For those who don’t know the tool: DriveCompare is a macOS data offload and verification app from EditingTools.io. It targets on-set and post handoffs, and the same site also ships tools for Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, DaVinci Resolve, and Final Cut Pro.

A compare tool that actually cares about evidence

If you ever watched a drive copy “finish” and still felt zero joy, you already understand the problem space: file transfer is easy, proof is harder. DriveCompare is a standalone app for macOS that compares drives and folders side by side, syncs missing files in both directions, and verifies data using hashes. It can also create and verify ASC Media Hash List manifests, which are used in professional workflows for documenting what got copied, when, and how.

In practical terms, the app offers two styles of comparison. One mode compares by file names and sizes only, which can run faster but does not confirm that the content matches. Another mode uses hash verification to check whether two files are identical, not just similarly named.

The app can ignore ASC MHL directories and empty directories during comparisons. After a compare, it can export the results as an RTF report, which is handy when you need a paper trail for a handoff, a delivery package, or a polite argument with yesterday’s backup strategy.

ASC MHL, because chain of custody beats vibes

ASC Media Hash List is an industry-standard specification developed by the American Society of Cinematographers for recording file metadata such as paths, hashes, sizes, and timestamps. The goal is consistent file comparison and verification across systems, instead of “it copied fine on my laptop.”

The spec also frames the “chain of custody”: tracking each copy made from the media’s initial download through final archival. That matters because data integrity problems tend to show up late, loudly, and on the wrong day.

DriveCompare supports multiple actions around ASC MHL. It can generate a manifest for a selected folder and its subfolders, detect existing manifests in subfolders, and reference them automatically. It can also check a folder against a manifest to find differences using file names and sizes, and it can verify by recalculating hashes, updating the ASC MHL chain as it goes.

There is also a manifest-to-manifest compare feature, intended to identify differences in file structure, metadata, or content between two manifests. This method is not part of the ASC MHL standard, and it relies on the accuracy of the manifests themselves. Some productions will treat that as a warning label. Others will treat it as a Friday afternoon survival feature. Others as the setup for the stories about big regrets at the premiere party.

Hashes, algorithms, and the Netflix checkbox

DriveCompare supports multiple hash algorithms, including xxHash, MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, and SHA-512. It also lists C4 and several xxHash variants: xxHash3, xxHash128, and xxHash64be. Netflix recommendations show right up: They recommend using xxHash64be, xxHash128, or MD5 hash types for its workflows. If your deliverables include a Netflix-shaped compliance checklist, that one sentence alone will get this tool forwarded to at least three people, two of whom are currently asleep in a DIT tent.

Hash verification also plays into the sync workflow. When the app finds missing filse on either side, it presents a sync option that can copy from A to B and B to A, using hash verification for the copy.

Demo limits, system requirements, and offline behavior

DriveCompare requires macOS 14 or later. The demo version supports comparing drives or directories with up to 500 files. For ASC MHL, the demo can create or check manifests with up to 50 files. That makes it possible to test the workflow on a small sample before committing a purchase order.

The app does not require an internet connection, works offline, and does not share project data online. That is a workflow fit for air-gapped sets and for anyone who prefers their media security policy to remain unchallenged by a surprise login prompt.

Licensing: perpetual, with a couple of flavors

The license model is perpetual: single-user, team, and enterprise. The single-user license for 15€ is ideal for freelancers who want to use the software on one or two computers, and it is tied to a single account. The team license at 53,55€ (? Somebody avoing 6-7- memes?) is bound to the company, with the number of licenses chosen on purchase and a minimum of three licenses. An enterprise option exists via contacting sales. Updates are free to download when available.

Setup, activation, and the unglamorous stuff you will ask about anyway

Installation uses a downloaded zip, then a pkg installer. License activation happens in the app menu under File, then License, where a serial number is entered. Removing a license from a device uses the same menu path with a remove option. Uninstalling is deleting the app file from the computer. Development is led by Nikolai Waldman, with publishing and distribution via EditingTools.io.

