Motion Array has an excellent DaVinci Resolve Green Screen & Chroma Keying Tutorial

As always from Motion Array it is in depth and really a good tutorial, so check it out.

This is for Chroma Keying with the color page, which is very powerful. Of course I have been going further with the Fusion page (necessary for some of the keying i am doing for my next short), but that is another step ahead.

Blackmagic Design released DaVinci Resolve 18.5 Beta 1 at NAB

Amazing how fast they move, adding in AI based trasncription editing and subtitles, a new relighting OFX plug in that works with the color panel and per timeline color management.

The freight train of Davinci Resolve Updates is mind blowing how quickly they add new features and make this program better and more stable.

Blackmagic Design raised the price on the Speed Editor, but drops price on keyboard and some of it’s color panels

Blackmagic Design has announced reductions on the DaVinci Resolve Editor Keyboard and some panels, but a price raise on the Speed Editor.

  • DaVinci Resolve $Free.
  • DaVinci Resolve Studio $295.
  • DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor $395, an increase of $100.
  • DaVinci Resolve Editor Keyboard $595, a saving of $400.
  • DaVinci Resolve Micro Panel $795, a saving of $200.
  • DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel $1995, a saving of $1000.

Now the Speed Editor was $295 and included Resolve Studio, so that is going the wrong way, but $595 is getting better for the Editor Keyboard (down $400_ and $1000 off the mini panel is great, though I will stick with my Tangent.

The thing is I know that Blackmagic Panels are better built than Tangent, but they also only work with DaVinci, and even with the price drop are still so expensive. And I only work with ergonomic keyboards so the editing Keyboard is useless to me, so I was interested in the Speed Editor, but it’s focus on the Cut Panel turns me off. Honestly I know you aren’t reading this Blackmagic, but I would love a smaller panel with basically the dial and a few other buttons, but I know it wouldn’t have customizable buttons or work with other software, so…

And the customability is the weird thing, since DaVinci doesn’t let you customize the buttons nor let them work with anything else. And the buttons on the Speed Editor are too focused on the Cut Page, which I do not like and do not use, I would much rather have it based on the edit page, but would also want it to work with Premiere Pro, so…

Blackmagic Design updated DaVinci Resolve to version 17.4, anyone else annoyed by forced full screen mode on mac, took me a minute to figure out how to turn it off!

Blackmagic Design has upgraded DaVinci Resolve to 17.4, with support for the M1 Pro and M1 Max and a ton of new features.

Unfortunately they have gone Full Screen as default and it took me a while to figure out how to turn it the hell off, but when I did it fixed a big complaint which was DaVinci hiding my damn dock.

I love DaVinci, and I love all the free updates at a rapid pace, but my biggest complaint about DaVinci is it’s lack of customization, and I find forcing full screen mode to be another customization annoyance.

My big complaint with Final Cut Pro (x) is that it feels designed by engineers who want to force you to use a program how they want to, and not how you want to. I have always felt AVID and Premiere allow you to set things up how they work best for you, and I always customize allot, with DaVinci you are forced to work how they want to, down to being forced to hide my dock, and now being forced into full screen mode. And honestly my biggest complaint of this is the menus. i want the menus there all the time, not dissapearing and coming back when I put my mouse there, that loses efficiency!

OK anyway, to turn it off, you have to bring up the menu, then when you see the stop sings, hit the green one.

Full Screen Mode in Davinci with Hidden menus
When you put your cursor in the menu, the dots come up under the menu and the green turns off full screen.
Exit Full Screen

And even better once I exited Full Screen mode, DaVinci added something new, for the main screen I can now resize the window and it even shows my dock! WOOHOOO.

I have never liked Full Screen nor having my dock go away, as I leave it up always on my main monitor, so actually I think this is great.

Now if only the second screen worked like this as well, this is how the second monitor works in Final Cut Pro and I hate it there as well.

