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DaVinci Resolve / Studio - the BEST video editing software there is.

Skygod44

oversupply of pot
Joined
23 Nov 2023
Posts
2,713
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Location
Kagoshima, Japan
Name
Simon
Image Editing
No
For a few years, I dropped stills photography and set myself up with the challenge of learning to edit video.

It was tough at first, and I tried Premiere Pro.

Well over a hundred projects later, and having taken the advice of a school mate (from waaaaaay back), who had his own production/editing company, and has been the top man for events such as The Olympics, I dropped Premiere Pro in favour of DaVinci Resolve, from Blackmagic.

Share your thoughts & questions here...
Although I'll be the first to say, there are a couple of YouTube channels which should be your main training resource.

Cheers,
Simon
 
I'm still to try out DaVinci Resolve, but my old laptop won't run it unfortunately. Seems like a popular choice now though very highly recommended, though I understand it has quite a steep learning curve. I'll have to stick with using CapCut until I can kick the missus off the desktop PC and test it on there.
 
I got into 3D animation and using AfterEffects for compositing renders (as well as video editing and making video effects). When I decided to add a Mac to my network of computers, I found Adobe AfterEffects, Premiere, and Media Encoder would just crash on the Mac. So I asked myself why was I paying monthly CC if Adobe didn't have stable releases for all OSes? I tried looking at Final Cut and Resolve: I opted for Resolve for the price and the ability to work on advanced effects with Fusion. The only main thing I miss about Adobe is Media Encoder: which was pretty good about getting a good quality compressed video (with Resolve, I render high quality and then use another program to compress). Though Adobe also stopped paying licenses to Dolby, so no support for Dolby Digital or Dolby Vision (which Resolve does).

As for learning Resolve: I think udemy.com is a good resource for learning software (or programming in any language). There's varying levels of instructors who can offer comprehensive videos of all the features of Resolve. And there's usually sales for different courses.
 
I'm still to try out DaVinci Resolve, but my old laptop won't run it unfortunately. Seems like a popular choice now though very highly recommended, though I understand it has quite a steep learning curve. I'll have to stick with using CapCut until I can kick the missus off the desktop PC and test it on there.
I bought an order-made PC from a company in Yokohama, which cost a fraction of the price of anything "off the shelf", 4 years ago. And it's still running smoothly.

There is one section within DaVinci that I don't use much though, as it's for rendering and object/lighting creation from scratch...
...which was never my aim.

I also have twin monitors, which DaVinci uses really efficiently. And I use a pen-tablet mapped onto the entire twin screen setup.

For me, videography was a huge challenge, and I love that aspect.
And the purpose was/is to create "stories" which my kids will remember me by, when I kick the bucket! 🤣
 
I had to upgrade my Mac. Went from a 2009 Mac Pro to a Mac Mini M2pro and have just recently installed Davinci Resolve. But too scared to open it...
There are some brilliant YouTubers you should follow.
I would say Alex is the best.

DaVinci has a learning curve, but the basics aren't so bad.
And I would say it's more intuitive than Adobe Premiere Pro.

Effectively, you're just editing stills - just like you would in Lightroom.
But a lot of them. 🤣
And with sound attached.

Great fun.

Go on...
...open it up 😁👍
 
I got into 3D animation and using AfterEffects for compositing renders (as well as video editing and making video effects). When I decided to add a Mac to my network of computers, I found Adobe AfterEffects, Premiere, and Media Encoder would just crash on the Mac. So I asked myself why was I paying monthly CC if Adobe didn't have stable releases for all OSes? I tried looking at Final Cut and Resolve: I opted for Resolve for the price and the ability to work on advanced effects with Fusion. The only main thing I miss about Adobe is Media Encoder: which was pretty good about getting a good quality compressed video (with Resolve, I render high quality and then use another program to compress). Though Adobe also stopped paying licenses to Dolby, so no support for Dolby Digital or Dolby Vision (which Resolve does).

As for learning Resolve: I think udemy.com is a good resource for learning software (or programming in any language). There's varying levels of instructors who can offer comprehensive videos of all the features of Resolve. And there's usually sales for different courses.
Great to hear from another DaVinci user.
I also had nonstop crashes with Premiere Pro, and couldn't see why I was paying monthly for such an unstable piece of software.
As to compression, have you tried manually reducing the bitrate?
That did the trick for me, as I was struggling with the presets when uploading to Odysee.com.
 
There are some brilliant YouTubers you should follow.
I would say Alex is the best.

DaVinci has a learning curve, but the basics aren't so bad.
And I would say it's more intuitive than Adobe Premiere Pro.