The boring advice that keeps projects alive

Tools that touch camera originals, sound rolls, and delivery packages can look fine in a demo and still break your day under real pressure. Test DriveCompare in your actual DIT workflow before you trust it on a shoot, and verify that its reports, manifests, and hash choices match your show’s requirements.

https://editingtools.io/software/drivecompare/

The post DriveCompare brings ASC MHL offload checks to macOS first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: DaVinci Resolve is a page-based post suite for edit, grading, VFX, and audio, with collaboration via Blackmagic Cloud. The Studio edition adds higher end finishing and advanced features on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

What beta 2 actually adds

Blackmagic Design turns DaVinci Resolve 21 into a photo app

The Studio installer now includes additional software for remote monitoring, alongside utilities for hardware control panels. It also installs Blackmagic RAW Player and Blackmagic Proxy Generator into the applications folder. On the Photo page, Studio adds direct image capture via tethered cameras from Sony or Canon. Studio also enables using Resolve’s native AI toolset in this workflow, including AI IntelliSearch.

Also: The new Handbook with the new features and their explanations is online: Resolve_21_New_Features_Guide.pdf

Studio leans hard into AI

Studio adds AI IntelliSearch for searching people or objects, plus AI SlateFinder and AI SlateID for detecting slates and populating clip metadata. It also adds AI Speech Generator for turning written text into spoken voice, and AI CineFocus for refocus with bokeh and lens effects.

Studio also imporves AI Face Age Transformer, AI Face Reshaper, and AI Blemish Removal, plus AI UltraSharpen and AI Motion Deblur. Studio lists improved AI UltraNR quality for UHD and higher timelines, and this is where you should test early, because AI fixes can be brilliant right up to the frame where they are not.

Background work and heavier workflows

Studio adds background renders, quick exports and porxy generation, plus background analysis for transcription and audio classification. It also adds support for remote monitoring of Fusion previews, tying the workflow closer to real review patterns on set and in facilities.

For immersive and VR, Studio lists initial VR180 and VR360 standard immersive workflow support, viewing source clips as immersive or viewport, immersive transform controls, and deliver presets for Meta Quest and YouTube. Apple Immersive workflows add foveated rendering support.

Practical warnings, still the same rule

Resolve 21 aims to keep project libraries compatible with Resolve 20.3.2, but projects created or opened in 21 no longer open in 20.3.2. A full project library backup plus individual project backups stays the smart move before opening real jobs.

Pricing stays simple in the available info: the public beta is a free download, and DaVinci Resolve Studio is listed at $295. If you touch the Color page changes, keep your usual discipline: validate scopes, transforms, and deliverables in your own colro pipeline before you call anything production-ready.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/release/20260414-01

The post Blackmagic Design updates Resolve 21 beta 2 first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

A proper hardware device by Blackmagic Design (BM for short) and a calibrated screen has been the iron law for any professional user of DaVinci Resolve (DR for short). But for all those working under MacOS, this may have been valid for the longest time. We are looking at recent changes in DR for those without one. Spoiler: calibration still matters!

How to check

To see what’s going on when playing your movie on other devices and players you can compare your own footage, for sure. At least, if you were the colorist, you should know how it should look like. But if you are unsure (and our memory for colors can be tricked easily), there is the classic SMPTE chart in DR, which has the so-called PLUGE pulse (short for picture line-up generation equipment) in the lower right. In the wider black bar there are two narrow zones with a value just above black, the left one being the darker one (check your waveform).

If your blacks are not crushed by a false gamma interpretation, you should be able to see the right bar just faintly inside the black stripe. The middle one may only become visible if the shadows are lifted too much. Of course, it all depends on your screen too. If it’s not capable of showing black or at least near black, the rest of that whole area will not be pitch black, making it harder to judge the subtle differences. Actually, there is a third bar to the left of the two, but that is reaching down into the sub-black area and only visible if you have exported the file with “Retain sub-black and super-white data” activated. Normally it is just cut off.

