Blackmagic Design has updated its video and graphics software, DaVinci Resolve 18. This is a big update with a bunch of new features and improvements. The main addition is the ability to collaborate on projects in the cloud. Learn how to update Davinci Resolve For Free on your Windows PC with our systematic tutorial.
DaVinci Resolve 18.1 brings new vertical and square resolution options in the project settings, improved social media direct upload, several Fairlight page updates, custom timeline lock for multi-user collaboration via Blackmagic Cloud, and many other new updates.
DaVinci Resolve 18.1: New Features
You can already tell this is a big update just by seeing that Blackmagic Design has made a half-hour release video that walks you through all the new features.
Key new features include the addition of vertical and square resolution options in the project settings. Direct upload to social networks has also been improved. Multi-user collaboration via Blackmagic Cloud has been improved with individual timeline locking. The Fairlight page has received several new features such as Dialogue Leveler, Vector Keyframing, Fairlight grid support, and more.
Full list of new features in DaVinci Resolve 18.1:
Media page
- Support for smart bins to display a list of individual marker clips.
- The marker is now highlighted when you navigate to markers in the viewer.
- Support for loading the previous or next clip using source viewer actions.
- Drag and drop media entries into automatic smart bins to apply a keyword, snapshot, or scene.
Page Edit
- Improved speed editor functionality on the edit page, including:
- Full-screen view, timeline resize, and play keys view.
- Crop, collapse, shift edits, and insert close-ups on the editing timeline.
- CUT, DIS, and SMTH CUT keys.
- Change audio levels for clips in the Edit Timeline.
- Set the default transition duration using the SET key.
- Using the Sync Bin and cam 1-9 keys to change the angles of a multicam clip.
- Improved subtitle functionality:
- Subtitle heading properties can now be individually overridden.
- Improved subtitle handling for bold and italic HTML text.
- Support for subtitle track presets and formatting rules for each track.
- Improved alpha handling of compound clips and transitions.
- Ability to multiply select, remove, and re-align transitions.
- Support for gap editing and trimming actions.
- Support for timeline page scrolling.
- Shortcut to enable or disable all audio track assignments.
- New tracks are now added in context on the editing timeline.
- Support for Resolve FX Dust Buster on the editing timeline.
- Support for markers and track list along with edit index.
- The speed change dialog now shows the duration of the original clip.
- Reconfirming from bins saves the selected bean for the session.
- Drag media as input into the Fusion Supported Effects Inspector.
Fusion Page
- Built-in keyboard configuration for Fusion actions.
- Support for Magic Mask on the Fusion page.
- Support for Resolve FX Keyers, Dust Buster, Lens Flare, and Stop Motion.
- New media input background mode to access track composition editing.
- Text+ playback and rendering performance up to 10x faster.
- Search for Fusion Nodes using common keywords and categories.
- Faster VariBlur with GPU acceleration.
- Faster than FilmGrain with GPU acceleration.
- Support for ARRI LogC4 and ARRI Wide Gamut 4 on the Fusion page.
Color page
- New Resolve FX sky replacement, including generated sky textures.
- Motion blur support for textures with Resolve FX Surface Tracker.
- Support for using Resolve FX alpha to isolate grades.
- Support for individual RGB controls in Resolve FX Film Grain.
- Support for Dolby Vision cinemas.
- Color grading nodes with Resolve FX automatically receive additional input.
- Ability to process alpha channel for supported Resolve FX in Color.
- Tracking now works across navigation extents.
- Improved resizing quality for multicam and compound clips.
- Improved quality when tracking faces in profile or partial occlusion.
- Improved eye sharpness behavior in Resolve FX Face Refinement.
- Improved advanced features of the DaVinci Resolve panel:
- Improved clip switching and the timeline for grouped clips.
- Potty Mode now includes additional basic controls.
- Improved qualifier menus.
- Improved power window menu.
- Pressing Shift Down + Loop toggles the player head mode.
