DEFINITION January 2018

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DAVINCI RESOLVE 14 USER REVIEW

the dedicated systems needed for other high-end NLEs. Setting up a collaborative project database requires some IT skills (mostly the ability to type command lines into a Terminal window) but the instructions are clear and comparatively simple. It took me about ten minutes. Obviously, the database and footage need to be available all the time, so larger set- ups will probably want a dedicated server for the database, and fast RAID storage for the footage, but it works just as well to use one of the edit machines as the server, sharing the media drive over the network. Essentially, it’s possible to

DaVinci Resolve is now pretty much as good as most NLEs out there. COLLABORATION What makes it stand out is Resolve’s new collaborative capabilities. Most high-end TV or film projects require some form of collaboration, from having a team of editors working on a feature, to a team working on multiple episodes of a TV series, to just one editor and an assistant, importing rushes. Resolve can now handle all of those scenarios incredibly well – possibly better than any other NLE I’ve used – and it puts no special requirements on the storage used for the footage, unlike

sequence into the Source Viewer, you can swap the Timeline view between your current edit and this loaded sequence. That’s very nice, but it would be great to be able to do this with any Source clip (as you can in Avid), not just with sequences – it’s very handy to be able to see a clip in the timeline when editing audio into your cut, for instance. There is a nice feature to be able to see audio waveforms in the Source monitor, with an overview waveform and a zoomed section, but it’s not as easy and accurate as flipping the Source clip to the timeline. It would also be great to be able to record to an audio file, without arming and recording onto a track. When recording guide commentary for a documentary, for instance, it’s common to record the comm for a large section of the script in one go, and then cut it into the programme. You don’t record each phrase into its correct place in the timeline. With Resolve, it is a bit tedious as you have to have a spare, blank audio track to put the recording into, then either reload the audio clip into the Source viewer, or cut up the clip in the spare track. This is all just minor griping, however. The editor built into

IMAGES The Fairlight audio editor, now part of Resolve, gives you supreme collaborative abilities.

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JANUARY 2018 DEFINITION

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