You’ve managed to get your footage into Resolve and create your first cut. But what if your project gets a little more complex? When recording Interviews with more than one camera, you’ll probably be looking for the easiest way to synchronise and edit your footage. For this reason, we’re going to take a look at working with timecode and multicam editing, as well as levelling your audio, refining your Clips, and adding Titles in Davinci Resolve Studio.

Previously in this series

1. Getting your bearings: Switching from Premiere to Resolve
2. Switching to Resolve: Your first cut
3. Switching to Resolve: Selects and assembly in Multicam editing
4. Switching to Resolve: Sharing and delivery

Working with timecode for your Interviews

When recording with multiple cameras, timecode is a useful tool for synchronising multiple recording devices for easier post-production. Even though they are popular, many cameras don’t support timecode recording. For this reason, it is possible to use external devices like Tentacle Syncs to record timecode via the camera’s audio input and store it on the audio track.

When opening files in Resolve, I usually like to scrub through footage to get a first impression. Recording timecode on the audio track is a mistake. Why? The time code on the audio track sounds horrible and loud! To fix this and get a usable timecode track, there’s an easy way. In the mediapool or mediapool panel, right-click on the clip, then navigate to Audio Sync and choose Update Timecode from Audio Track. This will update the video’s timecode to the one recorded on the audiotrack.

If you’re combining cameras that can record timecode with those that can’t, that’s no problem. Resolve supports embedded timecode as well as audio timecode.

Fixing interview audio channels

Now that we’ve got our time code right, it’s time to take a look at our clips’ audio. Often when working in a multicamera setup, I get multiple mono-audios from interviews recorded on one camera. Resolve might interpret these as a single stereotrack rather than individual mono-tracks. To fix this, right-click the Clip and select Clip Attributes. In the now open menu, go to Audio. To change your Stereo track into mono tracks, click on stereo at format and set it to mono, and when you want to set the source for that channel, choose the wanted audio at Source Channel.

To add a new track, choose your format below the top menu under Format, then set the number of tracks to add under Tracks. Then click Add. This can be configured like before.

Building Multicam: Two Ways to get started

After getting the audio settings right, it’s time to build the multicam edit. Resolve offers two options for setting up your multicam source timeline: manually or automatically. If you choose to set up the multicam source manually, it should be familiar to you if you’re switching from Premiere Pro. Start by creating a new Timeline and adding your footage with the different angles on different videotracks. To sync the footage, highlight it, then right-click and choose Auto Align Clips.

In the now-open window, choose whether to sync with timecode or waveform, then hit Sync.

Personally, I like to use option two: letting Resolve handle multicam creation for me. To do this, I like to set some metadata first. In the Media page, highlight all Clips from one camera angle and open the shot and scene Metadata from the Metadata Panel.

At Angle, define what to name your Camera Angle. To make your Multicam source more structured, do this for all your multicam camera angles. If you don’t want to name your Angles, you can skip this part, and the Angles will be named as the Clips.

When all your footage is correctly tagged, right-click the footage bin and choose Create multicam using selected Bin.

In the window that opens, choose whether to sync the angles by Timecode. To choose the angle name set before the Metadata Angle, choose Metadata – Angle from Angle Name. What I do like is the option ‘Detect clips from the same camera’. When you check this checkbox, Resolve will place clips from the same camera in a single videotrack instead of creating multiple tracks when working with multiple clips from the same camera.

With everything set to your liking, click Create to let Resolve automatically create your multicam source timeline.

Multicam editing basics

Now we’re ready to start editing. Firstly, create a new Timeline to edit your Interview into. When double-clicking the multicam source, it opens in the source viewer, just like a normal clip. You’ll notice that instead of one big image, you’ll see multiple angles, depending on the number of tracks in your source Timeline. When first opened in the Source Viewer, it will be set to Source Mode, which lets you use your insert methods as usual. By clicking on an angle, you can choose which one will be active when inserting into the Timeline.

Since this is only a first assembly, it’s normal that some of the angles need to be switched afterwards. To do so, you’ve got two options. If you do remember which camera is which angle, simply right-click on the clip in the timeline and choose Switch Multicam Clip Angle. It’s a quick way but doesn’t give you any visual information of the angle you’re choosing.

For this reason, I most times prefer to use option two: setting the source viewer to multicam mode. To do so, click on the filmstrip below the Source Viewer to open its menu. Choose Multicam from the appearing options. Now here comes the irritating part when switching from Premiere, since it’s exactly the opposite of what you’re used to: to switch the angle, use Alt / Opt + click on the new angle, to set a new cut, only click on the new angle.

When switching angles, I often want to stay with one audio track rather than switching between video and audio. This can be easily done by clicking on one of the matching icons below the source viewer: the film strip for just video, the musical notes for just audio and the combination for both. Once chosen, this will stay until you click on another option.

Lastly, I want to point out one feature I learned about way too late. Ever had the need to not just mark an individual point in your timeline but a whole duration? No problem. If you want to give a specific title to one part of your interview for fast editing, you can use a duration marker. For this, set an in-out range for the wanted duration, right-click and choose convert in and out to duration markers. Just like with usual markers, Name, Notes, Keywords and Colour can be added when double clicking on the marker.

Interview Trimmed Workflow: getting rid of gaps

The soundbites in the Timeline are only our starting point. To refine the interviews, you might want to eliminate some gaps. An easy way to do this is by using the waveform to identify gaps first and then simply cutting before and after the gap using the blade. The found gap can then be deleted using backspace.

A note: when using backspace, Resolve will leave the gap empty. If you want to ripple delete and let Resolve close the gap for you, you’ll need to use the delete key instead. You’re deleting lots of silence in the middle of clips and have lots of gaps? Try navigating to Edit in the top menu and choosing ” delete gaps to let Resolve close all the gaps for you.

If the gap is at the start or end of the clip, a quick way to remove it is to ripple. By hovering over the clip near an edit point, a ripple icon will appear, showing which side of the edit point will be rippled. Note that it makes a difference whether you’re in Selection Mode or Trim Edit Mode. When using the ripple in Selection Mode, it will leave a gap that you’ll need to close manually with the delete key if desired. When using ripple in Trim Edit mode, the clip will be shortened and the rest of the clips will move to close the gap.

If you like to replay your footage and combine this with deleting gaps, Trimming start and end with shortcuts could be the way for you: Simply play to the point the gap starts and press Shift + [ to Trim from the start of the clip to the playhead and  Shift + ] to trim from the playhead to the end of the clip. Note that Trim Start and Trim End will ripple if you are in Trim Edit Mode. If you want your gap closed directly in Selection Mode, you can use cmd or ctrl + shift + [ or ] to ripple trim the start or end. 

