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Installation and First Conversion

Requirements#

  • Windows 10 or more recent (64-bit)
  • macOS Monterey (12.0) or more recent, on Apple Silicon or Intel
  • DaVinci Resolve Studio 20 or more recent (from 19.0 it may work, but it is not officially supported)
  • Premiere Pro 25.0 or more recent (from 14.0 it may work, but it is not officially supported), only for Automatic Transcoding and Return to Premiere
  • Adobe Media Encoder, matching your Premiere Pro version, only for Automatic Transcoding

DaVinci Resolve Studio needs to be installed on the computer running CrossFlow. The free version of DaVinci Resolve is not supported: it does not let other applications create projects in it. Please contact us if you would like CrossFlow to support it.

DaVinci Resolve Studio does not have to be in its default location: CrossFlow also finds it when it was installed in another folder or on another drive (Windows), or when its app was moved out of the Applications folder (macOS).

On DaVinci Resolve versions older than 20.2, timeline clips keep the name of their media file instead of the name they had in Premiere Pro: renaming a clip on a timeline is something DaVinci Resolve itself only allows from 20.2 onwards. Everything else is converted exactly the same way, and Full Details lists every clip concerned.

Premiere Pro does not have to be installed for a plain conversion: CrossFlow only needs your .prproj project file. Without Premiere Pro on the computer, Automatic Transcoding and Return to Premiere are not available.

CrossFlow is a standalone desktop application, so there is nothing to install or open inside Premiere Pro's own interface. To run steps like Automatic Transcoding or Return to Premiere, CrossFlow installs an invisible panel inside Premiere Pro: it launches Premiere Pro in the background when needed and drives it through this panel, without ever showing you a Premiere Pro panel to interact with. All your interaction with CrossFlow happens in the CrossFlow application itself.

Installing CrossFlow#

Download CrossFlow for Windows or macOS from nablast.com. The same download is both the free trial and the full version: a license key turns it into CrossFlow PRO, with nothing to reinstall (see License).

On Windows:

  1. Open the downloaded .zip file and run the CrossFlow installer it contains.
  2. Accept the license agreement and follow the steps.
  3. Launch CrossFlow from the Start menu.

The installer, the uninstaller and the CrossFlow application are digitally signed, so Windows names a verified publisher when you run them rather than "Unknown publisher". Windows SmartScreen builds its trust in a newly signed program over time, as more people install it, so shortly after a release it may still show a "Windows protected your PC" notice: check that the publisher shown is the verified one, then click "More info" and "Run anyway".

On macOS:

  1. Open the downloaded .zip file.
  2. Double-click the CrossFlow installer (.pkg) and follow the steps.
  3. Launch CrossFlow from your Applications folder.

The installer is signed and notarized by Apple, so macOS opens it without an "unidentified developer" warning.

Updates are installed from CrossFlow itself, see Getting the latest version.

Your First Conversion#

CrossFlow has four tabs: Main, where you set up and start a conversion, Results, which keeps every past conversion, Documentation, which holds this guide, and Settings & License. At the top of the Main tab, Premiere → Resolve is the conversion itself, and Resolve → Premiere is Return to Premiere.

The Main tab, once a project is selected.
  1. In the Main tab, click Select Project and pick your Premiere Pro project (see Selecting your Project).
  2. Check the New Project Name: the DaVinci Resolve project will be created under that name.
  3. Look through the options. The defaults suit most projects: every option is explained when you hover its name, and they are all described in Conversion Options and Automatic Transcoding.
  4. Optionally, click Analyze Project to see what CrossFlow would do, without changing anything (see Analyze Project).
  5. Click Convert Project. CrossFlow opens Premiere Pro, Adobe Media Encoder and DaVinci Resolve by itself when it needs them, and follows the progress in the Results tab.
  6. When the conversion is done, your new project is in DaVinci Resolve's Project Manager, under the name you chose. Click Full Details in the Results tab to see, clip by clip, what was converted, transcoded or flagged.
Something missing or unclear on this page? Write to contact@nablast.com.