Vegas 15 - XML bug. Davinci media offlines

AVsupport wrote on 5/1/2018, 5:11 PM

Last week I tried a few 50p XAVCS clips in the new free Davinci, put a custom Lut on it (Filmconvert export) and Crash! Tried a few different ways but this wasn't stable. Yes, GPU support seemed faster and timeline playback was good. Let's not forget, traditionally Davinci's support for XAVC/XAVCS is not as important as their 'house' codec...besides, you can't get dual screen program without hardware, and when mixing 4K screen and a 1080 secondary monitor, screen realestate doesn't scale right..

marc-s wrote on 5/2/2018, 1:58 PM

There are differences in preview playback speed between the free Resolve and Resolve Studio. This has been confirmed by tech support in the forums. I do use the paid version and it is so much faster than Vegas for both playback and rendering. That said I think Vegas developers would be smart to improve Vegas exporting to Resolve. I still prefer Vegas editing for certain projects like multi cam but would like to finish in Resolve. With so many people defecting to Resolve it would be a good way to keep some of the user base.

Thefilmlegends wrote on 5/17/2018, 12:16 PM

I have been having this issue myself I found the answer export your Vegas session to Adobe Premiere session open up from Adobe Premiere then save an XML file from Adobe it will open up perfectly fine in resolve.

NickHope wrote on 9/2/2018, 10:34 PM

The issue with the order of tracks being inverted in Resolve has been fixed in Vegas Pro 16 build 248.

Can anyone confirm if the "media offline" issue has also been resolved?

Are there any other current issues with exporting to Resolve?

Komaryt wrote on 9/3/2018, 3:17 AM

The issue with the order of tracks being inverted in Resolve has been fixed in Vegas Pro 16 build 248.

Can anyone confirm if the "media offline" issue has also been resolved?

Are there any other current issues with exporting to Resolve?

its good to know but track order wasn't big issue with exporting ;)
Is there any trial version of V16 ? I wan't to try exporting because now I am forced to export XML from Vegas than import it to Premiere and from premiere I need to export into resolve

ryclark wrote on 9/3/2018, 5:33 AM

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/gb/trial-versions/vegas-pro/

Kinvermark wrote on 10/17/2018, 5:34 PM

In preliminary testing with Vegas 14 (sorry my v16 trial ran out so somebody else will have to try), the XML export issue with Resolve seems to be due to problems with reading source file timecode. Thus some media types will not work, but others will.

If you use cineform files (as proxies or full res intermediates) generated by Resolve then the edited timeline in Vegas can be successfully exported to Resolve via xml file. Timeline edits and crossfades are maintained.

Also works for stills.

Kinvermark wrote on 10/19/2018, 10:59 AM

Additional testing...

XML exports of projects with GH5 mp4 files fail to import into Davinci Resolve due to timecode mismatches.

Trying the workaround of exporting a ppro project (successful) and then export an XML from ppro CS6 also fails for the same reason.

Looks like this may be tricky to fix, as Resolve appears to be quite finicky about what it requires for timecode.

Anyone have any experience with this on the latest version of Vegas?

Kinvermark wrote on 11/7/2018, 6:35 PM

@NickHope

I now have XML roundtrips from Vegas 16 to DaVinci Resolve working well. All media is found by Resolve and is correctly conformed to the timeline.

Clip timecode appears to be the issue for MP4 files and the solution is to either transcode to cineform using Resolve (a little bit awkward to work this way), or better, simply re-wrap to mov container in Vegas. I used Vegasaur Smart trim for this, which is using FFMPEG to do the re-wrap.

I have a strong feeling that this would work in earlier versions of Vegas Pro, but have not had the time or inclination to test.

NickHope wrote on 11/7/2018, 10:43 PM

@Kinvermark Thanks. For the time being I've just left the entry in the known issues post as a vague "Export DaVinci Resolve XML: Media offline error.", linking to this thread.