Making shortcuts work in Multicam

When deleting gaps, you might note that, depending on whether your keyboard has [] or not, these might need to be reassigned. When using some non-English keyboards, you might notice that certain shortcuts aren’t fully optimised yet. This will hopefully be improved soon. To assign the needed shortcuts, go to Davinci Resolve > Keyboard Customisation or press Ctrl/cmd + alt + K. You’ve now opened the space where you can see which Shortcuts are assigned and what operations are assignable.

Personally, I love this Window, since it also offers a visual way to explore existing and possible shortcuts. To assign the Trim Start to a shortcut, type Trim Start into the search field in the lower right. Enter the new shortcut after double-clicking on the existing keystroke. When the shortcut is already assigned to something else on the same page, Resolve will give you a warning before overwriting. To save your custom keyboard, go to the three-dotted menu in the top right and choose Save as new Preset.

Structuring the Timeline

With the cleaned-up Timeline, it’s usually a good point to make a backup of the work done until now. This can be done by duplicating the Timeline, just like in Premiere Pro. To do this, go to the Media Pool Panel and right-click on Timeline. Then choose Duplicate Timeline or copy and paste into the Media Pool Panel. Don’t forget to rename the timeline with an up-counting number to keep track.

Extra tip: When right-clicking the now-obsolete version, you can deactivate the timeline by clicking Deactivate Timeline. This will make sure it can not be opened until reactivated. I do like this option, since it prevents me from accidentally working in the wrong Timeline. Especially when working with multiple people in a shared project, this keeps us all from accidentally working in different versions. The Deactivated Timeline will be marked with a crossed-out eye symbol.

Opening the new Timeline, it’s probably a good idea to add some extra structure to make our lives easier in the future. One way to start is to colour-code parts of the interview differently, depending on their content. To change the colour of a clip in the Timeline, right-click the clip and select Clip Colour. From the opening submenu, choose a colour you like. If you like to work with colour coding you’ll be happy to hear that shortcuts can be assigned to all the colours in the Keyboard customisation window.

Sometimes it can also help to elevate powerful comments to higher video tracks. To do this without accidentally moving a clip some frames, use opt/alt + up or opt/alt + down to move a clip up or down a track.

Quick balancing Audio

It’s time to add some music. Most times, the added music is way louder than our current interview. The quick fix for this should be familiar to you when switching from Premiere Pro. Firstly, highlight all the interview clips in the Timeline. Then right-click on them and go to Normalize Audio Levels.

The now open menu gives you different options of Normalization Modes and the possibility to enter a Target Level of your choice. Important to note is the Set Level option. If you want to normalise multiple clips with an already constant audio level, Relative is the option you want to choose, since it analyses as if all the clips were one. If you want to bring clips with different starting levels to one target level, Independent would be the best choice.

Using Normalisation is a fast way to level the music and the interview to reach a good starting point. We’re going to take a look at some more advanced ways later.

Pulling B-roll into the interview timeline with Auto Track Selector

Since we can now see and hear our interview, it’s time to get some b-roll in, possibly without destroying everything established before. To do so it’s a good idea to lock the tracks we don’t want to be influenced by what we’re doing next. This can be done by clicking on the lock in the track header.

There are also other options for influencing which track is used when inserting footage. The track selector is the tool to define on which track the footage will be inserted. The blue rectangle represents the source clip and indicates which track is the one on which footage will be inserted in from the source viewer or media pool. If it is deactivated, it’s not possible to insert any footage. These are independent for audio and video.

Refining and Titles

Some added shots might need a bit of refinement. In addition to what we already looked at in the inspector in the last article, there’s one more feature you won’t find in Premiere Pro: Dynamic Zoom. When activated in the inspector, it will add motion to your clip by zooming between sets of frames. To define the start and end framing, open the drop-down menu in the bottom-left corner of the Timeline viewer and choose Dynamic zoom.

The start framing will be indicated by the green rectangle, and the end framing by the red rectangle. These can be moved and scaled freely, making not only easy zooming, but also panning possible really fast. To define whether the movement should be Linear or have ease in or out, go to the inspector and choose from the Dynamic Zoom dropdown menu. By default, it’s set to Linear. To change the direction of movement, use the Swap button.

If you want to add some speedraming, Resolve offers a Keyframe Editor, which can be found in the top-left corner near the Media Pool Panel. This offers the option to keyframe lots of parameters from Transformation, Cropping, Composite, Lense Correction and Speed and might look familiar to what you’re used to from Premiere Pro. Add keyframes by clicking on the keyframe symbol at the parameter you want to edit.

To change the Clip speed, go to the Inspector and set your speed at Speed Change. To visually see your speed ramp, click on the curve icon in the top left of the keyframe Editor. The Keyframes and changes are now shown in curves, which can be edited by clicking and dragging. If you want to add an ease in or out, click on one of the options at the top of the Panel to add handles, which then can be manually edited.

After all your visuals are set, it’s time to finish the audio. To add some dynamics, we can duck the music either manually with keyframes or using Resolve’s auto ducker. To add keyframes to our music, I start by increasing the audio track height. Keyframes can then be added either by Alt/Option + clicking on the line in the audio clip in the Timeline, like in Premiere Pro, or by clicking on the keyframe symbol in the inspector’s Audio tab at Volume, when the audio Clip is selected.

Alternatively, Resolve’s Ducker can be used. This can be found in the inspector as well, but only when the whole audio track is selected, since it can only be applied to the entire track. To do so, click on the music tracks header. In the Ducker menu, set the Source to whatever Track you want your music to duck to and define how much and how fast the ducker should attack.

Lastly, you might want to add a Title to your video. Resolve has various Title options available in the Effects panel. What I love about these: they can be live-previewed like clips and transitions before applying. Once added to the Timeline, Titles can be adjusted in the inspector like all other effects. Pro Tip for future editing: In addition to standard Titles, fusion Titles are available. These can be used as normal Titles, but can also be adjusted further in the fusion page if needed.

Your Video should now be ready for delivery. For tips on getting your video ready for different distribution platforms and rendering it fast and easily, stay tuned for the next article.

The post Switching to Resolve: Selects and Assembly in Multicam editing first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Jana Johnston.

A proper hardware device by Blackmagic Design (BM for short) and a calibrated screen has been the iron law for any professional user of DaVinci Resolve (DR for short). But for all those working under MacOS, this may have been valid for the longest time. We are looking at recent changes in DR for those without one. Spoiler: calibration still matters!

How to check

To see what’s going on when playing your movie on other devices and players you can compare your own footage, for sure. At least, if you were the colorist, you should know how it should look like. But if you are unsure (and our memory for colors can be tricked easily), there is the classic SMPTE chart in DR, which has the so-called PLUGE pulse (short for picture line-up generation equipment) in the lower right. In the wider black bar there are two narrow zones with a value just above black, the left one being the darker one (check your waveform).

If your blacks are not crushed by a false gamma interpretation, you should be able to see the right bar just faintly inside the black stripe. The middle one may only become visible if the shadows are lifted too much. Of course, it all depends on your screen too. If it’s not capable of showing black or at least near black, the rest of that whole area will not be pitch black, making it harder to judge the subtle differences. Actually, there is a third bar to the left of the two, but that is reaching down into the sub-black area and only visible if you have exported the file with “Retain sub-black and super-white data” activated. Normally it is just cut off.