Calibration options

DisplayCal is plugging into DR and sending its test patches through the grading software over any compatible I/O device to the screen you need to calibrate. The resulting LUT can be copied into DR and used as a monitoring LUT to correct deviations of the connected screen. This approach works absolutely correctly with the right settings in DisplayCal, being able to avoid any interference of the operating system, be it MacOS, Windows or Linux. Final precision is limited only by shortcomings of your monitor, like weak shadow areas, as visible below. BTW, those small spikes and minor shifts in the waveform are caused by compression in our recorder.

In our series of articles for those not able to spend a fortune on high-end solutions, we have shown how to get a proper LUT with the help of free software and second-hand hardware for Apple silicon. But now we have two solutions pretty much on par regarding calibration in the operating system by an ICC profile. So, we wanted to know if one can live without such an I/O device and that perfect calibration over the whole chain. Actually, BM has recently changed how preview windows and full screen display color and contrast. So, ICC profiles may not be insufficient any more for DR on a Mac with a screen adhering to standard!

Direct monitoring

BM has supported the use of Mac display profiles in DR’s viewers under MacOS for quite some time, even in 10-bit. But due to peculiarities carried over from older systems, they needed to use a non-standard version of Rec. 709, called 709-A. That was nothing but a crutch, and it was not only Apple’s fault that contrast and brightness were inconsistent between many players and other devices. If you are seriously bored, you can read this thread, with over 20 pages, the longest one ever in the DR user forum. You can follow some true experts and many wannabes there, discussing a ‘final’ solution. So, what’s our take on it?

The Never Ending Story: Are Apple XDR devices suitable for reference use in colour grading?

The main problem is lack of timely standardization when everything went from tubes to digital cameras and screens. The Rec. 709 standard for HDTV was defined based on analog technology, which behaved differently from modern cameras and screens. The newer addition to that standard is called BT. 1886, but it was only published by the ITU in 2011.

At that time there were already too many digital technologies in use, and most manufacturers didn’t really care much about adherence to a standard coming so late. BT.1886 defines a gamma (a contrast curve) of 2.4, which is fine for viewing TV in a rather dimly lit living room. Adjusting that curve is not really adhering to the standard, but on this model of a TV, for example, a value of +2 will get it to 2.2.

This slightly older Samsung TV, as a typical example, is offering modes like Movie, Natural, Standard, and Dynamic. Nothing says “Rec. 709” or “BT. 1886” right away, but „Natural“ is actually adhering to BT.1886, even fixed to it. „Standard“ is BT. 1886 too by default, but allows you to override that gamma in the expert settings – go figure. “Movie” is also adhering to BT.1886, but with a very warm tint – which again can be overridden, just like gamma. Recent ones have the “Filmmaker” setting, which is supposed not to change anything, and “Dynamic” is for bright rooms. Have fun with all the creative names and options of other manufacturers!

A lighter and less contrasty gamma of 2.2 might be better in a brighter environment. Mobile devices in particular are watched wherever you go. Even if some can reach very high brightness values these days, details in darker areas of the image can get lost if the content was graded as 2.4. Encoding clips for social media instead of movies for cinema buffs may profit from a gamma of 2.2, which is correctly flagged as 1-4-1 by DR. It even adheres to a standard, called BT.470 System M, as shown by MediaInfo (free). But this was a standard for analog television in some parts of the world only, and is now considered historical.

But do TVs and other devices really check such flags, which contain the information about encoding in your digital video files? They should tell the playback device which colour primaries, which colour matrix, and which gamma (called transfer characteristics here) were used. If you check with the info function for a video file on a Mac, the ones for Rec. 709 BT. 1886 are code points 1-1-1 or flags (I’ll use flag from here). They will be listed by cross-platform software such as MediaInfo as Rec. 709 for all three parameters.

