Setting Up a Conversion

Selecting your Project#

CrossFlow works from a Premiere Pro project file (.prproj) saved on disk. Click Select Project and pick that file yourself.

If Premiere Pro is installed on this computer, a second button sits next to it: Select Current Premiere Project. It selects whatever project you currently have open in Premiere Pro, so you do not have to go looking for the file. Premiere Pro has to be running, with a project open, and that project has to have been saved to disk at least once. CrossFlow tells you which of those is missing rather than selecting the wrong thing.

You can change project at any time. If you are using Convert Only Selected Sequences, CrossFlow reminds you that your sequence selection does not carry over to the new project, so check which sequences are ticked before converting.

New Project Name is the name the DaVinci Resolve project will be created under. CrossFlow fills it in with your Premiere project's own filename each time you select a project, and you can replace it with anything you like. Your choice is remembered, like every other option. If a Resolve project of that name already exists, CrossFlow asks you before replacing it.

The new project is created in the project library currently open in DaVinci Resolve (Project Manager > Project Libraries), at the top level of its Project Manager. Any local library works, in any folder or on any drive. CrossFlow looks for a project of the same name in all your local libraries before asking, so it may ask even when the existing project is in another library: only the one in the open library is replaced. Network (PostgreSQL) libraries are not supported: CrossFlow stops before changing anything and asks you to open a local library.

CrossFlow reads the project file as it is on disk. So that nothing you changed is left out, when the project is open in Premiere Pro at that moment, CrossFlow first asks Premiere Pro to save it, right before Analyze Project and Convert. If Premiere Pro does not answer within about 20 seconds, for example because a dialog is waiting for you there, CrossFlow goes on with the file as it was last saved.

Conversion Options#

Every option in the Main tab shows what it does when you hover its name. Your choices are remembered from one project to the next.

Converting Only Some Sequences#

By default, CrossFlow converts every sequence of the project. Turn on Convert Only Selected Sequences, in Project Filters, to pick the ones you want from the list of the project's sequences. A search field, Select All / Unselect All and Display In Grid help with long lists.

Nested sequences used inside a selected sequence are always converted with it, even if you did not tick them. If no sequence is ticked while the option is on, Analyze Project and Convert stop straight away and ask you to tick at least one, or to turn the option off to convert every sequence.

Transfer Options#

The Transfer Options decide what CrossFlow reproduces in DaVinci Resolve. They are all on by default.

The switch next to Transfer Options turns the conversion to DaVinci Resolve off altogether. CrossFlow then only runs Automatic Transcoding: you get the transcoded clips and the "_CrossFlowed" Premiere Pro project, and no Resolve project is created. With both the Transcode and the Transfer switches off, there is nothing to do, and CrossFlow says so. Turning one off is mostly useful to narrow down a problem: if a converted project misbehaves, converting it again with one option off tells you whether that option is the cause.

• Transfer Speed: speed changes, reversed clips and Time Remapping.
• Transfer Hold Frame: clips with a Frame Hold.
• Transfer Position: the clip's Position.
• Transfer Keyframes: animated (keyframed) parameters, as real Resolve keyframes. With it off, keyframed clips fall back to their static values (see Effects).
• Transfer Volume and Transfer Pan: the audio clip's level and pan.
• Transfer Clip Colors: the clip's label color (see Premiere Pro Label Colors).
• Transfer Multicam: multicam sequences, as Resolve multicam clips.
• Transfer Merged Clips: merged clips, as sequences.
• Transfer Transition: transitions between clips (see Transitions).
• Transfer Linked Clips: linked video and audio clips stay linked in Resolve, so they keep moving together.
• Transfer Stabilization: clips with Warp Stabilizer get Resolve's own Stabilization instead.

Two more options, under Media Pool, decide what lands in Resolve's Media Pool rather than how a clip is reproduced:

• Skip Unused Project Items decides whether project items that none of the converted timelines use are imported at all. It is on by default, so the converted project only receives what its timelines actually need. Three kinds of clip are left out by it: clips that were never placed in a timeline, clips only used by sequences you left out of the conversion, and original clips whose every occurrence was replaced by a transcoded version. Full Details reports how many were skipped. Turn the option off to import the whole Premiere Project panel as it is, unused clips included.
• Attach Premiere Proxies, also on by default, gives Resolve the very same proxy files Premiere already uses. When a clip has a Proxy attached in Premiere, CrossFlow attaches that same file to the Resolve clip through Resolve's own proxy mechanism, so you can switch between full resolution and proxy in Resolve exactly as you did in Premiere. Nothing is copied and nothing is encoded again: the existing proxy file is simply linked, so this costs no extra disk space and no extra time. A proxy whose file is no longer on disk is skipped and reported in Full Details.

Analyze Project#

Before running a real conversion, you can click Analyze Project to get a preview of what CrossFlow would do with your current options, without touching Resolve or Adobe Media Encoder. The result opens in its own window, the same one a past task's Full Details uses, and a Show Analysis Result button stays on the Main tab to bring it back after you close it. It shows:

• Project Overview: the same media and clip breakdown, and the same project size analysis, as after a real run.
• Estimated Transcode: which clips would be sent to Adobe Media Encoder, why, which Encoding Preset would be used, and an estimated output size per clip plus a running total. When a clip is sent because of an effect, the reason names the effect itself ("Effect: Lumetri Color"), so you can see at a glance what is driving the transcode.
• Estimated Resolve Import: how many clips would import cleanly, and which ones would be Cannot Import (for example offline media, or a clip excluded because a related option is turned off) or Reduced Fidelity. A Reduced Fidelity clip is converted and does land in the Resolve timeline, but what is applied on it is not: the effect is neither reproduced in Resolve nor baked into the media, so the clip plays without it. Hover the label for that explanation in the window. Keyframes and Time Remapping never appear here: they are transferred natively either way, and the Estimated Keyframe Transfer section below says what happens to them.
• Estimated Keyframe Transfer: which clips carry an animation that will be transferred as real, editable Resolve keyframes, and which controls on them are expected to have More Keyframes Added on the way. Hover that label for how close the result stays: Time Remapping is frame exact, Position and Anchor Point land within about a pixel, and a Volume fade within a quarter of a decibel (see Advanced: keyframe accuracy). Only the which is predicted here, never how many: the exact count depends on how curved your particular path or fade is, so it is only known once the conversion runs. The real numbers appear per clip in Full Details afterwards.
• Detailed Analysis Info: time spent, sequence tree and offline media, for a closer look.

Every clip list in this window, and in a task's Full Details, shows its first few clips and fades out, with a button underneath to open the whole list. A project with hundreds of transcoded clips therefore stays readable instead of burying the sections below it.

This is an estimate based on your current options. Actual results, and any problem that only DaVinci Resolve can reveal, are only known once you run the real conversion.