Blackmagic Forum

Hello, is there any guide on how to edit and export iPhone HDR media keeping the same quality and DHR when export?

First step is proper color management

Thanks. But that’s not a problem for me. Since I’m not trying to change the colorspace to edit or be something different than what is was aquired with. This is all Dolby Vision footage and it looks perfectly fine when working on an iPad. So far I managed to create a project that shows me that the same way that looks like when watched on an iPad or iPhone with HDR screens. But so far I was able to export only on HDR10. When I set the export go be Dolby Vision. Which is the same as the source footage. The export looks normal not HDR. Eviten though the exported footage have the Dolby Vision tag.

Good video by the way.

Have a look at this article and the video at the end

https://professionalsupport.dolby.com/s ... uage=en_US

Thanks.


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I’m very frustrated about problems doing this! I’ve seen many posts about importing, editing, & exporting iPhone HDR media for desktop systems (I’m on a PC, & have Resolve Studio for it) & now we’re seeing the same issues for the iPad version.

I should start out saying we shouldn’t have to add a bunch of nodes, do color transforms, & add a curve! Or, like on my PC, where I’d have to add a DeckLink card & second calibrated HDR monitor to do HDR.

I simply want to import an iPhone HDR video file & have the imported image look exactly the same in the resolve viewer as it does on the iPad photos page. Then I want to be able to make some minor color & level changes, & export in the same HDR format as the import. Then I expect to view the edited image on the iPad, & it should match the changes I saw on the Resolve viewer.

I’ve been able to set up DaVinci YRGB Color Managed settings & have tested them by importing an HDR clip, then NOT making any adjustments, & then exporting the clip as HDR. The rendered clip looks pretty much the same as the imported clip, & has the same HDR indicator in the upper left side of the video during playback as the original.

The problem is what I see in the Resolve viewer doesn’t look anything like to imported/exported clip, making it almost impossible to know what I’d be tweaking on the color page. The image I see in the viewer has blown highlights, & is higher contrast than what was imported. It’s as if the display color space is out of wack. I’ve tried adding one of the built-in LUTS as a display monitor lookup table, but none of them seems right.

Since EVERY iPad used to edit video using DaVinci Resolve is also capable of shooting in Dolby Vision HDR, as is any modern iPhone, it seems that Blackmagic Design should come up with a simplified fix for this issue. Like a one-button function to select HDR —> edit —> HDR. Maybe also HDR —> edit —> SDR.

And the viewer should be “what you see is what you get.” While the simplified iPad version of iMovie can’t really make color adjustments, it allows pasting together clips where the output matches the input — basically a closed-loop Apple solution. I’d like to see Resolve have the same closed-loop solution, but with infinitely better editing & color-correction capabilities.

I’ll be purchasing the Studio version of Resolve for iPad, but only after I see this is working.

—Alan

I don't know if you realize you're asking for a consumer app behavior, but from a professional application.

The entire *point* of a professional app is to allow the user infinite controls over the work. So learning how to setup the project for X workflow is an assumed task.

It seems that you haven't set up the color management through your full pipeline, from input to working space to display space through export.

As once you do, it will all match *if* your display is carefully calibrated for your chosen working display space.

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I don't understand, this are my settings, If I do my cuts and export to instagram (no color corrections), the result is way different than exporting directly from the iPhone. Why is that?
Thanks

I agree wholeheartedly that the iPhone H265 HDR/HLG workflow in Resolve needs an overhaul.

Simply put, it's horrendous!

I've been consistently frustrated by the way iPhone H265 HDR/HLG (BT.2020) footage captured with the Blackmagic iOS app cannot be seamlessly imported into Resolve (v18.6) without constant "tweaking" to faithfully reproduce the colors as captured. No amount of adjustments of the project settings and preferences in Resolve seems to work for me (believe me, I have tried everything!). As an editor, I would prefer to not have to waste my time inputting and adjusting the color and file parameters for each clip before I even start my 'edit', especially when dealing with hundreds of source files.
For an editing app in 2024, it's a colossal waste of time. When you consider other editing apps such as Final Cut Pro (and CapCut) do a much better job at handling iOS H265 HLG color accuracy without much fuss, it’s hard to imagine why an app as powerful as Resolve can’t do the same.

It would be ideal if the Resolve team could at least support iPhone HDR/HLG (BT.2020) files seamlessly by including a colorspace LUT specifically for footage captured with Blackmagic iOS app.

When this gets fixed, I'll gladly pay for a Resolve upgrade.

pav2000 wrote:I agree wholeheartedly that the iPhone H265 HDR/HLG workflow in Resolve needs an overhaul.

Simply put, it's horrendous!
.

I am assuming you are monitoring it in HDR on your phone?

In resolve are you converting to Rec709 or you have a decklink and HDR Monitor to monitor in Rec2100?

If in Rec709, there is no way they can look the same, it is a much smaller color space than your phone display.

On my phone, it’s HDR, however on a desktop monitor (not HDR), it’s technically 709 but when viewing in Quicktime, FCP and CapCut, they seem to all do a good job of managing the color and gamma conversion consistently. Not so with Resolve - even with all settings and preferences adjusted accordingly.

I tried a “pass-through” conversion using all 3 apps by exporting a single HDR clip with the same codec and container (HEVC HLG10 .mov) and the Resolve export shows a visible change in gamma and saturation. The other apps have no noticeable change in color or gamma compared to the original.

This noticeable difference is also mentioned in the YouTube clip referenced earlier in this thread… the suggested “fix” is to apply a conversion adjustment to each clip individually (!!!).

All I’m saying is that it would be nice for Resolve to ingest iOS HDR clips (sourced with the Blackmagic camera app) consistent to how other MacOS/iOS editing apps do it.