Calibration options

DisplayCal is plugging into DR and sending its test patches through the grading software over any compatible I/O device to the screen you need to calibrate. The resulting LUT can be copied into DR and used as a monitoring LUT to correct deviations of the connected screen. This approach works absolutely correctly with the right settings in DisplayCal, being able to avoid any interference of the operating system, be it MacOS, Windows or Linux. Final precision is limited only by shortcomings of your monitor, like weak shadow areas, as visible below. BTW, those small spikes and minor shifts in the waveform are caused by compression in our recorder.

In our series of articles for those not able to spend a fortune on high-end solutions, we have shown how to get a proper LUT with the help of free software and second-hand hardware for Apple silicon. But now we have two solutions pretty much on par regarding calibration in the operating system by an ICC profile. So, we wanted to know if one can live without such an I/O device and that perfect calibration over the whole chain. Actually, BM has recently changed how preview windows and full screen display color and contrast. So, ICC profiles may not be insufficient any more for DR on a Mac with a screen adhering to standard!

Direct monitoring

BM has supported the use of Mac display profiles in DR’s viewers under MacOS for quite some time, even in 10-bit. But due to peculiarities carried over from older systems, they needed to use a non-standard version of Rec. 709, called 709-A. That was nothing but a crutch, and it was not only Apple’s fault that contrast and brightness were inconsistent between many players and other devices. If you are seriously bored, you can read this thread, with over 20 pages, the longest one ever in the DR user forum. You can follow some true experts and many wannabes there, discussing a ‘final’ solution. So, what’s our take on it?

The Never Ending Story: Are Apple XDR devices suitable for reference use in colour grading?

The main problem is lack of timely standardization when everything went from tubes to digital cameras and screens. The Rec. 709 standard for HDTV was defined based on analog technology, which behaved differently from modern cameras and screens. The newer addition to that standard is called BT. 1886, but it was only published by the ITU in 2011.

At that time there were already too many digital technologies in use, and most manufacturers didn’t really care much about adherence to a standard coming so late. BT.1886 defines a gamma (a contrast curve) of 2.4, which is fine for viewing TV in a rather dimly lit living room. Adjusting that curve is not really adhering to the standard, but on this model of a TV, for example, a value of +2 will get it to 2.2.

This slightly older Samsung TV, as a typical example, is offering modes like Movie, Natural, Standard, and Dynamic. Nothing says “Rec. 709” or “BT. 1886” right away, but „Natural“ is actually adhering to BT.1886, even fixed to it. „Standard“ is BT. 1886 too by default, but allows you to override that gamma in the expert settings – go figure. “Movie” is also adhering to BT.1886, but with a very warm tint – which again can be overridden, just like gamma. Recent ones have the “Filmmaker” setting, which is supposed not to change anything, and “Dynamic” is for bright rooms. Have fun with all the creative names and options of other manufacturers!

A lighter and less contrasty gamma of 2.2 might be better in a brighter environment. Mobile devices in particular are watched wherever you go. Even if some can reach very high brightness values these days, details in darker areas of the image can get lost if the content was graded as 2.4. Encoding clips for social media instead of movies for cinema buffs may profit from a gamma of 2.2, which is correctly flagged as 1-4-1 by DR. It even adheres to a standard, called BT.470 System M, as shown by MediaInfo (free). But this was a standard for analog television in some parts of the world only, and is now considered historical.

But do TVs and other devices really check such flags, which contain the information about encoding in your digital video files? They should tell the playback device which colour primaries, which colour matrix, and which gamma (called transfer characteristics here) were used. If you check with the info function for a video file on a Mac, the ones for Rec. 709 BT. 1886 are code points 1-1-1 or flags (I’ll use flag from here). They will be listed by cross-platform software such as MediaInfo as Rec. 709 for all three parameters.

In a perfect world, all playback devices and software players should respect such flags and show your video accordingly. Well, at least most of them assume your sources are 1-1-1, but often don’t care if it’s flagged as anything else, like 1-4-1 or 1-2-1. Some even force 1-1-1 on your clips, whatever they are. As we all know, YouTube is recompressing your sources, which is acceptable if the quality is good enough. But what’s absolutely unacceptable: whatever your original flagging was, YouTube will set it to 1-1-1 without even asking you! Just try to send one of your clips to YT and read it back. The free video patcher AMCDX by Alex Mogurenko will help you to correct wrong flags, but you need to remember the original encoding.

What to do?

In consequence, your results, which you encoded as gamma 2.2 for viewing in brighter environments, will actually be displayed darker and loose detail in the shadows. And if you encode from DR as Rec.709 gamma 2.4, which is offered as another option, it may too bright and lack contrast and saturation on players or a browser not respecting the flags. So, always encode as Rec. 709 (Scene) and hope for the best. It should look right on a TV with the correct settings. These can normally be found on most modern TVs or monitors if you dig deep enough into the menus, either as Rec. 709 or BT. 1886. Out of the box, many TVs are set to a very contrasty and saturated look, shouting out “Buy Me!” to the visitors of a mall for electronics.

The very popular VLC player is another example of ignoring flags, while we can recommend mpv player or its descendants for observance of flags. Of course, this says nothing yet about the quality of the screen attached to it. If that one is not calibrated, or at least set correctly in its menus, the image may still be far off. And then, there are all those image ‘enhancements’ imposed by digital TVs for viewing conditions, like bright environments or late hours. Or think of a projector meant to be visible in a not so dimly lit boardroom and optimized for (visual!) clarity of business charts.

Recommendations

Recent MacBooks and iPad Pro models have excellent blacks and offer reference modes for several standards, including HDTV (BT.709-BT. 1886). These are factory-calibrated and deactivate any image adjustments, assuming an environment properly lit for grading. Now, there is some sample variation and according to our own measurements, the nit value for white can be a tad low, like around 90 instead of 100 (some experts even suggest 120). Nevertheless, such screens come pretty close to a properly calibrated screen in the lower price range and offer much better blacks than conventional IPS panels.

If you are working for TV, we would still advise a professional, calibrated monitor via an I/O device. But, at least with the settings explained above, your viewers in DR will not look completely off when a client is looking over your shoulder. For all those working for social media, where your audience will have devices that you can’t control anyway, we suggest sticking to the only widespread norm: Rec. 709 with a gamma of 2.4. If you are concerned about visibility in bright environments, change the lighting in your room and check with an average smartphone, but avoid the setting for gamma 2.2 when rendering.

If you work for clients who want your results for social media, but are picky about how their movies look, you may need to supply them with an iPad Pro for presentations. Set it to a reference mode, block that, and try to explain to them why their average boardroom projector may look different. You may even want to take a photograph of TVs in an electronics market showing the same content next to each other.