Effectively, you're just editing stills - just like you would in Lightroom.
But a lot of them. 🤣
And with sound attached.

Great fun.

Go on...
...open it up 😁👍
Thanks! Have bookmarked the link!
 
I did try DaVinci a little while ago, but it was too complicated and I removed it from my laptop. I did try and install it again, but for some reason it would no longer install on the same laptop. So maybe the version I had used before, was an old version. As I got a message saying, can't run on your pc, or something along those lines.

 
I did try DaVinci a little while ago, but it was too complicated and I removed it from my laptop. I did try and install it again, but for some reason it would no longer install on the same laptop. So maybe the version I had used before, was an old version. As I got a message saying, can't run on your pc, or something along those lines.

Oh no 😮
Though if you got the "Can't run on your PC" message, that'll be due to the system requirements - video editing is basically along the same lines as photo editing, but a LOT MORE at the same time.
For example, I have a 64Gig graphics card, with upgrade slots to 132Gigs.
And I have three dedicated in-machine SSDs, one for the main system, one for the data, and the last for processing edits, for DaVinci.

It's why I bought an order-made machine.
So cheap, compared with off-the-shelf.
😊👍
 
As to compression, have you tried manually reducing the bitrate?
That did the trick for me, as I was struggling with the presets when uploading to Odysee.com.
I suppose I could go through the hassle of trying to get an optimal bitrate that's low in size but still looks good.....but I've just found that's the only area DaVinci has a deficit: their standard presets seem to want to to just render high quality. And some videos can have more compression: I notice a high grain film source can sometimes need a much higher bitrate due to grain patterns getting more artifacts. Honestly I am now using another bit of software that I also use for ripping my BDs: DVDFab. It supports all color spaces and audio codecs, and it seems to compress 4K video pretty well with its standard presets: and it's also fast at rendering with support for video card acceleration (h.264 and h.265).
 
I've head a lot about DaVinci resolve but it turned out to be too complicated for me, so I switched to Clipify, yet I'm willing to give it another try in the future!
 
I've head a lot about DaVinci resolve but it turned out to be too complicated for me, so I switched to Clipify, yet I'm willing to give it another try in the future!
The early tutorial videos from Alex Tech on YouTube will put you right.
I'd highly recommend giving it another go, if you enjoy making videos and want to be able to make a fully polished version.
Oh, and the free version of DaVinci is plenty enough.
☺️👍
 
I've head a lot about DaVinci resolve but it turned out to be too complicated for me, so I switched to Clipify, yet I'm willing to give it another try in the future!
It looks scary the first few times, but using Youtube vids really helped. The basics are really no more complicated than Photoshop. In fact, I found many similarities.
 
Davinci is not for the faint of heart, but I agree it's amazing. when our university went online for the pandemic, I was put into a situation of needing to suddenly be a movie producer. I ended up going with DaVinci due to the praise, and the fact that it was FREE!. Big learning curve, but that's because it's a serious studio level product. For casual work, I am sure there re easier to learn options, but oddly you might need to pay for less.
 
I’ve been using FCPX forever. Not wanting to reinvent my workflow although I hear really good thing about DaVinci.
 
I’ve been using FCPX forever. Not wanting to reinvent my workflow although I hear really good thing about DaVinci.
Moving from Premiere Pro, it took me a week, and two projects to be utterly convinced I'd made the right decision.
 
My biggest issue with the move from Prem Pro to Resolve was finding things in the different places. Oh and some of the filters that I'd like to use are only available in the paid for version. I have a friend who uses it professionally, with some Black Magic cameras, and he says that the paid licence has upgraded with at least three major version numbers. Thought that might be useful info for some of you.

Alan
 
I've used Pinnacle from Corel so far. It has all the functions I need, but stability isn't the best. I've installed the free DaVinci software. It tells me my computer is OK but my graphics card sucks. Which figures, since when I bought that computer I thought an impressive graphics card was just for gamers. Didn't think about video editing at that time.

Maybe it will run anyway - haven't tried that yet. Slower of course, but still.
 
I've used Pinnacle from Corel so far. It has all the functions I need, but stability isn't the best. I've installed the free DaVinci software. It tells me my computer is OK but my graphics card sucks. Which figures, since when I bought that computer I thought an impressive graphics card was just for gamers. Didn't think about video editing at that time.

Maybe it will run anyway - haven't tried that yet. Slower of course, but still.


Resolve runs much better on my system with the integrated Intel graphics than it ever did with the as it turned out mildly fault GTX 960 GPU that originally came with my system. So you might be surprised at the performance with integrated graphics. My system is an i7 6700 with 16GB of RAM and dates from mid 2015.
 
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