Da Vinci Resolve Review
Back in 2003 I chose to use Adobe Premiere as my NLE. I shot and edited a 45 minute zombie flick using it and thought it was awesome. That was until my computer decided to crash and wipe my project file and media. I had a media backup but decided to just take the leap and buy an iMac, a copy of Final Cut and just re-edit (there is no better way to learn software than to just dive right in). Thankfully, Final Cut was superfast and worked how I wanted an NLE to work.
Fast forward to 2011, Apple decide to stop supporting Final Cut Pro. Given the poor reviews of it’s replacement and Adobe’s new subscription based service, Creative Cloud, I jumped over to Premiere Pro on the Mac.
Fast forward to 2017, constant crashing and more bugs than a Majorcan holiday apartment plus a jump back to Windows has persuaded me to move across to DaVinci Resolve 14/15.
After 18 months of editing and grading with DaVinci Resolve I feel like I can give a reasonable reason for switching.
What is Adobe Premiere Pro?
The primary reason I’d given up with Premiere Pro was how buggy it was. Following protocol, I kept it fully up to date. However, by updating Premiere it would get rid of the old bugs which was great, but in true Adobe fashion, it introduced new bugs as well. If you ever want to experience joy and exasperation at the same time I would recommend updating any Adobe product. I know I know; you’re saying that it’s fine on your machine. Well, not on my machine and the medium quality footage I am using (A7Sii and GH4). Before going any further with criticizing me setup, I’d like to quickly go over my machine.
Windows 10
128GB Ram HyperX DDR4 2133MHz
12GB Nvidia Titan X Pascal
XEON 10 Core E5 (3.1 GHz)
1TB SSD for all software
6TB SeaGate Barracuda Hard Drive for media
It’s 2 years old and still an absolute beast. The reason I spent nearly £6K on a computer was because I was sick and tired of projects running slow. However, when the machine arrived it turns out that it was not the machine at fault (we have 4 top of the range iMacs), it was the software.
Premiere Pro was the common denominator.
Da Vinci Resolve
When BlackMagic announced they were dropping the price of DaVinci Resolve and the release of version 14 it was a no-brainer. I should just swap and that I did. I had been using it for nearly a year but still found myself jumping back to Premiere when I couldn’t get Resolve to behave the way it should. But today, not long since the cancellation of my Creative Cloud account, I had no choice but to keep searching for how to achieve something. I found so many answers that I got the job done quickly and to a very high standard. The problem with Resolve is there are just so many tools and ways to do things it’s hard to narrow down the best way.
What’s different then? So far, there are no bugs, media is organised better, it’s way faster, it is far prettier, colour grading is better, it doesn’t stall and it doesn’t cost me £50 per month.
Two small items that I don’t like. Certain fonts don’t work in Fusion and it’s a huge learning curve. Once you get your head around the differences you realise how wrong Adobe have got it, but to get to that stage you do end up hating Resolve (just not as much as Premiere). If you are in the process of switching please stick with it. I’m not there just yet (especially with Fusion) but it’s definitely worth it.
How to use DaVinci Resolve
In a nutshell, Resolve is just way better thought out. Here is a quick example
Smooth Cut vs Morph Cut
The same effect, just quicker.
DaVinci Resolve Vs Premiere Pro Debate – Who Wins?
If I was in a relationship that was as frustrating as my relationship with Adobe, I’d have left them for dead and married Resolve long ago.