Let’s do it on a Mac

So you’ve got a MacBook Pro (MBP for short) with Apple silicon and you’ve got a calibration probe, be it by Datacolor or Calibrite. But working just for the internet, you didn’t invest in an I/O device. We don’t care which generation of that laptop, as long as it has the nice XDR screen and reference modes. But who likes to work with DaVinci Resolve on such a small screen (even the menu bar is too short for all the little extras)? Let’s say you have a larger screen with decent color quality attached when you start grading at your home base. After all, not only Apple says that you should be grading to standards in a controlled environment – something hard to find in a hotel room or on the road. Now calibrate that external screen with your probe, and you’ll be generating just an ICC profile for the Mac in this case. More than one profile can be prepared for the correction of different monitors, which will be managed by the system.

Brightness according to BT. 1886 would be 100 nit, but 120 fits modern screens better. The steps needed for calibration are fully self-explanatory with the Spyder Pro software, and the result on a decent screen is very close to what we see on the MBP when set to reference mode. OK, DisplayCal may be a tad more precise. But it’s more complicated and taking many more measurements, resulting in excessively long lunch breaks.

You need to set the system preferences of DR to use the Mac profiles, as already shown above, and now you have to stick to Rec. 709 (Scene) on the Deliver page to get your output and its flags right. Do not use Rec. 709 Gamma 2.4, even if theoretically it should be the same!

Your timeline can be whatever you prefer: Rec. 709, ACES, or DaVinci Wide Gamut Intermediate (DWG). Of course, with manual settings your first node should get a CST (Color Space Transform) to adapt the incoming camera sources to DWG. Resolve’s automatic setting, called DaVinci YRGB Color Managed (aka RCM) set to SDR would also deliver the flags as 1-1-1, by the way. But you may need to check if the incoming footage’s color and gamma is identified correctly or needs to be set manually. That’s often the case if some difficult source has been transcoded into an intermediate codec, like ProRes, DNxHR, or Cineform.

Conclusion

In the end, you need to understand that rendering into a specific colour space and gamma is actually changing the visual content of your results. 
Tags are just metadata, which should trigger the right interpretation in players. That’s the point where chaos breaks loose, because manufacturers often don’t care for the tags and display your video based on assumptions. The only reliable approach is encoding to Rec. 709 with a gamma of 2.4 and having the tags set to 1-1-1, which is automatically done if you render into Rec.709 (scene).

The post LUTs, Tags, or ICC: Getting Colours Right in Resolve on a Mac first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Uli Plank.

Nobe OmniScope gets Live Pack for on-set and live monitoring

Well, this exhaustive set of visualisation tools for all kinds of technical parameters in video and audio could always be used for live sources. But until now, any DIT couldn’t get very far if he/she needed to do some real-time grading on a film set or for a live broadcast. Yes, there is Resolve Live, but it’s rather limited. Time in Pixels has recently added the „Live Pack“ to Nobe OmniScope (NOS for short), which integrates with Pomfort’s Livegrade 7, as reported by DP on March 11th. By now, we have driven it through its paces.

Why not Resolve Live?

Even the free version of Davinci Resolve (DR for short) has this feature, which allows some live grading. But it seems a bit like walking into a store and looking for a product that has not been asked for in a while. Some salesperson may say: „Oh, I remember, it must be somewhere in that lowest drawer down in the corner“. Resolve Live is limited to a single input device, even with more than one unit connected you can’t change that. So, for several cameras your (physical) desktop would soon have computers piling up.

And then, you need to set the timeline precisely to the right frame rate and resolution for both timeline and monitoring, i.e. both the input device and the monitoring one must support the same resolution. If not, you won’t see anything, DR will not tell you the parameters of the incoming signal. It’ll just tell you to match whatever there might be. If you want to work in UHD, for example, but monitor your colors on a calibrated screen in HD with a cheaper interface, that won’t happen with Resolve Live. It’s normally not a problem if you don’t use the live feature.

Once you have developed a LUT, save and export it, then move it to your LUT box or camera and load it there. Not really a smooth process in the heat of production, and Blackmagic Design (BM for short) doesn’t seem to care much about adding any features to Resolve Live recently. Nevertheless, NOS can connect to it and deliver the signal to its scopes with very low latency by direct GPU access, and you can feed a Rec. 709 signal, even to monitors which don’t load a LUT, while working on log sources from the DIT cart. Scaling the output for an HD device is easily achieved with NOS. Don’t forget to exit from Resolve Live when done, since most of Resolve’s non-grading features are disabled while it’s running.

Why Pomfort Livegrade?

The whole toolset by Pomfort is a well-establised suite of software for the film and broadcast business, and Livegrade is their solution for real-time grading and look preparation. While it always had its own scopes, they are not as sophisticated and flexible as those in NOS. Livegrade can work with multiple sources, both cameras or references. Live grading for up to 4 cameras can be handled directly, but more than 20 can be controlled by loading LUTs into external LUT boxes, or into some cameras via Ethernet. All of this can be handled right from the software (full details here).

Looks developed here can also be exported as a CDL for dailies or post. Integration with NOS is currently limited to two live slots, but Pomfort is encouraging users to contact them if they need more, so they may be working on extending this number. Quote: „For workflows that require more OmniScope streams, extended configurations can be evaluated on request.“ NOS lists the slots you have prepared just like any other source, while both apps run concurrently. No wiring or additional interfaces needed. So, no extra cost, bad connections or latency introduced, since Direct GPU access is also applied to the signals from Livegrade 7. 

Configuration and Performance

NOS is highly optimized and still running pretty well on older machines. We tried it on a 2017 iMac, which is based on Intel and can’t run any system newer than Ventura (MacOS 13). It can support 2 HD sources and 7 Instruments without fully saturating the GPU, an AMD Radeon Pro 580 (see title). The older interfaces for HD, the UltraStudio Mini Recorder and Monitor, can be found cheaply on the second-hand market and that large screen and its design are still looking good. Maybe you got one waiting for resurrection?

Of course, it’s no match for modern Apple silicon. We tortured a Mac mini M4 Pro with 15 instruments, one source in HD and the other in UHD, and it didn’t break a sweat. GPU load was no more than 60%, most CPU cores were idle, and it used less than 4 GB of RAM. It’s absolutely credible that a Mac mini M2 Pro with 16 GB, as recommended by the author, will be plenty. All of this was tested without scaling or any of the performance options activated, but all the demanding QC features were running. Without all of the latter and some of the performance optimisations, even a Mac mini M1 with 8 GB will do. Nevertheless, you may want a Mac Studio to get more Thunderbolt ports if you need to connect more interfaces. Now, why don’t we mention any PC here, when there is NOS for Windows? (see here for hardware needs).