In a perfect world, all playback devices and software players should respect such flags and show your video accordingly. Well, at least most of them assume your sources are 1-1-1, but often don’t care if it’s flagged as anything else, like 1-4-1 or 1-2-1. Some even force 1-1-1 on your clips, whatever they are. As we all know, YouTube is recompressing your sources, which is acceptable if the quality is good enough. But what’s absolutely unacceptable: whatever your original flagging was, YouTube will set it to 1-1-1 without even asking you! Just try to send one of your clips to YT and read it back. The free video patcher AMCDX by Alex Mogurenko will help you to correct wrong flags, but you need to remember the original encoding.

What to do?

In consequence, your results, which you encoded as gamma 2.2 for viewing in brighter environments, will actually be displayed darker and loose detail in the shadows. And if you encode from DR as Rec.709 gamma 2.4, which is offered as another option, it may too bright and lack contrast and saturation on players or a browser not respecting the flags. So, always encode as Rec. 709 (Scene) and hope for the best. It should look right on a TV with the correct settings. These can normally be found on most modern TVs or monitors if you dig deep enough into the menus, either as Rec. 709 or BT. 1886. Out of the box, many TVs are set to a very contrasty and saturated look, shouting out “Buy Me!” to the visitors of a mall for electronics.

The very popular VLC player is another example of ignoring flags, while we can recommend mpv player or its descendants for observance of flags. Of course, this says nothing yet about the quality of the screen attached to it. If that one is not calibrated, or at least set correctly in its menus, the image may still be far off. And then, there are all those image ‘enhancements’ imposed by digital TVs for viewing conditions, like bright environments or late hours. Or think of a projector meant to be visible in a not so dimly lit boardroom and optimized for (visual!) clarity of business charts.

Recommendations

Recent MacBooks and iPad Pro models have excellent blacks and offer reference modes for several standards, including HDTV (BT.709-BT. 1886). These are factory-calibrated and deactivate any image adjustments, assuming an environment properly lit for grading. Now, there is some sample variation and according to our own measurements, the nit value for white can be a tad low, like around 90 instead of 100 (some experts even suggest 120). Nevertheless, such screens come pretty close to a properly calibrated screen in the lower price range and offer much better blacks than conventional IPS panels.

If you are working for TV, we would still advise a professional, calibrated monitor via an I/O device. But, at least with the settings explained above, your viewers in DR will not look completely off when a client is looking over your shoulder. For all those working for social media, where your audience will have devices that you can’t control anyway, we suggest sticking to the only widespread norm: Rec. 709 with a gamma of 2.4. If you are concerned about visibility in bright environments, change the lighting in your room and check with an average smartphone, but avoid the setting for gamma 2.2 when rendering.

If you work for clients who want your results for social media, but are picky about how their movies look, you may need to supply them with an iPad Pro for presentations. Set it to a reference mode, block that, and try to explain to them why their average boardroom projector may look different. You may even want to take a photograph of TVs in an electronics market showing the same content next to each other.

Let’s do it on a Mac

So you’ve got a MacBook Pro (MBP for short) with Apple silicon and you’ve got a calibration probe, be it by Datacolor or Calibrite. But working just for the internet, you didn’t invest in an I/O device. We don’t care which generation of that laptop, as long as it has the nice XDR screen and reference modes. But who likes to work with DaVinci Resolve on such a small screen (even the menu bar is too short for all the little extras)? Let’s say you have a larger screen with decent color quality attached when you start grading at your home base. After all, not only Apple says that you should be grading to standards in a controlled environment – something hard to find in a hotel room or on the road. Now calibrate that external screen with your probe, and you’ll be generating just an ICC profile for the Mac in this case. More than one profile can be prepared for the correction of different monitors, which will be managed by the system.

Brightness according to BT. 1886 would be 100 nit, but 120 fits modern screens better. The steps needed for calibration are fully self-explanatory with the Spyder Pro software, and the result on a decent screen is very close to what we see on the MBP when set to reference mode. OK, DisplayCal may be a tad more precise. But it’s more complicated and taking many more measurements, resulting in excessively long lunch breaks.

You need to set the system preferences of DR to use the Mac profiles, as already shown above, and now you have to stick to Rec. 709 (Scene) on the Deliver page to get your output and its flags right. Do not use Rec. 709 Gamma 2.4, even if theoretically it should be the same!

