DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

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farmfield

DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

Post by farmfield »

Blackmagic Design is heavily promoting it release of DaVinci Resolve 14 and there is a Linux version available for download - but there are some serious caveats. To save anyone installing it some stress, here's some info on that.

* There is no audio (monitoring) support on DaVinci Resolve on Linux without a BMD Decklink PCIe card. You can import and edit audio and export audio, but you need a Decklink card to be able to hear anything from the app. Also note that output is HDMI, so if you want to have it through your system sound speakers, you have to get a HDMI audio extract box and some mixing solution to get both sources to your speakers. (Level of seriously annoying: High!)

* The free version for Linux does not support h.264, neither import or export. It also doesn't support mp3. (on any OS)

Hopefully this will save someone some time - I tried to get audio going for 2 hours before even searching online for a solution and I seriously had to dig into this before finding out there isn't audio monitoring support with system sound in Linux. Seriously sucky. Now, it's possible BMD will yield and fix this before the final release, because they are getting some serious backlash on it. I for one have been viciously harsh on them on twitter and I got some pretty heavy hitters in VFX following me, so hopefully stuff like that will make BMD rethink this crap. But so far the BMD support staff and other representatives have been clear, Linux audio is through a Decklink card.

So for anyone needing a good NLE but doesn't want to buy a monitoring card, I'd recommend Lightworks. I didn't like it at all before doe to a floating panel GUI, but with the latest version - incidentally also 14 - they unified the GUI and it's now pretty similar to most NLE's. Never having used it before, I got up and running with it pretty instantly even before watching any quickstart videos or alike. if you have some editing experience, it's pretty straight forward. Now, Lightworks also have restrictions on their free version, the worst a 720p max output size, but the Pro version is £100 ($135) yearly but then you got 4k exports and the BorisFX plugin pack - so still a way better deal than buying a $135 Decklink card, imo... (running 3 GPUs and a PCIe video caching card, I don't even have space to fit one)

And I have no association with any of the companies above, just so that's clear. I've just migrated back to Linux after a 5 year hiatus in Windows and I'm just trying to get a good NLE running on my workstation for some personal work. :D
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Hoser Rob
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Re: DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

Post by Hoser Rob »

It's completely routine for free versions to have missing functionality, and some of those functions to be ones you'd think essential. AFAIK the Windows free version doesn't support AVC encoding either.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong - H. L. Mencken
voros

Re: DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

Post by voros »

the thing with Mr. DaVinci was:
'What on Earth was He Trying to Do with Papyrus'?
racer-x
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Re: DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

Post by racer-x »

Kdenlive is in my opinion the best linux option as NLE's go. Cinelerra is pretty good too, but the interface is very strange. Lightworks free version would be good without the export size limit or if it had an ffmpeg export module.
bonassus

Re: DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

Post by bonassus »

Thanks farmfield, I just spent 2 hours trying to get audio to work before checking the internet as well... Good to know I'm not crazy. :shock: Lightworks looks pretty good but I think its $174.99 a year now.
Hoser Rob
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Re: DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

Post by Hoser Rob »

A lot of people who haven't done much video editing seem to think that a real professional editor is the answer. It usually isn't ... noobs should use something simpler.

The thing with software is that just because you have a tool to do something doesn't mean you can DO it.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong - H. L. Mencken
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marconetwo
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Re: DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

Post by marconetwo »

Hoser Rob wrote:A lot of people who haven't done much video editing seem to think that a real professional editor is the answer. It usually isn't ... noobs should use something simpler.

The thing with software is that just because you have a tool to do something doesn't mean you can DO it.
Well Put! So very well put. I can't begin to tell you how much time I've wasted installing "advanced" video editing software,
such as Vegas Pro, (which is powerful software), only to give up the first time I get stuck, and instead of
pushing through, I developed this bad habit of giving up and looking for some other NLE to install. You know, the computer, and
especially the browser, is a great way to get sidetracked and NOT get work done! :)

I think signing up for a course in video editing is the best option, for me.

Any helpful suggestions from those who have mastered the fundamentals?

-Marc
Hoser Rob
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Re: DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

Post by Hoser Rob »

Not many of those here AFAIK. Try videohelp.com maybe.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong - H. L. Mencken
ParanoidFactoid

Re: DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

Post by ParanoidFactoid »

I created an account just to respond to this. Found via a search.

OK, so I've never used mint. But I do have experience with Linux going back to '93. Primarily Redhat, CentOS, and Scientific Linux (all RH variants), as well as Debian. Regardless, the issue here is Davinci on Linux. I think the real issue here is that BM is having trouble getting Davinci to play well with ALSA, so they gave up. The cost of a BM Decklink monitor card isn't too bad. BHPhotoVideo has the cheapest 1080p PCIe card as low as $137. You'll need to split audio from HDMI too. But then you get Davinci for free. And the only hoop you have to jump through after that is h264/265, which essentially means transcoding everything to an intraframe Davinci likes. All of the top line editors like Davinci, Premiere, AViD and Final Cut would have done that automatically anyway, because directly editing with an interframe codec is very hard on the CPU and I/O subsystem. But this means you have to do it manually before moving your data into the timeline. And then you have to manually transcode again after export.