Well, the other component of today’s review is Mac-only, even Apple Silicon, for that matter. Minimum OS is Sequoia (15) or Tahoe (26). And then, you’ll need the latest Desktop Video driver by BM (15.3.1) for any of their compatible interfaces. There were some reports of installation issues in the forums with recent versions on macOS, but we didn’t experience any of them. It seems that you just have to watch and follow the messages popping up to give the additional components access rights under Apple’s overprotective mother, called an operating system.

All together now …

Once everything is up and running, both apps coexist nicely on our single machine, with Livegrade also just sipping on system resources, both regarding cores and RAM at about 500 MB. Finally, the installer for NOS is quite sleek at not much over 400 MB. The highly flexible and easily configured GUI of NOS can even co-exist nicely with Livegrade on one ultrawide screen like ours. Of course, you can also move the apps to two separate ones. And then, other than by DR, the parameters of incoming signals are detected by either app automatically once you have chosen the interface. You can even get an output in HD from UHD by NOS, so it’s a software issue in DR.

Latency

We measured latency using a 100 fps recording of a TC display, with 50 fps over the whole chain from the lens to the source display in Resolve Live or NOS, so the precision should be +/- 10 milliseconds. After slowing the recording down to 50 fps, we were stepping through the footage and observed the change of the frame numbers. The camera’s LCD was already about 40-50 ms late, but at that point, we don’t know if this is caused by processing in the camera or the display.

Display in Resolve Live was some 80-90 ms late, which includes hardware latency in the DeckLink card, of course. The value via Livegrade was a tad slower, like around 90 ms. The display in NOS via direct GPU access appeared about 10 ms later than in Livegrade, demonstrating the efficiency of that approach. The new focusing aids by coloured or isolated edges felt quite usable, not at all as if wading through molasses, like on systems with too much latency.

Recently Added Features

Support for multiple sources and the helpful Input Strip were already celebrated in DP last year, but now you can also record sources to disk in 720 or 1080 HD, either as H.264 or H.265 in an MP4 wrapper, or the two lighter versions of ProRes in MOV. These recordings are perfect for generating proxies for later editing. Most video speeds are already recorded correctly at constant frame rates; only those pesky fractional rates for the NTSC world are still showing VFR. But the author is aware and working on a fix. Even with 3 recordings running in the background, the GPU load didn’t climb to more than 70%.

New Instruments

There is even a new instrument, the Hectorscope, named after colourist Hector Berrebi. It enables you to examine your shot in 3D, with two dimensions representing the image and the third showing brightness. This is great for checking your shadows for noise or color casts. Loudness metering for the two established broadcast standards in audio, namely EBU R128 and ATSC A/85, is another recent addition. While SDI or HDMI output is already on board, recently the author has added Web Remote output as a very early alpha demo preview. The list of smaller, but nevertheless useful features added would literally fill several pages. Does that guy ever sleep?

Any Shortcomings?

There are only minor issues, like LiveGrade not being able to switch between SDI and HDMI sources. You’ll need to use BM’s Desktop Video Setup to do that, while NOS is handling such tasks in its own GUI. The GUI of Livegrade is less flexible than that of NOS, and it has rather coarse tooltips, whereas those by NOS are very detailed. When disconnecting a source in Livegrade, it’s still not available elsewhere; you’ll need to quit the software first. Both apps recognise and display incoming formats, but you’ll need to switch shortly between sources in Livegrade to see the new values if the source’s parameters have changed. Finally, if you quit only one of the apps and start it again, things can get messed up.

Documentation

Both apps have complete online manuals, including video tutorials. Some of the tutorials for Time in Pixels were made together with Daria Fissoun, who is also a specialist for DaVinci Resolve and explains the use of most of those scopes very well here. And then, the changelog for NOS is excellent, far better than many others; it leaves nothing unclear. If you’d like to dig even deeper, head over to Tektronix and read about the basics and scopes as artistic tools. Their hardware scopes, which used to be expensive marvels of engineering, can be found for a few hundred Euro second-hand now, left far behind by software like NOS. Their learning resources are still valid, though.

Commentary

Nobe OmniScope is getting better with every update and works fine both with LiveGrade and Resolve Live. Unfortunately, while being free, the latter is quite limited and not even really stable. We have experienced stalls when simply trying to add a node while Resolve Live was running.

Livegrade 7 is not cheap at over 1.000 € per year, but it’s stable and does what it promises. You can get a 10-day temporary license for 179,- € if you just need it for a single project.

OTOH, the Live Pack for NOS is a steal at its introductory price of 85,- € if you already own OmniScope Pro, and it’s a lifetime license. After the introduction ends, it is 128 €, which still is cheap for a tool of that magnitude. NOS itself is a subscription, but a fair one: it won’t stop functioning; you just won’t get updates anymore if you stop paying. You can even reactivate your subscription later.

The post Nobe OmniScope is a Live Act now! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Uli Plank.

Even if you really want to, you have your workflow and rarely have the time to really get to know the new software. In the end, I was tired of getting slowed down by a constantly crashing software and not being able to render without artefacts. I thought the time spent on these issues with Premiere would have been better spent switching, especially since I was already colour grading in Davinci Resolve. To make the transition easier, here are some tips for switching from Premiere Pro to Davinci Resolve so you can get started as quickly and efficiently as possible:

Project Manager: Wait, where did I save my project?

One big difference between Davinci Resolve and Premiere Pro is how projects are managed. For this, the first thing you will see when opening the software is the Project Manager. This is the place to create and manage your projects. I’m honest: when switching, that was something that needed some time to adapt to, but it’s worth it.

While Premiere Pro projects are saved as files where you decide where, Davinci Resolve works with managed Libraries. These are structured containers that serve as a central repository for all project data. Libraries are managed via the Project Manager and can be hosted on your computer, on a networked server or in the Blackmagic Cloud. To switch between the three options, simply click on the one you choose in the top left corner of the Project Manager.

If you tend to make copies of your project on your computer to keep backups, this will change your workflow. But we’ll take a look at that later. For now, it’s important to know that projects saved in your active project library can easily be exported to your hard drive as a .drp file for a manual backup or transfer to another system. To export your project, right-click it and choose export.

Libraries come with some advantages. My favourite one: multiuser collaboration. I can’t describe how useful this is! Editors, colourists, VFX artists and sound engineers – everybody can work with the same project file on different workstations. Even at the same time, in the same timeline. Brilliant and timesaving.

Also speeding me up: powerbins. These are useful when working with media I use in multiple projects. They make media easily accessible across different projects, as long as it is in the same Project Library.  

Pages: Where do I start?

When switching from Premiere Pro, you’ll probably be used to using Dynamic Linking to get your edit into Audition, After Effects and Media Encoder to complete your postproduction process. In Resolve, this is what the Pages are for.

These follow the typical postproduction process from ingest to delivery, which provides a great advantage: you can have your whole postproduction in just one software. No exporting timelines for audio postproduction, visual effects or colour and no translation issues between software. There’s no need to manage multiple project files or export assets to get them from one project into another. Changes made in one page are instantly accessible in others, and you can quickly go back and forth as needed to change things.

