DaVinci Resolve Proxy Workflow for h.264 and Avid Media Composer
This is a basic workflow or tips for ingesting media via DaVinci Resolve to be used externally in applications like Avid Media Composer. The goal of these steps isn’t to be the perfect workflow for all productions as we customise a lot of this for specific cameras and workflows but hopefully this will help any productions looking to manage their own media to do it in a way that should make the conform process more simple for us when the time comes for final post. If you need to talk to us about a specific project so we can create a more refined template please get in-touch.
This assumes you are using a proper data transfer application like Hedge which will backup your data on to multiple drives but it will also create a logical folder name for each camera card you transfer which will be used through the process as the media reel or tape name.

One note is that most project settings become irrelevant for the creation of the proxy media but ideally you will supply us with the project you use to ingest your media so it’s best if the project is in the frame rate you are going to be working and mastering in. The Timeline frame rate must be set before you bring any media into your project.

In the project settings under General Options you must set the conform options to automatically apply a reel name from the folder name that is why it is so important to be using logical folder names in your backup to make keeping track of everything easy.

When you are adding your media navigate to it in media storage then right click the drive or folder and choose Add Folder and SubFolders into Media Pool (Create Bins).

You will see the reel names are automatically populated based on the folder that the media is in.
If your camera cards have folders in folders in folders, at this point within the project (not on the drive or media storage) you would move the media to the root level of each card so that the media gets the card name as the reel name.


If you are using media with Audio TC (LTC) you can update the media TC to match.

You then generate a timeline with the media by selecting it all and creating a timeline using selected clips.

You name the timeline with something logical and click create.

Making Avid Media Composer Proxies
You then setup your output as individual clips and the codec settings you need. Below is the standard setup for Avid proxy media but you could use 720P for the resolution if you need to get the size of the data you are transferring to editors down.

Setup your audio as required.

Use the source names for the files names. You can also set your folder structure to be preserved from the source so that the older structure of your media will exactly match that of your rushes.

Making h.264 QuickTime (MOV) proxies
You might need to double check your scaling settings before kicking this off to make sure no accidental cropping happens.

If you need any burned in data you can do so via the Data Burn-In option.

This will be based on what you need to reference but important to note you can use custom text and then algorithms like %reel to put in reel names and you can combine any metadata you wish to see. You can also customise the appearance of all options.

Below are the standard picture settings but you can customise them as required.

Below are the standard sound settings but you can customise them as required.

Output the files with source clip names and preserve the folder structures which will helps to keep track of exactly where the rushes exist if that become relevant.

I also go through a number of these steps in the video below so it may help to watch it but the above covers the correct settings.