Your timeline can be whatever you prefer: Rec. 709, ACES, or DaVinci Wide Gamut Intermediate (DWG). Of course, with manual settings your first node should get a CST (Color Space Transform) to adapt the incoming camera sources to DWG. Resolve’s automatic setting, called DaVinci YRGB Color Managed (aka RCM) set to SDR would also deliver the flags as 1-1-1, by the way. But you may need to check if the incoming footage’s color and gamma is identified correctly or needs to be set manually. That’s often the case if some difficult source has been transcoded into an intermediate codec, like ProRes, DNxHR, or Cineform.

Conclusion

In the end, you need to understand that rendering into a specific colour space and gamma is actually changing the visual content of your results. 
Tags are just metadata, which should trigger the right interpretation in players. That’s the point where chaos breaks loose, because manufacturers often don’t care for the tags and display your video based on assumptions. The only reliable approach is encoding to Rec. 709 with a gamma of 2.4 and having the tags set to 1-1-1, which is automatically done if you render into Rec.709 (scene).

The post LUTs, Tags, or ICC: Getting Colours Right in Resolve on a Mac first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Uli Plank.

ASCII, but with more controls than the name first suggests

ASCII Resolve is one of those tools whose name sounds like a novelty filter until you look at what it actually exposes. Installed as a DRFX package, it drops into DaVinci Resolve as a ready-to-use effect and ships with seven presets built around different symbol sets and workflows.

The useful part is not the retro terminal joke. It is the amount of control. In the setup, users can adjust pixel frequency to define how large the generated symbols appear, then shape the source image first with contrast and gain controls before the symbol remapping happens. There is also an invert option, which is exactly the sort of small checkbox that turns an effect from “cute for ten seconds” into “actually usable for design work.” The result is a less fixed look, more luminance-driven abstraction.

Gradients, palettes, and letters instead of just symbols

The colour section appears to be more than a token palette dropdown. The effect includes multiple colour presets, but it also allows custom gradients, with individual points corresponding to separate symbols. That matters because it means the mapping is not only based on brightness, but can also be art-directed at the symbol-band level. If a preset gets close but not quite there, individual hues can be nudged without rebuilding the look from scratch.

There is also a letter-based variant that pushes the effect from ASCII cliché into proper retro motion-design territory. In that version, users can choose preset character groups such as alphabet, capital letters, numbers, patterns, round, orthogonal, diagonal, and more detailed sets. A custom mode accepts a user-defined nine-character string, and the font itself can be changed as well. Based on the walkthrough, monospaced or code-like fonts appear to be the most convincing choice, which will surprise nobody who has ever willingly opened a terminal window.

More than one workflow inside Resolve

The package is so split into several variants depending on where and how users want to work. Beyond the standard effect presets, there are custom Edit page and Fusion page versions for users who want to replace characters with their own shapes or icons. In the Edit page workflow, users can load external image files through loaders and map them across brightness levels. The recommendation in the demo is to arrange those assets from brightest to darkest, so the luminance translation stays predictable.

The Fusion-oriented version goes a step further. There, the source image is connected to the main input, while additional square graphics or text elements can be fed into the other inputs as replacement shapes. The creator recommends square assets, ideally around 100 by 100 pixels, to keep the setup responsive and avoid unnecessary lag.

The broader product line also includes an ASCII PRO Pack on Gumroad, listed from €9.90, while the free ASCII Resolve effect remains available as a separate download.

Free ASCII Effect for DaVinci Resolve: https://skapecreates.gumroad.com/l/qouon
ASCII PRO Pack for DaVinci Resolve: https://skapecreates.gumroad.com/l/xwtwmx

The post ASCII Resolve: Free Resolve effect turns footage into configurable text art first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Getting your bearings: Switching from Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve

Getting started in a new Software can be tough. I usually just want to get started with my edit without having to look for the right buttons to achieve what I have in mind. In the previous article, we looked at setting up your project, importing and organising media and generating proxies to get you ready for your first edit really fast. If you’re already set, the following will give you input on where you’ll find everything in Resolve to get your first cut done.

