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Comment by papa0101 | Hacker News Reader

Davinci Resolve works on Win, Mac and Linux. Switching to it from Adobe's Premier and Aftereffects was the best decision I've made. Oh, and it's free (not the Studio version).

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>Davinci Resolve works on Win, Mac and Linux.

Black Magic also provide a custom Rocky Linux ISO with each release. It's not widely-advertised and I found it at the end of their release notes PDF.

>For users setting up new systems or looking to use a standardized DaVinci Resolve environment, a standard Rocky Linux 8.6 ISO is available to download at:

>https://downloads.blackmagicdesign.com/DaVinciResolve/DaVinc...

>(MD5: https://downloads.blackmagicdesign.com/DaVinciResolve/DaVinc...).

>The ISO file can be burned to a bootable USB flash drive or a DVD for the installation process. Before installation, ensure that you have backups of your files, including media and Resolve project libraries. Turn off UEFI Secure Boot in BIOS configuration and boot from the ISO.

>Selecting the Automatic option will erase all the files on your connected drives during installation. Please ensure that you only connect a single boot drive to install the OS onto. Alternatively, select Manual configuration and customize the target drive and partitions when installing the OS.

>The installer takes care of all dependencies - including standard libraries, Nvidia drivers and DeckLink drivers. When the installation is complete, you can reboot the system once, and download and install DaVinci Resolve using the instructions above. When upgrading DaVinci Resolve, please check this section in the new installer for any special instructions you may need for the new version.

Please share with us the details. What is great about it?

I do believe that Resolve is not open source, correct? That's not an issue for me but it could be for others.

What I like about it is that it is an industrial grade tool and pretty reliable, and allows 4K output for free, and the full version is fairly reasonably priced. You will not be limited by the tool, it can basically do anything you'd want to do in this space. There is also plentiful help on the net showing you how to do it. The simple stuff is really no harder than in any of the other tools I tried, and the hard stuff is possible.

Yes, an upgrade path to a quality commerical tool is certainly an advantage.

I sometimes edit videos for a raptor conservation charity. I found Resolve to be great for standard tasks such as creating videos from multiple input clips, trimming / fading / transitioning and editing out bloopers. It was also excellent for audio editing, e.g. getting rid of background wind noise, etc.

Some of its built-in tools are quite sophisticated, e.g. setting up key frames that follow a moving object (a bird in this case), and then adding tracking 'targeting graticules' or changing orientation from landscape to vertical (i.e. for mobile), but dynamically changing the screen clipping coords so that a bird flying across the landscape view remains central when converted to vertical.

This was all with the free version. I've some prior experience with video editing software so the learning curve wasn't too bad. I did watch some of DaVinci's tutorials to understand the basic conventions, e.g. around the major tool modes, use of the node-graph editor for assembling effects, etc.

Resolve has a all-in-one approach to movie making: it has a NLE (copy/paste/trim/arrange video clip), a very advanced color grading tool (in fact it was born as one), an audio editor (née Fairlight), and even a compositor (née Fusion).

All of those components are production-ready, free (as in beer), have a dedicated team working on the product. Plus, the parent company seems in very good health and doesn't seems to make stupid decision (probably because they're making most of their money on hardware ?)/

Another comment suggests the free version simply doesn't accept 10 bit input files. I use kdenlive for my limited editing and was thinking to try Davinci but that seems like a deal breaker as 10-bit is coming fast to consumer, prosumer devices.

> Another comment suggests the free version simply doesn't accept 10 bit input files.

It definitely does, at least for certain platforms and formats. https://documents.blackmagicdesign.com/SupportNotes/DaVinci_...: "For macOS and Windows, DaVinci Resolve will also read most formats natively supported by the operating system."

I'm not aware of a Resolve compatibility matrix that encompasses every possible platform, host OS, and format, but it doesn't take long to just try the free version. If the Sony source doesn't work directly, I'd recommend using ffmpeg to convert a test file to ProRes before giving up.

Worst case, the $300 one-time cost is one of the best deals in commercial/professional software.

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