I think to start, it’s important to say: Most things can be achieved in the Edit Page. Don’t get scared away by the masses of pages and functions! There are different ways to achieve your goal when editing, and you will get around very well, mostly by starting in Edit Page. Lots of functions from other pages are also available there. If you like, you can even turn off pages you don’t want to use in the preferences. To still give you a bit of orientation, here’s a quick overview of what the different pages are for:

The Media Page is for ingesting and organising. Right next to it we find the Cut page, which is an editing interface designed for speed. In the Edit Page, we have the traditional editing interface, which should be very familiar to you, coming from Premiere Pro. Quite different from After Effects is Fusion, the node-based workspace for compositing and VFX. The Colorpage – quite self-explanatory – is made for colour grading. Fairlight is the page where you can mix and master your audio after editing to then, finally, render your video out in the Deliver Page.

Interface basics: Where to find what you need

It will probably need some time for you to adapt to what’s different. One of the things that took me a while to get used to was the fixed panel places. While we’re used to being able to move everything around freely in Premiere Pro, Davinci Resolve allows only view windows to pop out and be moved freely throughout all pages. But once I adapted, it made total sense where everything is.

In the Edit Page, one big part of the window is the timeline in the lower part of the screen. Above that, we’ve got the source viewer and timeline viewer. Note: When your screen is too small or your screen resolution is too low, you might only see one viewer. Don’t worry, you can easily switch between those pressing Q.

In the Edit Page there are nine panels you can open and close by clicking their buttons located in the upper part of the screen. The ones on the upper left side will then open on the left and vice versa. The Media Pool on the upper left will give you fast access to your footage. It’s the same Media Pool as in the Media Page which we’ll look at later. The Effects panel, the index, and the mixer should be intuitive when switching from Premiere, though the feature I love most in the panels is the Inspector on the upper left side.

It could be compared to the effects controls in Premiere but has basic effects like crop already integrated, as well as more advanced effects like stabilisation, speed change, retime, and scaling.

Even though most panels are fixed, you can give yourself some more space by closing the panels you don’t need. Depending on whether you have opened multiple panels from both sides or not, they can be full-screen height or half-screen height. Accidentally messed up your UI? Don’t worry. You can quickly reset your UI layout in the menu Workspace > Reset UI Layout.

You’ll find dual-screen mode, full-screen Timeline, and, using Resolve Studio, permanent full-screen video out in the same menu.

Live Save and Project Backups

When working in Premiere Pro I often feared software crashes. I tried to save after every single thing I did because autosaving just didn’t cut it. Davinci Resolves Auto Save, which is called Live Save, is on a completely different level. I never fear that something is gone! I’ve got way fewer issues with the software crashing, but if it does, I know that what I did last will be there.

To restore the backups, right-click the project in the Project Manager. This won’t overwrite the current project version you’re working in. If you’re used to copying your Premiere Pro Sequence to revert to an earlier version of your edit, you may like to check out the Timeline backup function. It works just like Project Backups and can be activated and customised in the same spot. To restore a Timeline Backup, right-click on the timeline in either the media panel or Media Page. Just note: Timeline Backups will be stored locally, even when working on Network or Cloud Libraries, so they will only be accessible on the system where they were created.

Media Page: Import and Media Organisation

The one time I’d highly recommend switching pages is when importing media into your project. Even though it is possible to import media on all pages except Deliver, the Media Page offers many options for importing and managing your media.

The Media Page is split into Media Storage and Media Pool. The upper-left is Media Storage, which might be familiar to you if you used the Media Browser in Premiere Pro. It’s effectively a file browser for finding or exploring files on drives mounted on your computer. What I find very useful about this: you can quickly review or check footage in the viewer in the top-right corner of your screen, even without importing. A little extra: hovering over the footage lets you scrub through and preview without loading a clip into the viewer.

The lower part of the screen is your Media Pool – the project-specific repository for all the assets you’re importing or creating in Resolve, like footage, audio files, timelines, etc. On the left side, you’ll find the current projects bin list with the master bin. It’s the top level of your projects’ folder structure where all the other bins containing your project’s footage are listed. The right side shows the inside of the currently opened bin.

To get your footage into Resolve, simply drag and drop it from Media Storage, Finder, or Explorer into the Media Pool. If doing so on the Media Storage Bin list, the folder structure will be translated into the bin structure of your project. When adding to the right side, all the footage will be unpacked into the current bin

But there are other import options that let you stay in Resolve, leading to the same results: when you navigate to your folder in the Media Storage and right-click it, you’ll see the option to import your footage folder and all its subfolders into the current bin. This I find useful when working e.g., with Sony in camera folder structures, where you don’t want all the extra bins. Alternatively, you can choose “add folder and Sub folders into Media Pool (creating bins)” to get your complete folder structure as sub bins in the current bin. This is helpful if you already have your folders sorted out on your hard drive and want to copy the structure into Resolve.

Ways to create and work with proxies

Depending on the footage you’re working on, you might want to render some proxies. This is one particularly strong thing in Resolve and speeds me up quite a bit. You’ve got two options: if you’ve already set up your project and imported your footage, it’s super easy to create proxies by right-clicking on some highlighted footage and choosing proxie media > generate proxy media from the project settings.

In this case, it will automatically create proxies for the highlighted clips and save them in the location that is set in the project settings > master setting when scrolling down to working folders.

The Quality of the proxies can be defined in the same menu at optimised media and render cash. The proxy resolution is defined in relation to the original resolution. Possibilities are, for example: original, half of the original, a quarter of the original, etc. By default, it’s set to “choose automatically”, which will generate at the current set timeline resolution. When working with proxies, you can switch fast between disabling All proxies, preferring proxies and preferring camera originals, in the Timeline viewer.

You can also see whether proxies are attached by the white (for high-resolution) or purple (for proxies) icon on your clip, which will be visible in the thumbnail of your clip in the media pool.

If you really want to speed up your preparation process in advance, you should look into the Blackmagic Proxy Generator, an external tool which will automatically be installed with Davinci Resolve. It gives you the opportunity to render proxies in advance, without even having to get your project set up before. The proxies will then automatically be attached when importing the footage into a project.

This process will ensure you can go straight into editing when setting up your project. The strongest part of this tool is the watch folder function, which continues to scan your chosen folders for additional footage even after generating proxies. Very useful when you keep adding footage to folders you’re already working with.

Organising footage with scene metadata and smart bins

After you’ve added everything to your bins, it’s time to organise your footage. With Premiere Pro, I used to either restructure footage directly in bins, which made everything messy quite quickly, or sort my footage into sequences. In Resolve, I recommend using the scene metadata and smart bins. I know that Premiere Pro also lets you create smart bins using metadata, but it wasn’t intuitive enough for me to use back then. Resolve on the other side makes it super easy:

On the Media Page, click one clip or highlight multiple, then navigate to the top-right to close the audio panel. This will give your open Metadata panel more space. Choose “shot and scene” from the three-dotted menu. There, you’ve got lots of options to set metadata. One thing I like to use in this context is Clip colour, since it gives me an easy way to differentiate between different footage, for example, interviews with different people. Other than that, you can set metadata and let Davinci Resolve create smart bins based on it. For a start, I’d recommend you use Keywords. To do so, enter a Keyword you want to sort your footage by into the Keyword cell.

