video_editing:davinci_resolve_proxy_workflows

Native DaVinci Resolve Proxy Options

As DaVinci Resolve progresses, better native workflows come about for working with proxies.

  1. With version 18.6 there is now the “Blackmagic Proxy Generator” Application. This has basic options and creates proxies in a subfolder under the folder containing the video files called proxies, and has some watch functionality. Very handy.
  2. With version 17 (it might have been earlier) the “Generate Proxies” right-click option was revamped. Still very powerful, and stores proxies in a customisable folder.
  3. For many historic versions there has been the right-click option “Generate optimised media”, this creates Resolve specific non-compressed files which are optimised for resolve to read. This workflow is largely discouraged as the files aren't portable or reusable.

Other Proxy Workflow Options

It's now possible to configure a GoPro to generate DaVinci Resolve compatible proxies. If you have an older model, don't want to go down that route, or just have older footage saved… Then use the below technique. Thanks to u/Li0n-000, u/exclaimprofitable and u.PuzzlingDad on reddit.

The .lrv files generated by the GoPro can be used as proxies (wish I'd known this years ago). You just need to rename them and place them in a subfolder. This can be automated by saving the below script and pasting it into the folder and running it.

Migrate_Proxy_Files_LRV_to_MOV.bat
rename GL*.LRV GX*.MOV
 
if not exist \proxy\NUL mkdir "proxy\"
 
move *.MOV proxy\

I had to adapt this as one of my cameras seemed to cause problems, when DaVinci Resolve was doing the rendering, it would just hand with the remaining time going up and up. This doesn't seem to be a common problem! That being said, here are my notes for the sake of things.

  1. Install ffmpeg (including setting PATH): https://www.wikihow.com/Install-FFmpeg-on-Windows
    1. Configure proxy_path_root (about line 35 in encode_resolve_proxies.py, don't forget double slashes to separate directories)
  2. Configure shell:SendTo (Windows key + 'r').
encode_resolve_proxies.bat
@ECHO OFF
 
"C:\Program Files\Python310\python" "C:\applications\encode_resolve_proxies\encode_resolve_proxies.py" %*
 
REM pause

I had to modify the scripts a little (new python versions perhaps).

Links & Info

After building up many files on a local machine (particularly with the array of GoPro files for internal proxies/thumbnails) I want to copy everything to an external HDD for working with elsewhere… ROBOCOPY can help with that by mirroring directories, but only including requested file types.

C:\Users\david>ROBOCOPY "<SOURCE>" "<DEST>" *.jpg *.mp4 *.mov /E

The output will be like

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   ROBOCOPY     ::     Robust File Copy for Windows
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Started : <date/time>
   Source : <SOURCE>
     Dest = <DEST>

    Files : *.jpg
            *.mp4
            *.mov
  • video_editing/davinci_resolve_proxy_workflows.txt
  • Last modified: 2023/10/22 19:59
  • by david