Lightwave isn't very good and it's outrageously expensive for what you get. Seriously, just go with Win10 and Adobe if that's the choice. Lightwave is over a decade behind everyone else. But Davinci is good. And if you jump through BM's hoops, it might be worth it on Linux. TBH, even on Win10 you'd probably want a 3GSDI monitor card and color calibrated monitor. Because Davinci is all about color grading. That's what they expect you to do with the thing. Also, it talks OpenEXR, which means with the right codec or image format (say PNG or TIFF) you should be able to move intraframe to Blender or Natron for gfx or compositing. And that's a good reason to stick with Linux. Especially if you're rendering on Amazon AWS.
Hoser Rob
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Re: DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

Post by Hoser Rob »

ParanoidFactoid wrote:... I think the real issue here is that BM is having trouble getting Davinci to play well with ALSA, so they gave up. ....
Much of what you say is true, but I think the real issue with Davinci is that the free version has no x264/AVC support. And I'm guessing there's no x265/HEVC support either.

Which makes it USELESS.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong - H. L. Mencken
tpraxl

Re: DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

Post by tpraxl »

BTW: As I had the same experience, I experimented with codec combinations and found that the following combination works:

* MPEG-4 Part2 Video Codec
* PCM 16bit little endian signed Audio Codec
* in MOV container

I created a tool to convert avi, mp4 and mov footage to a compatible format for davinci.
It works with single files and can also convert complete folders with footage.

The tool is free and open source and contributions are welcome: https://github.com/tpraxl/convert-footage
chag
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Re: DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

Post by chag »

I just installed Resolve 14.3 and no sound. It's possible to manage the h264 and mp3 problems by transcoding with ffmpeg. To do so, I use :

Code: Select all

ffmpeg -i source.mp4 -c:v prores -profile:v 3  -c:a pcm_s16le destination.mov
but without sound it's just impossible to edit anything.
Hoser Rob
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Re: DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

Post by Hoser Rob »

chag wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 12:40 pm I just installed Resolve 14.3 and no sound. It's possible to manage the h264 and mp3 problems by transcoding with ffmpeg. To do so, I use :

Code: Select all

ffmpeg -i source.mp4 -c:v prores -profile:v 3  -c:a pcm_s16le destination.mov
but without sound it's just impossible to edit anything.
That's just plain silly. Use an editor that works.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong - H. L. Mencken
chag
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Re: DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

Post by chag »

That's just plain silly. Use an editor that works.
Such as ? Here are the options I looked :

Lightworks : free up to 720p. if you want higher resolution = 200€/year
cinelera : Everybody agree to say gui is not a nightmare but very special
kdenlive : very good for (very) small projects
openshot : will probably be very good in a few years.

What I do actually, reboot with windows and run powerdirector (by cyberlink). Paid it 75€, has all features needed, fast render engine, quite easy to use, lens correction, deshake, color correction, etc.

I would love to find (and pay) the same thing under linux. Just doesn't exist.
Rayland-BH

Re: DaVinci Resolve 14 'Free' - No audio or h264 support

Post by Rayland-BH »

As a professional colorist and someone who uses DaVinci Resolve Studio for a living, I can say say that it is both extremely powerful and rather limited in scope. I wanted to post a few clarifications for those interested, though sadly, no real solutions.

tl;dr - DaVinci Resolve is a great tool for a very specific task (color), is not really free, and should not be used for editing.

1. The free version of DaVinci Resolve (as opposed to the paid Studio version) has only ever been intended as a demo. As Hoser Rob pointed out, removing essential components in a free version is common practice for a company hoping to sell a full version. I can assure you that both h.264 and ProRes work flawlessly in the paid version in Linux and MacOS (Win10 cannot do ProRes). I also understand and agree that their exclusion from the free version makes it less than useful. My company uses the free version to prep sequences for our full system, so as not to tie up valuable system time in the expensive room. However, as a standalone app for personal use, I cannot really recommend anyone use the free version.

2. Blackmagic Design is a hardware company, and all their software products famously require their hardware to run correctly. So the sound issue is also a "feature," and one that exists in the paid version as well. They want you to purchase their I/O cards, and if failing to get the sound to work in Linux does that, then mission accomplished. The fact that it will drive away would be customers seems to not be on their radar.

3. DaVinci Resolve is not really an editing application, or at least not a very good one. I think BMD wants it to get there, but it has a long way to go. What is it for, and is very good at, is high end color grading and mastering. This very specialized task is not everyone, is very GPU intensive, and requires a great deal of additional equipment to do correctly (our color grading theater has about $70,000 of hardware in it, so the $300 cost of the software is comparatively nothing). We master TV shows on the DaVinci Resolve, but never edit on it (we use other software for that, and not, sadly, on Linux).

Anyway, put that all together, and I would suggest that unless your goal is to learn/perfrom color grading (sometimes called color correction), for which both sound and compression are not needed or wanted, you should pass on DaVinci Resolve, free or paid.
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