Then navigate to the bottom-left of your screen to find the Smart Bin List. By default, there should be a bin for Keywords. Davinci Resolve automatically generates one smart bin for every keyword you set before. By clicking on ‘Keywords’, a menu with all the smart bins will open.

Personally, I love this feature because it lets me keep my original folder structure while allowing me to sort my footage more intuitively. It also allows me to have the same clip in different bins, e.g., for location and person, which speeds up my process. With all this said, you should have everything you need to make your first steps in the software. Next up: how to get your Project Settings and Timeline right to start your first edit in Davini Resolve.

The post Getting your bearings: Switching from Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Jana Johnston.

Gone are the days when you could buy a plug-in collection for a fixed price and then use it for years. Most providers have switched to subscription models, which can be paid for either monthly or annually. This can be advantageous for users who only need a specific effect or collection for a short period of time and remember to cancel their subscription in good time. In most cases, however, users pay many times what the collection would have cost (in the past) as a one-off purchase. And at least once a year, you are painfully reminded of this when another £250 is debited from your credit card for an FX set that you haven’t used in ages.

The situation is similar with stock footage from relevant databases: in the past, if you bought a collection in the truest sense of the word, you could use it for numerous productions and essentially forever (somewhere in our cupboard, we still have the Artbeats collections “American Cities” and “African Animals” in wonderful NTSC resolution in MotionJPEG format). Nowadays, you either buy expensive credits (as with Adobe Stock) or subscribe (e.g., Envato) to get the material you need.

The manufacturer Production Crate offers a combination of both in its suite: a plug-in collection that includes an extensive database of visuals, music, and sound effects, available by subscription, of course. In this review, we take a closer look at whether the model is worth its USD 300 annual price.

Scope and management

The entire (paid) suite consists of just over 40 plug-ins, around a quarter of which are freely available, i.e. do not require a subscription (we have taken a brief look at the most interesting effects below). According to the manufacturer, the scope of the assets, i.e. the stock material, exceeds 10,000 elements, ranging from simple explosions to animated Valentine’s Day hearts to confused zombies.

The database is divided into VFX, motion graphics, music, sound effects, and 3D models, including Blender assets, with Pro Suite customers entitled to 50 downloads per day. Plug-ins and assets are managed via a central app called ProductionCrate Portal. Depending on their preferred software and workflow, users can install plug-ins for After Effects and Premiere, tools for Blender, or extensions for direct access to assets from the host software. The idea is not new (even Envato now offers a plug-in for Premiere), but it is quite helpful when you need an atmosphere, a background or a nuclear explosion quickly.

Pro plug-ins

The set of both free and subscription-based plug-ins is designed for Premiere Pro and After Effects, with most of the tools working in both host applications. Only plug-ins that don’t really make sense in Premiere (such as unmulting layers or working in 3D space) are only available in After Effects. Otherwise, it must be said that the ProductionCrate Suite offers few surprises.

Most of the effects will be familiar to users, as they have been integral parts of other plug-in collections for decades, such as Glow, Old Film Effect, and HyperGlitch. Nevertheless, the ProductionCrate effects are very cleanly programmed (i.e. few crashes or problems when loading) and also proved to be easy to use – once you’ve experimented a bit and halfway understood what the countless controls are for.

Let’s start with the obvious: turn new video into old film. Or old video. Or old television. Production Crate provides a handful of plug-ins for different applications. The “Retro Film” effect transforms the video into 8, 16 or 35mm film with all the trimmings: faded or blurred colours (or even black and white), dust, hairs, scratches and lots of wild camera shake. The settings are relatively clear and understandable, yet comprehensive, so that the user will hardly miss any options for converting to old film.

Particularly interesting are the presets, where the user can choose among a 1960s home-video style, a Tarantino-esque grindhouse effect, or an old Italian western. All presets are lovingly designed and even include aspect ratios tailored to the look, which you don’t often find. The individual settings range from blur/sharpen to saturation, framing and lens errors to hair length and scratch depth. So basically everything you need for a quick old film effect. The preview and rendering are also pleasantly fast and of sufficiently good quality.

This is followed by the VHS effect, which does exactly what you’d expect from the name: it converts digital video into old VHS footage. Both the presets and the settings are a lot more limited than with Retro Film, but they’re more than enough to achieve a cool 80s look (what else do you really need to adjust with VHS?). In fact, you don’t need much more than the “default” preset; if that’s not enough destruction for you, you can switch to “Found Footage” or “Corrupted” to generate more magnetic interference, distorted colours or jumping line skips. Other custom options include colour softness, grain, jitter and block formation, as well as the number and colour of line skips.

Speaking of line skipping (a factor that used to exist in post-production, but which should no longer be a burden to you, dear Gen Z): a very interesting effect can be found in the CRT Factory (CRT stands for Cathode Ray Tube, or tube monitor for short). The effect transforms digital video into an old television or video monitor, with all the trimmings: curvature, pixels, interlacing, discolouration, optical deviations and strange glows. Here, too, the presets are extensive and lovingly programmed, covering numerous looks, including arcade monitors, billboards, monitors from different decades, LEDs, and plasma TVs. Especially in combination with the VHS effect, but also as a standalone tool, for example, for screen captures or the animation of screen content, impressive results can be achieved here.

And, before we forget, there is, of course, also a proper film grade effect. Unlike other plug-in collections, in which realistic film material from Fuji, Kodak or other (now bankrupt) manufacturers is meticulously reproduced, “film grade” at Production Crate is more of an interesting gimmick. Presets such as Polaroid, Miami, Pop or Retro are available, which already indicates that these are not serious stock simulations. Nevertheless, it’s fun to click through the presets, which here and there are even sufficient to achieve a look that is worth seeing and, in any case, creative. Numerous options are available for customising the image, from colouring, saturation and grain to light rays and, of course, a vignette. Strangely enough, when applied to a video element, the effect switches the comp size to 1,440 x 1,080, so you should proceed with caution here. Whether this is intentional or not is something only the manufacturer knows.

If you take a closer look at the ProductionCrate Suite, you can’t overlook Easy Glow. Although Easy Glow is certainly not the only filter on the market that makes bright areas of an image glow (hardly any plug-in collection comes without a glow effect), the result is extremely impressive and stands out from the competition thanks to its many detailed presets.

The presets range from sunset to retro to science fiction films and always look professional, neither overdone nor understated. The individual settings are not overly extensive, but they still serve their purpose. Of course, you can adjust the intensity of the effect, the colour scheme, as well as shifts and optional light streaks. All in all, Easy Glow is one of the best “make me glow” filters we’ve seen so far — and we’ve seen a lot.

