so you're either shopping for a DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor or
you want me to reaffirm you made the right choice because you've already ordered one
either way i've been using it for the past two months and so today i'm going to share with you
the five things i love about it the pros and the five things i don't we'll call those opportunities
to explore unmet potential all to answer the question is the Speed Editor worth buying
i think it'll be obvious by my criticism in this video but it is in no way affiliated with or
sponsored by blackmagic design in any way i paid for the speed editor with my own money
because i was excited about it and so that way you know all my thoughts and opinions
are as honest as can be the first opportunity the speed editor did not explore was
the idea of having an audio only crossfade it's something to use all the time but you
have to take your hands off of the speed editor put them on the keyboard
and you actually have to do it in the edit page you can't do it in the cut page
so i would love if there was a way for you to add audio only crossfades with a single button
just like we have five buttons already dedicated to transitions why can't one of them just be audio
only crossfades it would be so easy and it's something we use on every single cut we make
so to balance things out my first pro would be the fact that the speed editor is actually free
it's free if you buy the davinci resolve studio paid version either the dongle or the license key
which is 300 bucks but you pay that either way if you just wanted the software by itself so
the fact they're giving away for free right now it is february 2021 i don't know how long it's going
to go on for but that's a great thing resolve studio gives you a clean feed to an external tv
monitor what that means is you used to always have to purchase these ultrastudio mini monitors i have
actually two of these for my two offices and what this did is it took the thunderbolt out of here
and it connected to hdmi up to like a tv or any sort of reference display you actually don't need
these anymore if you want to see a full screen view of what you're color correcting or editing
if you buy the studio version and get speed editor for free that's included it's just
like a drop down feature in the menu that i'll probably be showing you right now with b-roll
so i'll put a link in the description below to blackmagic's site specifically stating all the
difference between studio and the free version but things i like off top of my head with studio are
some of the things like noise reduction face refinement the beauty features so i can look
beautiful and uh you know there's a smart reframe which lets you do an instagram or a cut out of
your widescreen video there's the close-up button which lets you do a punch in and all that stuff is
kind of tracking faces so that's kind of the key to a lot of that that magic that happens but the
biggest thing was that there is um codex support for everything a friend of mine has the gh5
and he shot 10 bit with it and i couldn't see it in the free version so that was one reason
we initially purchased our first license of the studio version was for all the support speaking
of support my name is chadwick and this is creative video tips where i help you create videos
that make a difference and stand out if that's something you're into and you haven't already done
so please click subscribe right down below that way you don't miss out on my tip next week we've
been having a lot of fun using davinci resolve and the speed editor lately so there's a lot of great
stuff to learn from on the channel and with that out of the way let's jump back over and we'll take
a look at opportunity to explore unmet potential number two so opportunity number two is there is
no way to insert a gap or filler using the speed editor in fact there's no way to do it at all on
the cut page as far as i understand you have to go into the edit page use a command like option y and
then you can you know select it and push things down to open up some air i think it's a missed
opportunity for sure especially because they have a full size keyboard the davinci resolve keyboard
and i believe f2 on that keyboard is a way to insert some sort of black slug would love to see
that added because editing is all about pacing and timing and if we can't get that pacing dialed in
without taking our hands off of this well that's a missed opportunity
my second pro is kind of the headline feature if you just look at the thing it has a search dial
it's like a jog shuttle wheel it's a great fun new way to move around on the timeline there are
so many reasons that i love it i actually have a video i'll probably link up right now that tells
you all the 16 or there's actually 17 ways that you can use the thing but it just makes editing
a lot more fun if it's if editing something you do all the time and you've done for years i've been
editing for about 20 years and it's just a fresh new way of looking at the same old thing which
to me that's a huge pro the next opportunity i've got is the fact that the middle of the
speed editor is covered in multi-cam buttons and those multi-cam buttons do not work with
traditional multi-cam in the edit page of resolve so i mean the speed editor is made to work with
the cut page that's clear but those multi-cam buttons could be used in multicam in both
sync bin and traditional multicam but they only work with sync bin now sync bin is a lot of fun
and you get to use the search dial and if you don't know how to use that there's a
video that's probably popping up right now that i'll teach you about how to use that
and and go back and forth but i would just love if the multi-game buttons would actually work
in both edit and cut page versions of you know changing up multiple cameras at the same time
so the next pro i have about using the speed editor is the way you can use
source tape with it and source tape is something they introduced in the cut page not too long ago
