Codec choices and manipulation in DaVinci Resolve

[vindibona1]

I'm just learning about Codecs and recording/editing in general. I've been flying for about 8 weeks never edited (digital) video ever before this time. My questions are going to be basic and may even sound stupid to some.

I know that with my M2P I have the choice of of H264 or H265 if I'm recording in a normal (rec709?) mode. I believe I don't have a choice if I'm recording in d-log which would automatically put the setting on H265. Does DaVinci Resolve had internal settings that have to be matched by the input video media, or does it not matter... Or can you, or do you have to change the Codec in DaVinci? It may be important to note that I have a Mavic Mini and a M2P and from time to time mix video from both drones.

 

[jlatas]

I'm just learning about Codecs and recording/editing in general. I've been flying for about 8 weeks never edited (digital) video ever before this time. My questions are going to be basic and may even sound stupid to some.

I know that with my M2P I have the choice of of H264 or H265 if I'm recording in a normal (rec709?) mode. I believe I don't have a choice if I'm recording in d-log which would automatically put the setting on H265. Does DaVinci Resolve had internal settings that have to be matched by the input video media, or does it not matter... Or can you, or do you have to change the Codec in DaVinci? It may be important to note that I have a Mavic Mini and a M2P and from time to time mix video from both drones.

I may be wrong cus I dont have my drone in front of me, but I think you can record d-cinelike with either compression method. However, 4k60 will definitely put you into H.265 mode. Davinci resolve will accept both h.264 or h.265 as well as Normal color mode and D-cinelike

 

[brett8883]

I'm just learning about Codecs and recording/editing in general. I've been flying for about 8 weeks never edited (digital) video ever before this time. My questions are going to be basic and may even sound stupid to some.

I know that with my M2P I have the choice of of H264 or H265 if I'm recording in a normal (rec709?) mode. I believe I don't have a choice if I'm recording in d-log which would automatically put the setting on H265. Does DaVinci Resolve had internal settings that have to be matched by the input video media, or does it not matter... Or can you, or do you have to change the Codec in DaVinci? It may be important to note that I have a Mavic Mini and a M2P and from time to time mix video from both drones.

The codec rabbit hole is deep and dark, best to pull yourself out before it’s too late.

Standard settings in Resolve are fine.

 

[jlatas]

All digital video recording use some codec or another...its a fact of life. H.264 is pretty ubiquitous. h.265 offers similar video quality in smaller files but be prepared to have a fairly powerful computer with a good graphics card if you want to edit/post process H.265 files without pain in your life. There's already talk of H.266 so I guess the rest of us will be getting new computers too!!!

 

[Dave Maine]

The choice of looks is the most important. H264 and H265 mainly control file size. The choices of d-log, Cinema-d etc, determine how the footage is displayed with whatever codec is chosen. In my experience they all require adjustment in post, just different adjustments. The single most important adjustment isfor exposure. Bad exposure cannot be fixed in post except slightly. In addition, the auto exposure feature created abrupt exposure changes in video which are annoying, and difficult and tedious to fix in post.

 

[vindibona1]

PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I HAVE ANY MISINFORMATION...
But after a bit more research I (believe I've) learned that H265 is TEN BIT color, while H264 is EIGHT BIT. If so, that would explain the larger file size and need for a super computer to handle the footage.

 

[Dave Maine]

Can be but nothing about the codec requires it to be. It is often used for 10 bit stuff to reduce the file size.

 

[brett8883]

PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I HAVE ANY MISINFORMATION...
But after a bit more research I (believe I've) learned that H265 is TEN BIT color, while H264 is EIGHT BIT. If so, that would explain the larger file size and need for a super computer to handle the footage.

On the Mavic 2 Pro 10-bit dlog is only encoded to h.265 because more data can be compressed into a smaller package with H.265.

Both 10 bit and 8 bit video can be encoded to h.265 while h.264 is rarely 10 bit though I believe it is possible just not supported by most encoders.

Video encoding is a processor intensive operation and CPUs are specifically designed to encode and decode the widely used codecs of their time. If you have even just a few years old computer and processor even if it’s beefy it may not having the specific architecture that is optimized to work with h.265 and will suffer when handling this codec. Newer computers that have more up to date chips can handle this codec with ease.

A great example of this is any iPhone or iPad from the last few years handles h.265 better than much more powerful but older computers.

 

[vindibona1]

On the Mavic 2 Pro 10-bit dlog is only encoded to h.265 because more data can be compressed into a smaller package with H.265.

Both 10 bit and 8 bit video can be encoded to h.265 while h.264 is rarely 10 bit though I believe it is possible just not supported by most encoders.

Video encoding is a processor intensive operation and CPUs are specifically designed to encode and decode the widely used codecs of their time. If you have even just a few years old computer and processor even if it’s beefy it may not having the specific architecture that is optimized to work with h.265 and will suffer when handling this codec. Newer computers that have more up to date chips can handle this codec with ease.

A great example of this is any iPhone or iPad from the last few years handles h.265 better than much more powerful but older computers.

It seems that twice today you have been pointing out all the things I'm missing within the DJI apps. My computer happens to be one year old, an Alienware Aurora R7 with 32GB of ram and a 16GB graphics card (NVIDIA GTX 1070). It still helps to run "generate optimized media" in Davinci. I did inadvertantly have two H265 clips mixed in with mostly H264 clips and I really didn't notice anything and I only noticed when I looked at the metadata.

But how to you choose 10 bit with H264? I new to all this having been a still photographer all my adult life, having given up video shooting and editing before VHS was history :0.

 

[brett8883]

It seems that twice today you have been pointing out all the things I'm missing within the DJI apps. My computer happens to be one year old, an Alienware Aurora R7 with 32GB of ram and a 16GB graphics card (NVIDIA GTX 1070). It still helps to run "generate optimized media" in Davinci. I did inadvertantly have two H265 clips mixed in with mostly H264 clips and I really didn't notice anything and I only noticed when I looked at the metadata.

But how to you choose 10 bit with H264? I new to all this having been a still photographer all my adult life, having given up video shooting and editing before VHS was history :0.

Like I said most video encoders don’t support 10-bit h.264. I believe it’s possible but it’s a fringe kind of thing not used in main stream. For all intents and purposes you can consider h.264 as being 8 bit only. If you want to output in 10 bit it needs to be h.265. Most people don’t have 10 bit monitors anyway so this doesn’t matter all that much I wouldn’t get hung up on it.

Your computer RAM is meaningless you need to find out what CPU you have and if it’s optimized for H.265. I’m also told that having the studio version of Resolve will help although for the record my 2019 16” MacBook Pro encodes h.265 faster than h.264 like a beast and is just as fast on the free version as the paid studio version.

 

[brett8883]

I also have an Inspire which records 12 bit video and have a 10 bit monitor. The difference between outputting 8 bit vs 10 bit video is minimal. The higher bit depth gives you more latitude in post but for your final output it doesn’t matter so much.

Using optimized media is a great work around to your issue. You can also set proxy playback settings in Resolve to help with editing performance. This won’t help with your render times but it will help edit more smoothly.