Grading2m 42s
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3. Advanced Color Page Concepts: Primary Corrections
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The sizing menu: Overview3m 28s
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LAB color space tips4m 15s
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YUV color space tips3m 31s
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Y-only vs. YRGB adjustments2m 51s
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LUT creation mistakes5m 14s
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4. Advanced Color Page Concepts: Secondary Corrections
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Tracker: Stabilization4m 22s
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Grading the key signal2m 34s
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Blur: Mist controls2m 24s
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5. Studio-Only Tools and Workflows
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Spatial noise reduction7m 2s
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Temporal noise reduction5m 2s
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Noise reduction tips10m 15s
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Motion blur6m 16s
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6. Increasing Playback Performance
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The optimized media workflow6m 35s
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The proxies workflow3m 20s
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Understanding user caching9m 45s
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User cache vs. Smart cache3m 18s
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7. Color Management and ACES
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8. Rendering, Delivering, and Archiving
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Rendering multiple outputs4m 19s
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Using the Archive feature2m 26s
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Exporting to Pro Tools1m 34s
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About8m 40s
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9. In Action: Cold Open—the Base Grade
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Exporting using easyDCPAbout2m 33s
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Shot selection4m 36s
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The base grade: Safari6m 19s
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Saving a shot at full speed6m 43s
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10. In Action: Cold Open—Shot Matching
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Evaluation of base grade5m 13s
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Shot matching: Hut, part 110m 46s
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Shot matching: Hut, part 28m 57s
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Shot matching: Hut, part 34m 17s
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Shot matching: Mountain7m 34s
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Shot matching: Ven6m 28s
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11. In Action: Building a Look
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Cold open: Closing thoughts1m 32s
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12. What's New in Resolve 12.5
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Welcome1m 51s
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Importing the update1m 47s
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Timeline smart filters2m 30s
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Exporting alpha channels1m 53s
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Conclusion
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Conclusion44s
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Video: The proxies workflow