but what it does is it lets you look at all your footage from a whole project or just a specific
bin you get to choose it like how detailed or how far down the breadcrumb trail you're looking at it
lets you look at all of that really quickly just scrubbing with the search dial using shuttle jog
scroll those features on there and you can refine it marking ins and outs and then hitting source
again it lets you get more detail so um and then you just back out with the escape button there's
there's a lot of flexibility to the buttons that are on here to using source tape that it makes it
a super functional and really fast way to work so we're moving right along and the next opportunity
or misstep that i think the speed editor has is the fact that there's a dedicated button
for smooth cut smooth cut if you don't know it's a way of using optical flow to transition from
one shot to the next shot it kind of blends those together and makes up its own frames
problem is it's really only a very niche use case scenario so i think i've probably used it
three or four times in an entire year so i don't need a whole button dedicated on the speed editor
just for smooth cut it's a waste of space it could be like a user customizable button in my opinion
something you could change in user preferences that would be really helpful because there's other
buttons like you know like i talked about insert gap or you know there's there's quite a few that
i would love to have that space back for somebody is really proud of that smooth cut so that's why
it's appearing on here i would just nix it if they made another version and maybe we'll get
lucky and there's a way we can customize it but yeah this is definitely an opportunity to explore
uh further growth was to let's let's ditch the smooth cut dedicated button
the next pro i've got is the fact that this thing is small it's portable it's lightweight it's made
out of plastic but it's high quality plastic the keys are mechanical and it feels good to touch and
search dials metal and so it has ball bearings it's really smooth i'm not saying it's it's crappy
it's just it's lightweight and small which is awesome because i work in two different
edit suites this is my home suite and then i have another office that i go to
and so i want to be able to take this to and from there or maybe you're going from an edit
suite to an onset location this is great for that it's not like the davinci resolve
mini panel for color grading or their micro panels those are made out of a lot of metal
pieces they're not easy to transport this is the opposite of that to transport it i've got
a pelican vault v100 case here that i just picked up and it looks to be the perfect size
on the inside it uses that closed cell foam that this is the one you actually have to cut
out it's not that pick and pluck stuff but this would be a great way so that i can just throw
the speed editor in the back of the truck and not worry about damaging it because they're
so hard to find in stock right now that i would hate if something were to break
but the fact that it's portable i can take it to any room and just sit down and start cranking away
i love that about it another missed opportunity on the speed editor keyboard it's the it's
another key just like smooth cut was this one is actually source overwrite and source overwrite
if you don't know it only works with synced timecode so if you're not working with cameras
that have been jam synced or you know used a little ambient lockit box or a tentacle sync
then it's just a waste of space i mean most people that are buying this and using this
are not going to have synced timecode so why not make the source overwrite button
overwrite overwrite would let us maintain timing of your video by just you know swapping it out on
on video one so we can keep a real nice tidy clean timeline like i like it there is ripple overwrite
which is a cool feature but ripple overwrite's going to change the overall length of your video
what ripple ovewrite does is it takes this whatever your source in and out point is
it's going to maintain that length as you do the ripple overwrite and it swaps out the clip so it
it's not going to keep your timing of your video which is something that overwrite can do
you can still do overwrite it's f10 i believe on the keyboard if you want to use the keyboard but
then you're taking your hands off the speed editor and that kind of defeats the purpose of this whole
using two hands on here so that's why i think the source overwrite button on the speed editor
was maybe a missed opportunity and should have just been this simple regular old overwrite
another thing i really love about the speed editor is a button that's gonna save you a
lot of time that a lot of people are probably not going to talk about it's the transition duration
set button what's cool about transition duration set is you hold it down you move the search dial
it changes your length that's the duration part but the set part lets you lock in a new default
for your project so once you double tap that transition duration it's locked in your default
so the next time you drop a dissolve down on your timeline it's to that exact length
so maybe you want a short transition for you know getting a rid of pops and clicks or a
longer transition for music you don't have to go up to the settings menu each time to change that
default duration that default length so the set function on this transitions is freaking amazing
so if you can overlook these opportunities and focus on the pros like a professional
then i think the speed editor might be right for you and if you like this video at all
make sure to give it a like and if you want to learn more about the speed editor or davinci
resolve in general i have a tutorial playlist it's popping up right over here right now uh
it'll teach you everything you need to know about the speed editor about trimming about
multicam there's so much to learn so i'll see you over in that next video