And there is a ton more to like in the new update, look at all these features:

What’s new in DaVinci Resolve 17.4

Key Features
• Hardware accelerated Apple ProRes on Apple M1 Pro and M1 Max.
• Faster DaVinci Neural Engine performance on Mac OS Monterey.
• Native HDR viewers and 120 Hz playback on supported MacBook Pros.
• Native Dropbox and Dropbox Replay integration with render presets.
• Sync markers, comments, annotations with Dropbox and Dropbox Replay.
• Export timeline markers as YouTube video or QuickTime chapters.
• Steinberg VST3 support with access to even more audio effects.
• Simplified auto color management settings with SDR and HDR selection.
• Improved 3D keyer and matte finesse controls.
• New Resolve FX including film halation and custom mixers.
• Text+ support for combined glyphs, right to left text and vertical layouts.
• Subtitles can auto resize backgrounds and decompose to parent timeline.

Apple M1 Pro and M1 Max
• Hardware accelerated Apple ProRes on Apple M1 Pro and M1 Max.
• Faster DaVinci Neural Engine performance on Mac OS Monterey.
• Smoother 120 Hz UI and playback on M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pros.
• Native HDR viewers on M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pros.
• Native full screen mode on Mac OS.

Dropbox
• Dropbox login within DaVinci Resolve preferences.
• Render presets for Dropbox and Dropbox Replay with background uploads.
• Sync comments and annotations with Dropbox Replay in Studio.
• Sync markers and comments with Dropbox in Studio.

Edit
• Subtitle and caption backgrounds now auto-resize to fit text content.
• Subtitle tracks in nested timelines now decompose to the main timeline.
• Adding a new subtitle caption now auto-focuses on the text area.
• Simple titles and subtitles are faster on Apple Silicon systems.
• Improved ease in and out functionality for position curves in the timeline.
• Options to include effects and grades for render in place operations.
• Switch multicam angles in the edit page with the speed editor.
• Ability to mark selection for timeline gaps.
• Edit asymmetric audio transitions created in the Fairlight page.
• Trim video and audio transitions asymmetrically using cmd/ctrl.
• Fine audio clip gain adjustments using shift + mouse drag.
• Support for pasting retime attributes on audio clips.
• Option to limit audio sync to the first timecode match.
• Preview composite modes by hovering over each mode in the inspector.
• Ability to set per-clip deinterlace quality in the inspector.
• New square iris transition.
• Support for custom aspect ratio controls for shape transitions.
• Improved overlays for Fusion tools in the viewer.
• Improved undo support for Fusion effects and Text+ in the inspector.
• Support for folder based organization of effect templates.
• New customizable key actions to go to previous/next timeline tabs.
• Ability to close timeline tabs with middle click.
• Preview generators and titles from the effects panel in the cut viewer.

Color
• Support for an automatic mode for color managed projects.
• Support for ACES 1.3, gamut compression and new CSC transforms.
• New 3D Keyer with new modes, better selection/stroke logic, live feedback.
• Improved HSL and luma keyers with updated matte finesse controls.
• Track forward and back with a single action in trackers and magic masks.
• Node tooltips now indicate LUT and effect type present.
• Dragging new links to layer and key mixers auto-creates node inputs.
• Dragging color nodes over key links creates key-to-RGB connections.
• Added individual primary and secondary tool icons for faster switching.
• Clip filters for timeline clips with Dolby Vision analysis or trim.
• Disabled clips are now shown as gray in the timeline.
• Support for applying camera LUTs and CDLs to ARRI MXF ProRes clips.
• The printer light state is now persisted across application restart.
• Navigating to markers in the timeline now auto scrolls to center marker.

Resolve FX
• Film halation emulates film stock reflections and scatter with Studio.
• Custom mixer to combine effects and grades with finer control.
• Improved 3D, HSL and Luma keyers in edit and Fusion.
• Better noise handling and key refinement for existing keyers.
• Improved patch replacer with ability to align source and target.
• Film grain with interactive previews and grain freeze options.

