DaVinci Resolve: Incorrect Blanking when Reimporting Metadata

Mar 30, 2026
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DaVinci-Resolve-Incorrect-blanking-when-reimporting-metadata

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MichaelH, 3/30/2026 12:19 AM

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Heesuk S, 3/30/2026 12:19 AM

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Article Content

This article describes how DaVinci Resolve (version 18.6) applies output blanking from imported Dolby Vision metadata (XML or embedded in IMF).

Note:

This workflow was tested using DaVinci Resolve version 18.6, other versions may show a different behavior.

When exporting Dolby Vision metadata from a color corrector, both CanvasAspectRatio and ImageAspectRatio values are recorded.

The <CanvasAspectRatio> describes the native aspect ratio of the rendered file, which is 1.77778 (16:9) for almost all Dolby Vision Home deliverables.

The <ImageAspectRatio> defines the creatively set blanking (letter boxing or pillar boxing) of the content and is recorded as level 5 (L5) metadata. This aspect ratio can be set globally for the entire timeline as well as individually for each shot.

Example Scenario

Timeline with Timeline Output Blanking set to 2,0:1 and shot based aspect ratio set to 1,33:1 (4:3)

Metadata information recorded

If this metadata is now imported back into Davinci Resolve, the initially set Output Blanking that gets recorded as the global ImageAspectRatio will be applied to all shots in the timeline - regardless of whether they have individually set Image AspectRatio (L5).

Workaround

In order to correctly apply the ImageAspectRatio to the content, users must reset the Timeline Aspect Ratio.

This results in a correct image representation and Resolve retains the correct information from the imported metadata.