Attached is a screenshot of Resolve 18.6 alongside Quicktime player app (upper right) with the same clip.
I have played with the project settings for hours but can't ever get Resolve to match Quicktime's HLG to 709 conversion. How is it that FCP and Capcut can get the same output as Quicktime "out of the box" but Resolve can't handle a straightforward conversion with default settings?

Another follow-up:

I found this suggested workflow for iPhone HDR footage: https://filmmakingelements.com/iphone-dolby-vision-davinci-resolve/

I tried these settings with Resolve STUDIO (i.e. NOT the free version) configured with a (REC 709) computer monitor and a second HDR compatible (Apple XDR) display for the video clean feed. This resulted in a proper conversion of the video clean feed, but the footage in the Source/Timeline viewers of the Edit page on the computer display were "blown out". If I tried any color space adjustments to the computer monitor workspace (i.e. Source/Timeline viewers) , it also changed the color space of the video clean feed (not what I want).

Does anyone have a solution for adjusting the (reference) video clean feed AND Source/Timeline viewers colour space settings seperately?

Having inconsistent images in the same application workspace is nothing short of annoying.

UPDATE APRIL 26, 2024:

I think I may have found a solution - see:



Download the Filmic Pro LUT pack (free) from https://www.filmicpro.com/downloads/Filmic_Pro_deLOG_LUT_Pack_May_2022.zip

Import the Filmic PRO LUTS into Resolve and apply the "FiLMiC-DeHLG_V3" LUT to each clip.
Also be sure to set the Input Color Space for each clip to Rec.2100 HLG (Scene).

Color Management (under Project settings) should be set as pictured below.

This should allow you to have consistency across the source/timeline viewers AND "clean feed".

NOW WHY COULDN'T BLACKMAGIC HAVE AT LEAST PROVIDED LUTS LIKE THESE BY DEFAULT?

iPhones have a horrible tendency to over-expose HLG. This has been the case since day 1. There is a lot of LTM/GTM preprocessing in iPhone HLG clips. The problem is that exposure levels can also vary wildly so no hard-coded LUT can "fix" this.

It's not a Resolve problem, it's an Apple problem.

Better solution would be to use proper color management and reduce exposure using the HDR tools. Usually around -3 to -4 EV.

Second that. You get much more control by recording log and doing the HDR in post.

Thanks, however the point I am trying to make is for a simplified workflow to reproduce source material faithfully AND as it appeared when captured on location.

I'm an editor not a colorist. I prefer to not have to question the (quality of) source material due to the apps inability to reproduce it consistently within the same workspace.

In my case, I'm working with iPhone 12 Pro HDR footage (10-bit Rec.2020 color space). The iPhone 12 Pro does not support LOG and the source material was never "over-exposed". The footage was in fact captured with the Blackmagic camera app which makes it a Resolve problem, NOT an Apple problem.

I sympathize with the “normal users” posting here. It’s really unpleasant to come here asking for help and be told that all the other programs are doing it wrong and Resolve is right. Even when Resolve shows two different previews for the viewer and clean feed.

While there may be an argument that Resolve is technically doing the right thing, if Resolve requires you to be an educated colorist to edit iPhone footage then it’s not meeting its new target users where they are. That’ll ultimately end poorly for Resolve.

Actually, getting iPhone HDR right is very easy in FCP-X.

Joe Shapiro wrote:I sympathize with the “normal users” posting here. It’s really unpleasant to come here asking for help and be told that all the other programs are doing it wrong and Resolve is right. Even when Resolve shows two different previews for the viewer and clean feed.

While there may be an argument that Resolve is technically doing the right thing, if Resolve requires you to be an educated colorist to edit iPhone footage then it’s not meeting its new target users where they are. That’ll ultimately end poorly for Resolve.

THANK YOU!

As an experienced Avid editor for more than 20 years, I greatly appreciate Resolve's flexibility and depth of toolsets. That being said, Resolve remains foundationally a tool for colorists, not editors.

It seems obvious that Blackmagic is aiming to ultimately expand Resolve's role as a start-to-finish post-production tool. In this regard, the Blackmagic team will need to take note of the needs of an ever-growing user base (i.e. photographers, editors, colorists, and sound designers - from beginners to pro). Participants in this forum should do the same.

Joe Shapiro wrote:I sympathize with the “normal users” posting here. It’s really unpleasant to come here asking for help and be told that all the other programs are doing it wrong and Resolve is right. Even when Resolve shows two different previews for the viewer and clean feed.

While there may be an argument that Resolve is technically doing the right thing, if Resolve requires you to be an educated colorist to edit iPhone footage then it’s not meeting its new target users where they are. That’ll ultimately end poorly for Resolve.

Amen.

pav2000 wrote:UPDATE APRIL 26, 2024:

I think I may have found a solution -

Download the Filmic Pro LUT pack (free) from https://www.filmicpro.com/downloads/Filmic_Pro_deLOG_LUT_Pack_May_2022.zip

Import the Filmic PRO LUTS into Resolve and apply the "FiLMiC-DeHLG_V3" LUT to each clip.
Also be sure to set the Input Color Space for each clip to Rec.2100 HLG (Scene).

Color Management (under Project settings) should be set as pictured below.

This should allow you to have consistency across the source/timeline viewers AND "clean feed"....

I may have been a bit too hasty in declaring this as a "solution". It seems the Fusion page is still showing uncalibrated (blown out) clips on the "clean feed" monitor - but all the other workspaces are fine otherwise. This struggle with calibrating and managing HDR clips consistently within the Resolve workspace is feeling impossible to solve at this point - maybe editing in Final Cut Pro is the only solution.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

I'm seriously stumped.