Get your Project settings right.

After you’ve imported and organised all your footage, you probably want to start editing right away. Still, there’s one more thing we need to do beforehand: set up the project’s framerate and resolution. Unlike Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve uses a single frame rate for the whole project. This will be the framerate all your Timelines will automatically be created with. When importing footage, this will be automatically played at the Timeline’s speed. If you, e.g., insert 50fps in a 25fps timeline, Resolve will drop frames to make it play in real-time. It’s important to know that after creating your first Timeline in a project, the current set project framerate will be locked. But don’t worry: although the project uses a single frame rate, it’s still possible to create timelines with different frame rates in that project. To set the project frames to the project settings, click the gearwheel icon in the bottom-right corner of the project, and the master settings will open.

A cool feature to mention is the ‘Use vertical resolution’ checkbox, which lets you switch to vertical resolution quickly without even thinking about the right numbers. This is also possible for a single Timeline instead of a project. If you tend to work with the settings a lot, click the three-dot menu in the top-left corner of projects to set your current settings as a default preset.

Now that you’ve set your project settings, you can create a Timeline by right-clicking in the media pool and selecting Create New Timeline, or pressing Ctrl / Cmd + n. If you want to have a different framerate or Resolution than what is set in the project settings before, untick the ” Use project settings checkbox to get into the small menu.

A small gearwheel icon in the Timeline’s thumbnail indicates it’s a custom timeline. It will automatically open and become visible through the playhead, turning red. If you’d like to give your Timelines different colours, you can do that by right-clicking them in the Media Pool and choosing clip colour.

Media Pool navigation on the Edit page

When working on a different page, your Media Pool is accessible via the Media Pool Panel, which you can activate in the top-left corner. It can be accessed on every page except the Deliver Page. Like in Premiere Pro, you have different view options. The three available are list, thumbnail, and metadata view. To switch between them, use the drop-down menu in the top bar.

List view gives you the most information about your clip. Using thumbnail view, it’s easy to identify the clip by a picture. A powerful feature in the thumbnail view is the live preview: when you hover over a thumbnail, you will see a preview of your clip in the source viewer. It can be deactivated in the three-dotted menu of the source viewer by deselecting live media preview.

To deactivate the sound when Live previewing, press Shift + s. If you want to adjust the thumbnail size, use the zoom function in the top bar. If you’d like a thumbnail as well as some metadata, the metadata view is for you.
When you’re looking for a particular clip, there’s a search bar in the top menu that allows you to find clips by any metadata available, including the one you set yourself when organising your clips. After you’ve found your clip, seeing the waveform can be quite helpful. By double-clicking, your clip will be loaded into the source viewer.

J, l, and K can be used like in Premiere Pro. By pressing the left or right arrow key, the clip will scrub single frames backwards or forwards.

Get through lots of footage. Fast.

By default, Resolves’ source viewer is set to Source Clip mode, in which it lets you preview and work with one clip at a time. I also like to work with Source Tape. This can be opened by clicking on the drop-down menu in the top left of the source viewer or pressing Shift + Q to switch between Source Clip and Tape.

The clips in the current bin are then available in the source viewer as if they were one clip. This makes it super-fast to go through a lot of footage and find the needed B-Roll, e.g., to add into a Source Timeline. Which leads me to one feature I find very useful: using a Timeline in the Source Viewer. If you’re the person who likes to preselect clips in a timeline, this is the tool for you! Simply drag and drop your preselection Timeline into your Source Viewer, or right-click on it in the Media Pool and select Open in Timeline with source viewer.

You can then use the Timeline like a clip and insert from it into your main edit without the need to switch between timelines all the time. Using a Timeline as Source Timeline will be indicated by the playhead turning blue.

