Clarification on Workflow 8-2-3

[phosmoscope]

I'm currently mapping out a workflow for making fan edits with DaVinci Resolve, with the goal of retaining lossless HDR video, or at least visually lossless HDR video when it comes to dual-layer Dolby Vision. In this scenario, I am attempting to retain the base layer, full enhancement layer, and RPU data. My understanding is that the FEL will need to be baked into the image as Resolve cannot natively read a dual-layer DV file.

First, I ripped a FEL DV 4K Blu-ray using MakeMKV. The m2ts file shows two HEVC streams in MediaInfo. Then, I remuxed the m2ts file to an MKV container using MKVMerge mkvmerge -o output.mkv input.m2ts. MediaInfo showed a single HEVC stream with Dolby Vision Profile 7.6, BL+EL+RPU.

Before using DoVi_Scripts, I edited the DoVi_Scripts_MKV bat file to change the encode settings to 12-bit ProRes 4444 XQ:

::choose Prores encoding settings for 8-2-3 (qscale value control the compression/bitrate/size/speed
set PRORES_settings=-c:v prores_ks -profile:v 5 -vendor apl0 -pix_fmt yuva444p12le -an -hide_banner -y

Lastly, I ran the 8-2-3 ProRes HDR to HDR Workflow on the MKV file. The terminal read:

Extracting track 0 with the CodecID 'V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC' to the file 'B:\DoVi_Scripts_3.1.1\temp.folder31\BL.P7.hevc'. Container format: HEVC/H.265 elementary stream
Progress: 100%

 Indexing the HDR10 base layer...
Project
100

 Indexing the DV 12bits enhancement layer...
Project
100

Reordering metadata... Done.

=============================SCRIPT==============================================================================
LoadPlugin("B:\DoVi_Scripts_3.1.1\tools\dgdecnv_242\DGDecodeNV.dll")
LoadPlugin("B:\DoVi_Scripts_3.1.1\tools\DoViBaker_x64.dll")
LoadPlugin("B:\DoVi_Scripts_3.1.1\tools\avs_libplacebo.dll")
LoadPlugin("B:\DoVi_Scripts_3.1.1\tools\avsresize_r21\x64\Release\avsresize.dll")
bl = DGSource("B:\DoVi_Scripts_3.1.1\temp.folder31\BL.dgi")
el = DGSource("B:\DoVi_Scripts_3.1.1\temp.folder31\EL.dgi")
SetFilterMTMode("DoViBaker",2)
DoViBaker(bl, el, rpu="B:\DoVi_Scripts_3.1.1\temp.folder31\RPU_FEL.bin")
z_ConvertFormat(pixel_type="YUV422P10",colorspace_op="rgb:st2084:2020:full=>2020ncl:st2084:2020:limited",dither_type="error_diffusion",resample_filter="spline36",resample_filter_uv="spline36",chromaloc_op="left=>top_left")
Prefetch(8)
============================COMMAND==============================================================================
INPUT:  "B:\input.mkv"
"B:\DoVi_Scripts_3.1.1\tools\ffmpeg.exe" -i "B:\DoVi_Scripts_3.1.1\temp.folder31\script.avs" -c:v prores_ks -profile:v 5 -vendor apl0 -pix_fmt yuva444p12le -an -hide_banner -y -qscale:v 1 -color_primaries bt2020 -color_trc smpte2084 -colorspace bt2020nc  -loglevel error -stats
=================================================================================================================

This gave me an unsurprisingly large 800GB MOV file that MediaInfo confirmed is a ProRes 4444 XQ video stream.

My first question is, did I do this correctly? Is the BL and FEL baked into this image? I can't confirm via metadata anymore, and the information I've found online is sparse enough that I'm doubting my understanding of it. So I really just need someone to hard confirm that this is the correct method.

My next question is, is the RPU "baked" into this image? If so, that would mean I could import this ProRes file into Resolve and call it good. But my understanding is that the RPU data is not "baked" in, and that I will have to sidecar an extracted RPU.bin as an XML file in Resolve. Is that the correct method?

I appreciate the help!

P.S. I've been mapping out a visual workflow in Milanote to help me understand everything. After I confirm that all the different HDR and audio pipelines work, I plan on sharing it as a beginner guide!

[R3S3t9999]

Yes, FEL is baked into the ProRes video, and you have to convert the RPU to XML if you want to import it into DaVinci Resolve.
AFAIK, ffmpeg ProRes 4444 XQ is not truly 12-bit internally, so if you want to preserve full 12-bit precision, you need to use JPEG 2000 instead.

::enable jpeg-2000 12bit encoding for FEL source in 8-2-3(default = NO)
set enable_jpeg12bit=YES

[phosmoscope]

Awesome, thank you for the confirmation!

I think you're right. ProRes 4444 XQ supports 12-bit, but ffmpeg's prores_ks can only go up to 10-bits. I'll give the JPEG 2000 encoding a try. I've never imported a video as individual jpeg frames before, so I'll have to learn about that import process.