Resolve 21.1.2 Speeds Up AI and OGraf

For those who don’t know the tool: DaVinci Resolve is Blackmagic Design’s all-in-one environment for editing, colour grading, visual effects, motion graphics and audio postproduction. Studio adds advanced AI features and automation capabilities. And with version 21.1.2, several of those capabilities have apparently been told to hurry up.

Fourteen times faster?

DaVinci Resolve 21.1.2 gives IntelliSearch a substantial performance boost. Blackmagic claims up to 14 times faster analysis on Apple M6 systems running macOS 27. Intel graphics platforms also benefit from faster IntelliSearch, multicam SmartSwitch and other AI operations.

Those are Blackmagic’s figures, not our benchmarks. Still, anyone sorting through thousands of clips will appreciate spending less time watching the software think about footage it has already seen.

OGraf gets moving

OGraf playback is now up to four times faster in the Edit and Fusion pages. Templates gain select and multi-select controls, while responsive graphics can adapt automatically to the timeline’s aspect ratio.

Linux users also gain support for OGraf and Lottie graphics. That makes cross-platform motion graphics a little less dependent on which operating system happens to be running the edit suite.

Give the scripts something useful to do

The Studio scripting API continues its expansion following Resolve 21.1.1’s asynchronous API additions. Scripts can now handle more timeline operations, including moving, trimming and extending clips, removing gaps and silence, copying attributes, and managing effects and grading parameters.

The Photo page joins the automation party, with scripting options for organising, grading, rendering and exporting albums. That’s considerably more useful than making an assistant click buttons while everyone politely pretends this constitutes a pipeline.

Editors also get improved edit-point selection. Selected points take priority, lasso selections can enter dynamic trim automatically, and selecting gaps activates the trim editor. Small changes, but fewer opportunities for the timeline to misunderstand perfectly reasonable intentions.

One warning before pressing Update

Blackmagic says Resolve 21.1.2 retains project-library compatibility with 20.3.2, but individual projects created or opened in 21.1.2 cannot subsequently be opened in 20.3.2.

Back up the complete project library and individual projects before upgrading. A backup is not particularly exciting, but neither is explaining to a producer why yesterday’s project no longer opens. The update is available from the Blackmagic Design Support Center, free for existing Studio customers.