Getting shots into the Timeline

To only insert the needed clip part into the Timeline, I set my in point with I and my out point with O. Alternatively, you can use the in and out mark buttons in the lower left corner of the source viewer. Accidentally set points and want to get rid of them again? Press alt / opt + I or O to delete the in or out point. For Resolve, it’s important to know that shortcuts do different things, depending on what is currently active. E.g., if you press X in the source viewer, it will delete both in and out points. If you press X while the Timeline is active, it’ll mark the clip at the playhead’s position.

A tip that helped me a lot: lots of buttons show a small overlay when you hover that gives you information about the functionality and shortcuts. There are seven insert options for adding footage to the Timeline.

Important to know: The behaviour when inserting a clip depends on the number of tracks and whether Auto Select is active. In addition to the most frequently used, the insert options are: fit to fill, place on top, append at end, and ripple overwrite. Their shortcuts are assigned to the F-buttons F9-F12 and Shift+F10-F12. They can also be found in the edit menu at the top of your screen. Beware Mac users: You might need to switch the fn keys from volume and brightness to the standard fn key on your Mac to use this.

You like to drag and drop? Check out the possibility to drag and drop from the source viewer into the Timeline Viewers Insert Option Menu. This will open when moving footage above the source viewer and gives you the option to drop onto an insert option.

Mismatched Resolution: Wait, is this already scaled?

When editing, handling different framerates and resolutions is an everyday task. Thankfully, when working with DaVinci Resolve, that’s no problem at all, since mixed frame rates are possible in a single Timeline.
When switching, I liked how Resolve sped up my workflow by handling scaling for mismatched resolutions. I think Premiere Pro handles this quite poorly, since I’ve always had to scale clips manually in the Timeline. Resolve offers four distinct options: Crop, Fill, Fit, and Stretch.

The option to scale the entire image to fit is the default setting and ensures the entire image is visible without blanking. When Crop is activated, Resolve will centre Crop without resizing. Larger clips will be cropped, smaller ones will have black borders. Using a full-frame scale with Crop will scale the clip to fill the frame, zooming in until the shortest dimension fits. The last option is to use a stretch frame on all corners. In this case, Resolve will distort the image to fit the frame.

By default, higher-resolution media will always be scaled down to the Timeline resolution. If you want to change that, go to Project Settings > Image Scaling > Input Scaling. If you want to change the scaling mode for individual clips, you can do so easily in the inspector’s retime and scaling window. Since Resolves Timeline resolution can always be changed, it’s good to know that correct scaling will be maintained. This gives you a lot of flexibility when working with different distribution aspect ratios.

Timeline navigation

When looking at the Timeline, Resolve should look familiar to you from Premiere Pro. The height of the audio and video Timeline can be adapted by clicking and dragging the Timeline divider. The height of the tracks can be adjusted by pressing Shift and scrolling, or by dragging the track divider to adjust only one track. To scroll through the Timeline, you can use strg / cmd + scrolling. Zooming in and out is possible with opt/alt + scrolling.

But there’s one advantage with zooming in Resolve: The Timeline toolbar offers three buttons for predefined zoom settings and one slider for individual adjustments. The left button will zoom to the full extent, the right to full detail zoom. The middle one will zoom to the current slider setting. You can therefore quickly jump to different settings without a lot of clicking or scrolling.

What I found quite annoying was the different navigation in the Timeline between Resolve and Premiere. When using Premiere, I liked to zoom around the mouse pointer. By default, resolve zooms around the playhead. If you don’t want that, simply change it in the menu view > zoom around mouse pointer. Honestly, when I finally realised I could change that, I had already gotten used to the Resolve default, and my Premiere way suddenly felt like chaos.

What still irritated me was only being able to see one open Timeline at a time. But this can be fixed by going into the Timeline View options. These open when you click the left icon on the Timeline toolbar and give you options to modify how your Timeline looks. The Display Stacked Timelines setting at the top lets you see all your open Timelines as tabs, like in Premiere Pro.

To open another Timeline, simply double-click on it in the Media Pool. Alternatively, you can open and switch between Timelines by using the drop-down menu at the top of the Timeline Viewer.

