Davinci Resolve 19.1.2 x Linux Mint 22 AAC Audio Workaround

If you are new to Davinci Resolve and Linux Mint you might run into the issues with AAC audio format not loaded properly in your mp4 files. This is due to license issues but so far Davinci Resolve (19.1.2 at the time of writing) has not come up with a solution either in paid Studio version or free version. Therefore we might need a workaround for such.

Step 1. First you need to install FFmpeg

sudo apt install ffmpeg 

Step 2. Then make a new folder. Move all your mp4 files with aac audio to this folder.

Step 3. Make this following into a script, save it as towav.sh or any name you like, you just need to change the command line. Make sure this file lives in the same folder you made in step 2.

#!/bin/bash
for f in $(ls -1v | grep -i mp4);do
    extension="${f##*.}";
   ffmpeg -i "$f" -stats -hide_banner -acodec pcm_s16le -vn "${f/%$extension/wav}";
done

Step 4. Now you run the command line

cd ./folderYouMade
./towav.sh

This will batch process your mp4 files and extract audios from them and save as a separate audio files in wav format.

Step 5. You now can load mp4 files in Davinci Resolve, delete the associated audio track and replace them with the wav one.

I do wish there would be some solution in the future so it's more intuitive to work, but before that this is the best workflow I've found so far.

Read further:

1. How to Install FFmpeg in Linux
2. Support AAC de- and encoding on Linux
3. mp4 doesn't have sound in Davinci Resolve 19.1.2 Linux