Time-lapse processing with Resolve 12 (FAST!)

Started by hateom, August 11, 2015, 10:18:10 AM

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hateom

Hello guys,

I would like to share with you what I found out recently - DaVinci Resolve 12 supports CR2 (Canon RAW) natively, which means that you can import CR2 file sequences directly and use as regular media. Even if you are not shooting with Canon you can convert your pictures to DNG using a free tool from Adobe and it will work just fine too.

Whi this might be useful for you? The BIG reason is that Resolve utilizes the GPU heavily. As opposed to for example After Effects.
I ran a few tests in both AE and Resolve with a time-lapse sequence shot using Canon 5D Mark III. Here's what I got in the playback:

1. After Effects: 0.25 FPS
2. Davinci Resolve: 12 FPS!

48 times faster... I checked the CPU & GPU usage, and it's clear that AE is using only CPU for the playback and rendering, while Resolve uses GPU 100% of the time.
The difference is huge. If we apply smart caching in Resolve, after a few minutes of waiting we can get real-time playback and grade the footage smoothly having the RAW underneath all the time (in case we want to make some adjustments).



You can check my video and post about the above experiments here:
http://timeinpixels.com/2015/08/processing-time-lapses-with-resolve-12/

Let me know what you think and if this would be a useful workflow for you.
One last remark - Resolve is FREE!


Danne

That is huge. Thanks for sharing. Hopefully native support will follow into the lite version as well.

mothaibaphoto

Highlights still clipped??? :(
No, thanks, even for free...

hateom

@Danne - it's supported in the free version too :) Now they changed naming convention "Davinci Resolve" is FREE, and paid version is called "Davinci Resolve Studio".

@mothaibaphoto - highlights were clipped in the camera, not caused by Resolve. They were clipped the same way in ACR, so this is not relevant.

Danne

That is nice to know.  Gonna check it out as soon as I have some time.

hateom

One thing to note that I missed in my original post is that this will work so fast only when you have a GPU that works with Resolve (CUDA or OpenCL).

NickZee

@hateom

Thank you for your great video! 

For some reason I am not experiencing the same results with Resolve 12.  When I import a DNG, Resolve gives me a Red Film Strip with and Exclamation point.



Here is what I've done:

Capture Bracketed Time Lapse - 3 image bracket.
Used Enfuse to blend brackets. - To TIFF.
Export TIFF as DNG - 7.1
Import to Resolve.  - Resolve doesn't read the DNG Sequence.

In the past, I have used @chmee Raw2cdng for MLV files and imported the CDNG sequence to Resolve without any issues.  Do you know what I could be doing wrong?

Thank you!

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dmilligan

You can't *really* convert a TIFF to DNG, at least not a raw DNG, and that's probably why Resolve is giving you an error. TIFF and DNG are actually the same container format the difference is that DNG typically contains linear CFA camera image data, while TIFF image data is already debayered RGB.

The whole reason to use Resolve for the purpose stated in this thread is because it is very fast at debayering (demosaicing) raw CFA data, because it uses GPU acceleration for this purpose. If you have a TIFF file, then debayering (the slow part) is already done. No reason to go back and do it over again. A TIFF file sequence should playback or render relatively quickly in something like AE, unlike a raw sequence that must be debayered.