One last filter from the Pro series deserves a more detailed introduction: Hyper Glitch. As the name suggests, this plug-in generates video glitches — from “very subtle” to “completely unrecognisable”. The effect is programmed in a very interesting way and offers a variety of looks, while the individual settings remain simple and easy to understand. Once you have decided on a preset, you can, of course, adjust the strength of the effect to your liking, as well as its intensity, size, colours, jittering, halftones, and speed. Ultimately, there is hardly a setting that you cannot freely design and, of course, animate. Once again, the combination of Hyper Glitch and the CRT monitor makes particular sense for achieving a realistic effect of transmission errors and an old screen.

Surprisingly, the ProductionCreate Suite (in the Pro version) includes numerous other filters that are not really documented or described anywhere (at least not on the website). Installing the collection is like opening a lucky dip: you find an incredible amount of stuff you didn’t expect, and which you probably won’t have much use for until you actually need it. For example, there is an aurora effect that generates northern lights from any image (something you’ll probably need once or twice in your life, if at all).

Or the Fractal filter, which creates 3D fractals like those from a spaceship in films from the 90s. The bokeh effects used to create soft lighting environments are also interesting. Or the Glass filter, which makes text and graphics appear as if they were made of glass, and can actually be used as a virtual window pane with corresponding glass edges. The list goes on, but the space in this report (and our readers’ attention span) is limited.

Free plug-ins

As mentioned above, Production Crate does not necessarily require a subscription for effects and assets, but also offers a handful of useful and interesting plug-ins (and elements) that can be downloaded and used free of charge from the website. We won’t go into more detail here, but we recommend trying them out on your own computer.

One of the free effects that deserves a special mention is certainly “Black Hole”, which is either useful for very specific applications or for promoting the nerdiness of individual DIGITAL PRODUCTION employees (we reported: https://digitalproduction.com/2026/01/15/diy-gravity-make-your-own-black-hole-in-afer-effects/).

DIY Gravity: Make Your Own Black Hole (In After Effects)

The Chromatic Aberration effect is also very useful. It refracts the wavelengths of different light colours to simulate faulty (or very cheap) lenses, which, especially in combination with other effects, produces amazing results. The ASCII filter (also known as the Matrix effect) is also always welcome, as it transforms video images into a shower of characters.

One last free filter that should not go unmentioned here is Long Shadow, which casts a shadow of any length based on an alpha channel of text or graphics. This shadow is not comparable to the realism of a drop shadow or the shadow of a virtual light source in After Effects, but it can be very helpful in designing interesting logos and graphic animations. And, as mentioned, all of the filters mentioned in this section are available free of charge.

VFX footage

We have already mentioned that Production Crate also offers many thousands of assets in its subscription. The focus is less on real stock footage, as is the case with Envato and its ilk, and more on all kinds of elements for designing more or less elaborate special effects. In the “SciFi” submenu alone, there are hundreds of assets for space battles, cyberpunk environments or a remake of Minority Report. Most of the VFX graphics are rendered films with optional alpha (choose from HD to 4K, in ProRes or MP4), but you can also find real images with alpha or green screen (usually when it comes to people who are either shooting wildly or staggering around as zombies).

As we mentioned, the number of downloads is limited to 50 per day (in the Pro version), but this is certainly sufficient if you know in advance what you actually want to design. The VFX section alone is divided into 16 categories (explosions, fire, smoke, blood, flying objects, and so on), which are in turn sorted into subcategories (e.g. explosions on land, in the air, and nuclear), so users should be able to find what they are looking for quite quickly.

Within the VFX section, things can also be a little less brutal if, for example, you are looking for weather phenomena such as snow or rain, or animals such as birds or fish. The motion graphics section is quite interesting, but somewhat less extensive. Here you will find all kinds of animated backgrounds, lens flares, animated icons and buttons from popular portals, cute emojis, and lots of transitions, textures, and quite elaborately designed captions.

Users of 3D programmes such as Blender will be delighted with the numerous 3D objects, most of which are once again very martial in nature (lots of war toys, apocalypse and sci-fi), but there are also things from normal, everyday life, such as cars (that aren’t standing around as bombed-out wrecks), trees, sports equipment and delicious doughnuts with pink frosting.

SFX footage

In addition to the numerous visual assets, the Production Crate subscription also includes sounds in the form of sound effects and royalty-free music (editor’s note: “royalty-free” does not necessarily mean “free for commercial use” — if in doubt, check the terms of use with the provider). The selection of music tracks is not overly extensive, but it offers a pretty good start for use as a layout, at least. The music tracks are divided into categories such as rock, disco, epic and action, so you should be able to find at least a small selection of music for every application.

In terms of quality, the tracks are in the middle range, meaning they meet the standard of a professional sound database, but do not particularly stand out. In addition to numerous music tracks, Production Crate offers more than 5,000 sound effects that can be used at will within the subscription. These are also divided into categories for ambient sound, animals, accidents, organic sounds (such as breaking bones) and various vehicles. However, it is clear that the martial approach prevails here too, i.e. there are significantly more explosions and muzzle flashes than delicate birdsong. Nevertheless, the range is extensive and of high quality.

As a special gimmick, Production Crate offers a plug-in that allows access to the sound effects directly from Premiere. Using a separate window in the editing programme, users can browse the sound library, listen to samples, and, if they find what they are looking for, download the element with a single click and insert it into the timeline at the position of the playhead. The plug-in is clever enough not to overwrite existing elements in the sequence but instead to create a new audio track.

Conclusion

Anyone interested in compositions, effects and motion design within After Effects (or sometimes even Adobe Premiere) should definitely try out the numerous free plug-ins from Production Crate. Whether a subscription is worthwhile depends, of course, very much on the individual working environment and production requirements.

Production Crate leans heavily into sci-fi, fantasy and action, which is why a large part of the material on offer and some plug-ins are not particularly suitable for, say, “normal” productions (documentaries, reports, cooking shows, weather reports, Sunday sermons). We would therefore recommend the Production Crate subscription to users from the aforementioned fictional areas. Nevertheless, it is worth taking a closer look at what is on offer for the majority of users. In fact, there is also a “beginner subscription” available for USD 9 per month (USD 100 per year), which includes the plug-ins but does not allow access to most of the footage database. So if you only want to use the effects, the starter pack is a good choice.

Info box

ProductionCrate Suite Skills (plug-ins only) $100/year
ProductionCrate Suite Pro (Plug-ins and 50 downloads/day) $299/year
ProductionCrate Suite Enterprise (plug-ins and 100 downloads/day) on request

Check current pricing and options here.

Host application: Adobe After Effects/ Adobe Premiere Pro

Further information: https://www.productioncrate.com/

The post ProductionCrate Plug-in Suite with docked footage database first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Andreas Zerr.