How do transform mp4 videos so that they can be read by Davinci Resolve on Linux?

Question

Resolve is a commercial video editor with a free version that can be run on linux.

On the linux version, some videos in mp4 format will have no video content when they are imported. This is apparently because the AAC codec is not supported by the free version Resolve on linux.

Apparently these videos can be transformed before being imported into Resolve, so that AAC support isn't required. Apparently ffmpeg is the correct tool for this job.

If I simply copy ffmpeg commands that I find on the web, I get errors that I do not understand. At present I'm trying this command:

ffmpeg -i video-to-transform.mp4 -c:v prores_ks -profile:v 3 -vendor apl0 -bits_per_mb 8000 -pix_fmt yuv422p10le outout.mp4

... I get the following error:

[mp4 @ 0x56120e725340] Could not find tag for codec prores in stream #0, codec not currently supported in container Could not write header for output file #0 (incorrect codec parameters ?): Invalid argument Error initializing output stream 0:0 --

How can I make my mp4's editable in Resolve?

Answer 1

MPEG video files are not supported in free version of Davinci Resolve. You will have to convert to .mov file in order to use them. The command you enter in your terminal is:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v dnxhd -profile:v dnxhr_hq -pix_fmt yuv422p -c:a pcm_s16le -f mov output.mov

This is one solution. More solutions can be found here. This wiki can be helpful for other distros as well, not only for Arch or any Arch-based distribution. I used this solution in my Nobara Project distro (which is based on Fedora).