Fairlight
• Support for Steinberg VST3 audio effects on Mac OS and Windows.
• Ability to reorder, move and duplicate effects in the mixer.
• Support for copying clip ranges with partial fades.
• Single sided audio transitions are now displayed as fades.
• Support for multi channel audio outputs on Linux.
• Waveform displays visible at smaller track heights and lower zoom levels.
• Ability to shift-click and cmd-click on keyframe selections in the timeline.
• Navigating to previous or next timeline marker now selects the marker.
• Improved default processing order in Fairlight mixers.
• Automation curves display current values when no automation is present.
• Flashing edit cursor in edit selection mode.
• Improved column order and search behavior in the clip index.
• Improved jog, scroll and shuttle with the editor keyboard and speed editor.
• Fairlight FX meters have resizable displays and improved channel labels.
• Improved audio performance when using Blackmagic monitoring devices.

Fusion
• Text+ support for combined glyphs and right to left language layouts.
• Improved vertical Text+ layout, vertical glyphs, rotation and line direction.
• Improved Text+ character grouping, spacing, underlining and borders.
• Text+ supports per-character stylistic sets for supported fonts.
• Support for OpenType features, including old-style numbers in Text+.
• Multiple Text+ improvements for character styling and animation.
• Hover to show tool descriptions in the effects panel and add tool window.
• Improved default tracker search and pattern size for grid warps.
• New search area scale slider in tracker options.

Codecs and File I/O
• Improved encode settings for YouTube render preset.
• Option to export a timeline marker color as YouTube video chapters.
• Option to export a timeline marker color as QuickTime chapter markers.
• Support for decoding opus audio in QuickTime and MP4 clips.
• Hardware accelerated Panasonic 8K AVC decodes on Apple Silicon.
• Improved decode speeds for ARRI ARX clips.
• Hardware accelerated H.265 encodes on free version on Windows.
• H.264 encode profile options on supported Nvidia systems with Studio.
• H.264/H.265 encode bit rate controls on supported Windows Intel systems.
• Faster hardware acceleration on Windows Intel systems with Studio.
• Support for rendering EXRs with ZIP1 compression.
• Ability to add custom languages in DCP/IMF composition naming options.
• Ability to use approved operator / rating / region lists for DCP naming.
• Marker support in the IO encode plugin SDK.
• Ability to bypass re-encodes for Sony XAVC Intra clips.
• Improved retention of comments metadata for third party XML workflows.
• Improved display of render job names with tooltips.

General
• Right click audio icon to adjust volume on media, color and deliver pages.
• Auto-identifying media storage sequential image formats as stills or clips.
• Prompt to overwrite existing projects when invoking save as.
• Locked project indicator for PostgreSQL databases with usage info tooltip.
• Ability to clone a PostgreSQL database from the project manager.
• Ability to export PostgreSQL access keys from the project manager.
• Option to import into current timeline when importing an AAF.
• Scripting API support to access inspector properties for video clips.
• Scripting API support to set playhead position on the timeline.
• Scripting API support to get color version for video clips.
• Scripting API support for reflecting upload status in render job APIs.
• Scripting API support for setting network optimization in render jobs.
• Scripting API support for H.264 multi-pass encode option in Mac OS.
• Improved scripting property set when querying MediaIn nodes.
• Addressed an issue with Vimeo login.
• General performance and stability improvements.

Minimum system requirements
• Mac 10.15 Catalina.
• 8 GB of system memory. 16 GB when using Fusion.
• Blackmagic Design Desktop Video 12.0 or later.
• Integrated GPU or discrete GPU with at least 2 GB of VRAM.
• GPU which supports Metal or OpenCL 1.2.

Updated version of Sofi Marshall’s Ultimate Real-Time Workflow for those with a video output box

So I have written about Sofi Marhsall’s Ultimate Rea-Time Editing Workflow (That Won’t Break the Bank) and just wanted to give a little Update on how i have updated that workflow because of my setup, and the difference for me is that I run a older Blackmagic UltraStudio 4k as my video out, which I run to a Samsung HDTV.

