Logan Baker at Premium Beat on everything he learned in a year of switching from Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve.

Well worth the read. I have delved into DaVinci Resolve myself, at first just for it’s coloring, but then I have also done editing in it.

And I tend to agree with what he says that is better in premiere, basically the interface itself, the ability to control the interface, the integration with After Effects, and the Essential Graphics Panel. I would of course also add the Essential Sound panel as it is a great start for a mix.

The interface control for me is huge. I love how in Premiere like AVID before it there are so many ways to do the same thing, keyboard shortcut or using the mouse, while I feel like DaVinci is much more forcing you a single way with many commands only available through keyboard shortcuts. And you can’t add your favorite controls to the interface, what they chose is what you get.

The article doesn’t talk about it, but I also want to talk a little about the Cut Page. It is a very Final Cut Pro X addition to DaVinci, for quick cutting a rough cut with smart edits and transitions and it is what their Speed Editor interface is totally focused on. While I do like that it will take a folder and string everything together so I can zip through footage quickly, I can do that in Premiere with Stringout sequences. And I spend so much less time on the initial edit than on the actual edit, that I would much rather focus more on the edit page than the damn cut page. Sorry, end of rant on the cut page.

DaVinci is so powerful, but you have to learn their way to do everything, and that is my complaint with Final Cut Pro X. I would much rather have multiple ways to do things, and you can find the way that suits your editing style. I feel like the engineers win here over the actual users. And I hate that.