NickHope wrote on 5/11/2020, 9:54 AM

A report of my experience battling this issue myself for the last couple of days...

Firstly, I have Options > Preferences > Video > Show source frame numbers on event thumbnails set to Timecode. This can help predict if a conversion to Resolve will work or not.

Secondly, in all these tests I have always unchecked Include media when I export from VEGAS, as I really don't want to copy huge amounts of media out of their usual folders just to get a conversion done.

Thirdy, I generally work with just 3 media formats: PAL DV avi, HDV m2t, and UHD mp4. So those are the only ones I have tested.

Fourthly, I know almost nothing about timecode because I've never had to deal with it until now.

VEGAS PROJECT TO RESOLVE TIMELINE

1. HDV M2T

These were shot with a Sony Z1P and captured with HDVSplit. The thumbnails show "0:00" initial timecodes on the VEGAS timeline:

They import to Resolve without issue. The files are automatically found. The pixel aspect ratio needs setting to DVCPRO HD in Resolve, but that's a separate issue and not a big deal.

2. DV AVI

Resolve is very picky and problematic with my DV AVI files.

Some of my DV AVI files show "0:00" as the initial timecode, like my HDV. Those files mostly came from a Panasonic DX110 and a Sony TRV40, and mostly were captured with Sclive. In some cases, I can export a FCP7 xml file and Resolve will successfully import it as a timeline. In other cases, the files are not readable by Resolve and don't even appear in it's Media Storage pane.

Some (not all) of my DV AVI from my Sony VX2000 files have timecode looking like this, with long numbers:

In those cases Resolve won't import the project due to timecode mismatches. No amount of messing with Resolve settings will make it work.

Solution: Losslessly batch-re-render all files to DV AVI in VEGAS (see * below), which makes the timecodes look something like this:

That effectively "fixes" the files from Resolve's point of view, and they will import.

However, Resolve doesn't automatically find the files and so it prompts for the locations. If I select a top-level parent drive, it does find the files, but only after a noisy, 30-minute, drive-wearing search. Alternatively it's possible to locate each individual media folder manually during the import process, but if you use hundreds of media folders like me then it's very laborious. And there is no prompt for the filenames as you do it, so you have to refer back to the VEGAS project for the media locations.

* I re-rendered by putting the files on the timeline, running John Meyer's Regions-From-Event-File-Names.js script, then the Batch Render v2 script.

3. UHD

My UHD MP4 files, either straight from my Panasonic GH4 or trimmed with ffmpeg, have "0:00" initial timecodes on the VEGAS timeline but will not import to Resolve due to timecode mismatches.

Solution: Losslessly rewrap them from mp4 to mov using the process described in #4 in this post. My batch file for converting all mp4 files in a folder looks like this:

for %%a in ("*.mp4") do ffmpeg -i "%%a" -vcodec copy -acodec copy "%%~na.mov"

That turns the timecode into long numbers (e.g. "7:49:25:16") and then they will import. Effectively it's the opposite of what works with DV AVI.

I still need to test projects containing GoPro UHD AVC.

RESOLVE TIMELINE TO VEGAS PROJECT

Each media folder has to be manually located during import. That's a nightmare when you use hundreds of media folders like I do. The solution is to manually edit the .xml file in a text editor to remove all instances of...

file://localhost/

...and then VEGAS finds the media by itself. Perhaps the VEGAS developers could consider having VEGAS do that automatically.

Colour adjustment effects don't get translated so you'll need to render intermediates (e.g. Grass Valley HQX) or export LUTs as described in this comment.

CONCLUSION

Apart from HDV, it's a mess. Suggestions to make the whole process less painful are most welcome.

Anyone digging into this can find the rate and timecode section of the actual FCP7 XML spec here. There are some usage examples here. At a quick glance, VEGAS doesn't seem to be doing much wrong, according to that spec, when it exports. Resolve could definitely be more accommodating.

I have only just started with this and I expect issues will arise as I actually work with it. I will try to return and update this thread as I learn more.