DaVinci Resolve

[Stephen Coates]

Does anyone here use DaVinci Resolve for video editing?

I've wanted to give it a go for some time but the Linux version wouldn't work properly on my old graphics card. I'm pleased to say that it now works fine on my "new" graphics card.

I've only had a brief play with it, and have not read the manual, but my first impressions are good. Its interface seems very 'usable'. The only major downside is its lack of codec support; the free version on Linux doesn't support h.264, which necessitates transcoding to DNXHR or similar.

I "obtained" a copy of Adobe Premiere CS5 a while back and have got on really well with it, as Premiere was the first editor I used years ago, it has a nice interface, and is well documented. But it is Windows only and the older versions don't support newer codecs/formats particularly well.

I often use Kdenlive for editing. It used to be very buggy, but has improved in recent years. It is based on ffmpeg so supports practically every codec and video format known to man, and can do a wide range of effects and processing. Compared to DaVinci and Premiere though it is a bit lacking in user interface; as is common with Linux software, the video processing parts are basically command-line utilities and Kdenlive gives you a GUI for them (which may or may not be easy to use).

[Harrison]

I've never used DaVinci. Tend to like Adobe Premiere the most because I also use After Effects and Photoshop, so they all work seemlessly together.

For Linux editors have you looked at Shotcut? https://shotcut.org/

[Demon Cleaner]

I'm using the VideoPad Video Editor, mainly only needing it to cut videos for my LaunchBox games.

[Stephen Coates]

I thought I might as well update this thread...

I've been using Resolve for a few years now and I really like it. Its lack of codec support is an issue, but that's about it.

Its user interface is lovely. It has multiple "screens" which serve different purposes and can easily be switched between. The "Cut" screen is a nice simple way of going through the original files and assembling things into the correct place on the timeline. This actually works better than the main "Edit" screen. The "Edit" screen is like a traditional NLE and allows you to do effects, transitions, titles, etc, etc. The "Colour" screen is a dedicated interface for colour grading. Instead of having to drag and drop colour effects onto a timeline clip, you simply select the clip you want in the timeline, and you get a whole screen of colour grading options, complete with keyframing.

This is all very well documented in a several hundred page PDF file (Given the size, I think we can excuse them for not including a printed copy!). I found it very easy to get to grips with, especially the colour grading stuff, which I found far easier to understand than Premiere/Kdenlive.

I also got their "Speed Editor" control panel, which gives some useful buttons and a knob. Very nice, and combined with the "Cut" screen, makes assembling a video much nicer than using a mouse.

Someone at BMD really put a lot of effort in to designing this stuff .

The only major issue I have is codecs. Its h264/h265 export options are limited to what the graphics card can encode, which in my case, is VERY fast, but very poor quality. To get a high quality small size file, you have to export it as a DNX HR or ProRes file, and then use ffmpeg with your choice of software encoder (I use x264 for HD and SVT-AV1 for 4K). This has the downside that if your video is rather long, you have to generate enormous intermediate files.

I have the professional version which can import h264 files, but it doesn't support AAC audio. So if you have files from a camera which has an MP4 mode, you have to transcode the audio to PCM first. This is a limitation of the Linux version (don't know why).

I'm reluctant to update it again as last time I updated it, it wanted a newer version of my graphics driver, which wasn't present in the Debian repo, so I had to get the latest one directly from NVidia and bypass apt, and I really don't want to faff with this unless I have to. But I heard that the latest version of Resolve has built in photo editing functionality... If this works in a similar way to the video colour grading and titling tools, then this will be really good as I find it so much easier to use than GIMP and Photoshop. In fact, I've heard lots of people on the internet wanting Resolve to include photo editing features, and some people even go so far as to edit individual photos on a video timeline!

[Harrison]

I've been using DeVinci Resolve quite a bit recently. I did try the Linux version but I'm actually using the Windows version because I'm still using Adobe software as well so it's easier to have it all in the same OS.

I really like the UI and layout, plus the all in one approach where you can just move through the tabs to work on the footage, from asset setup to editing to post production through to rendering. Very easy to pick up and use if you have previous experience of video editing programs. In many ways it's quicker than Adobe Premiere which I've used professionally for nearly 30 years. A lot of the keyboard shortcuts are the same too,

I'm still on the fence regarding it's post production. It has some great colour grading tools built in but I've never been a huge fan of node based post production. I much prefer the timeline setup of After Effects. I find node editing can get very messy with nodes all of the place. You have to make sure you place and lay them out in a way you can quickly see. In After Effects I've always liked the timeline setup with nested timelines for each filter or process, making it very easy to quickly adjust everything. Far more complicated to begin with but once you learn it it's very fast to use.

In addition to Resolve I've also been using Affinity. This was released laste last year and is finally a good replacement for Photoshop. It is completely free, but at the moment only on PC and Mac. I'm hoping a Linux version comes soon. It combines the features of Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign in a 3 tabbed layout. And it's extremely good. you can easily mix vectors and bitmap images together and everything is non destructive. If you have Windows 10 give it a try.