I followed her instructions and got a BlackMagic Web Presenter, but got the UltraHD version so I can do 4K video, and it does seem to work just fine with either the front or back USB C unlike the older version she used.

And because I am not using USB-C to HDMI cable for my setup, which is also going to eat up a more of your video ram (displaying as a second monitor. Instead I ran a BNC Cable from my UltraStudio 4k into my BlackMagic Web Presenter, while my Samsung is running out of the HDMI out of the UlraStudio 4k. Sofi’s version is setting up the web presenter as a second monitor, but I am already using a second monitor on my computer, and would rather run the direct output from my UltraStudio from Premiere (or DaVinci or AVID) into my Web Presenter, and you don’t need to setup the web presenter as a second monitor.

My Web Presenter lives on top of my UltraStudio 4K (the Emotive is a DAC I use for listening to music off my computer) someday I will get a rack mount to put them in.

Whatever you are playing back shows up on both monitors for me, and I can see on my TV, which is the black line at top with the power cable running down the wall, and the usb cable to the computer allows the web presenter to act as a USB web cam.

Premier Video Output Settings

Premiere Pro Menu > Preferences > Playback
My playback settings set to Blackmagic Playback with Disable Video Output when in background disabled!
And the Blackmagic playback setup settings for my UltraStudio 4K

So in Premiere I am playing back through Blackmagic playback via my UltraStudio 4K, and I have disable video output when in background (which I usually have checked, disabled, so the signal keeps going to the webcam constantly.

Now again differing from Sofi Marshall here I have the audio setup differently, as she is using Loopback to send the audio to the Web Presenter, but I am using Premiere Pro directly. I am still using Loopback, but differently as I will show.

So for Premiere Pro I go to Premiere Pro > Preferences > Audio Hardware to setup direct audio to the UltraStudio 4K.

Premiere Pro Menu > Preferences > Audio Hardware
Audio Hardware Preferences, default output to Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4k and Map Output to Blackmagic Playback
Default Output selections, I actually usually use Edirol UA-1D which I have an optical cable coming out of to my Edirol and an Emotica AMP for my Speakers as well as a FireStone Audio Headphone amp, and use blackmagic to show sound sync on my TV, but I can live with the sync being the same as the computer monitor most of the time, but for this I use send the audio to the Blackmagic UltraStudio 4k.

I then follow Sofi Marshall’s directions on creating Loopback Device 2, which combines the iMac Microphone (her external microphone) and the audio from the Web Presenter.

I have created my mic for zoom, the “Mic & web Presenter” with the External Microphone and the audio from the Web Presenter 4K combined.

So here is my loopback microphone setup so my cut can be shown with audio and they can here the microphone.

Now since I am running the audio directly to monitor my audio for me it would be coming out of my TV which would then show up in my microphone, so I can’t have that, so I must mute my HDTV, and I want to hear my edit through my headphones. My headphones are running through my Edirol though could be just the headphone jack, so I have made a loopback to send Premiere to my Edirol.

I have also made a setting for DaVinci exactly the same but with DaVinci.

These send my audio from Premiere or DaVinci to my headphones. Now we need to setup zoom.

Zoom Menu > Preferences
Zoom Preferences ? Video for Camera I have selected my Web Presenter 4K as the video, with original ratio and HD.
And Zoom Preferences for Speaker I send the audio to my Edirol (which could be headphone jack) and for the microphone I select Mic & Web Presenter which I created in Loopback.
And make sure to turn on High-Fidelity Music Mode and Stereo Audio.

Now you can do a zoom using my video out from Premiere and Web Presenter. Thanks to Sofi Marshall, as I would have never done this without her.

Chadwick Shoults of Creative Video Tips on the Take Selector in DaVinci Resolve

I have to say Chadwick’s videos are quickly becoming my favorite videos on DaVinci Resolve, I literally always learn something watching his videos, so they are really worth checking out.

I have liked this feature in Final Cut Pro X, and honestly didn’t even realize it was available in DaVinci. Now Premiere needs to add it.