- Possibility of docking mode of erasing links on the sidebar.
- Improved Text+ handling in RCM projects with DaVinci Wide Gamut.
- Improved HDR, division, and percentage markings on video-level scopes.
- Ability to filter clips with an object mask.
- Ability to filter clips by clip color.
- The effects inspector now shows a clear delete icon.
Fairlight Page
- New voice isolation powered by the DaVinci Neural Engine in Studio.
- New Dialogue Leveler for a natural smooth sound.
- Support for grid editing for timecode or music tempo.
- Significantly improved editing and automation management, including:
- Editing an automation curve with a vector keyframe.
- New slide time setting to automate snapping.
- Automation now follows clip editing by default.
- The automation now updates according to the current position of the play head.
- Write automation support for the start, end, or entire timeline.
- New controls for an auto hit, auto safe, zones, and new mix.
- Ability to create audio transitions between clips through gaps.
- Support for “paste paste” and “cut” operations on the Fairlight timeline.
- Support for inserting multiple track names for adjacent tracks.
- Support lookup view for start and end of a range selection.
- Rendering one track per channel is now added to the audio channel name.
- Mixers and meters display tooltip names for easier patch visibility.
- Confirmation dialog when deleting buses with assignments or automation.
- Support for deleting multiple buses from the bus format dialog.
- Several usability improvements to ADR.
Codecs and I/O
- Select custom thumbnails to upload to YouTube.
- Select the bitrate for supported codecs in YouTube presets.
- Ability to view the rendered clip before uploading to social networks.
- Support for timeline markers in AAF import and export.
- Support for custom presets for Dropbox and Dropbox Replay uploads.
- The most appropriate H.264/H.265 encoder is automatically selected.
- Support for Dolby Vision H.265 Profile 5 clip decoding.
- Hardware accelerated AV1 encodes on supported Nvidia systems.
- Support for UHD and DCI presets when scaling the output resolution.
- Support for importing and exporting timeline markers in IMF workflows.
- Improved multichannel audio metadata in IMF delivery workflows.
Performance
- Up to 2x better optical flow performance in advanced mode.
- Text+ playback and rendering performance up to 10x faster.
- Improved performance with RCM on Apple silicon.
- Track and analyze face refinement up to 5 times faster.
- Resolve FX object removal performance is up to 5 times faster.
- Up to 2x sharper resizing on Apple Silicon.
- Up to 4 times better spatial noise reduction performance.
- Up to 30% faster temporal noise reduction.
- Video stabilization is up to 5 times faster.
- Faster playback with larger node graphs.
- Up to 2x better decoding performance for PIZ EXR in Apple silicon.
- Improved RAW decoding performance on Apple silicon.
- Nvidia accelerates the playback of 8K H.265 clips up to 30% faster.
- Up to 50% faster encodes AV1 and H.265 with dual Nvidia encoder.
- Improved startup time on Mac for users with large project libraries.
- OpenVINO has accelerated AI-based Studio features on Windows Intel systems.
General
- Vertical resolution settings in the project settings for social networks.
- Support for individual timeline locks, improving multi-user collaboration.
- Improved sound management when importing ATEM projects.
- Simplified project settings preset, accessible from the three-dot menu.
- Reorganized and optimized view menu.
- Support for exporting multiple selected projects.
- Support for copying and pasting project manager folders.
- Exported DRT timelines now include media timing information.
- Ability to copy and paste values when selecting virtual sliders.
- The middle mouse drags to scroll through clip thumbnails in Color and Fusion.
- Fractional screen scaling support for Windows and Linux.
- Set up shortcuts to move clips, audio recordings, and more.
- Possibility to search for submenus in keyboard settings.
- The text when hovering over a keyboard setting action shows the location of the action.
- Interactive alerts to easily resolve keyboard shortcut conflicts.
- Support for Scripting API to place audio on the current track at the playback point.
- Ability to select specific timelines to import from FCPXML files.
- General performance and stability improvements.