If you want to work from one Timeline into another, you can view multiple timelines simultaneously. To do so, click the small Symbol on the right, above the Timeline, while Display Stacked Timeline is activated. This will open a second Timeline Space below the first one. To open a Timeline in this space, double-click the wanted Timeline while the new space is selected. This is indicated by its Timeline Name being red.

Editing modes: Different workflows for different editors

As one major difference, editing tools in Resolve are consolidated into three editing modes: Selection Mode, Trim Edit Mode, and Blade Mode. The Key Advantage: Fewer tools mean fewer hotkeys to remember. Different editing operations are therefore intuitively performed by clicking on different parts of the clip. For example, if you’re in Trim Edit Mode, you can ripple by positioning the mouse pointer near an edit point, roll by positioning the mouse pointer over the edit point, slip with the mouse over the upper part of it, or slide by positioning the mouse on the lower part of the clip in the Timeline.

If you want to move a clip freely or delete something, Selection Mode is the one you want to go for, since this isn’t possible in any other Mode. You can still ripple and roll in Selection Mode, but Slip and Slide aren’t available. If you want to use the Blade, well, Blade Edit Mode would be the one. To switch between modes, you can either use the icons in the Timeline toolbar or their shortcuts. Like I said before, knowing which button does what and having a routine in that makes you fast, which is why the Edit Mode shortcuts irritated me the most when switching: instead of the shortcut v for Selection, it’s a, and instead of c it’s b for Blade.

It might take some time to get used to the new shortcuts, but all the functions you know from Premiere are there, too. E.g., cutting at the playhead can be done with Cmd/Ctrl+B. What I wish I had known earlier: alt/option + y lets you mark everything from the playhead forward, as you would in Premiere Pro. Playhead can be moved backwards with strg/cmd + y. If you want to turn snapping or linked Selection on or off, you can use the magnet and chain buttons in the Timeline toolbar. Alternatively, linked Selection can be temporarily disabled by pressing Alt, or by snapping with N while holding the mouse button. In addition, when dragging, holding Alt will copy the clip.

Need to fix something? Inspector.

With all shots in the Timeline, there might be a need for some refinement. This is what the inspector is for. It’s the place to optimise and adjust your clips and to work on effects you’ve added. To make adjustments in the inspector, check that the clip you want to work on is selected. This will be visible through a red outline.
What I really appreciate: Basic adjustments can be found here without having to add them from the effects panel.

First, there’s reframing. You can do this with the Transform tool in the inspector, which gives you easy access to zooming, position changing, rotation, and flipping. If the Studio version of Resolve is available to you, the AI Smart Reframe function helps you quickly reframe individual clips to other aspect ratios. For fast cropping, there’s a cropping function integrated directly into the inspector, too. Looking for a way to adjust across a defined range of clips? Adjustment clips can be added from the effects panel—these work just like in Premiere Pro.

If you need some speed adjustments, Speed Change will help you. With this, the Clips speed can be changed as a percentage or in fps. Important when switching from Premiere: By default, Resolve does not ripple the Timeline when adjusting a clip’s speed. This can be changed by checking the Ripple Timeline checkbox. Speed Change also gives you direction-change and freeze-frame options.

The stabilisation is one thing that really annoyed me when using Premiere Pro, since it was slow and didn’t work too well. Thinking about Resolves: it’s fast, accessible through the inspector, and yields a good outcome. You can choose between three modes: Perspective, Similarity, and Translation. When using Blackmagic Cameras, gyroscopic stabilisation is also available. Most of the time, the Perspective does the job. You can also adjust the cropping ratio, smoothness, and strength the way you like. Good to know: Unlike Premiere Pro, Resolve stabilisation can be applied to every clip, whether or not a speed change has been applied. Clips don’t need to be nested to apply stabilisation.

By now, you’ve got everything you need to edit the visual side of your video. For input on working with your audio and music, and on sharing and delivering your final clip, stay tuned.

The post Switching to Davinci Resolve: Your first cut first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Jana Johnston.