Hi everyone, Kevin here. Today, we're going to look at how you can both download and install
DaVinci Resolve entirely for free. DaVinci Resolve is professional grade video editing software,
and I personally use it to edit all of the videos on this channel. At the very end, I'll also share
how you can improve the performance of DaVinci Resolve, even if you happen to be using less
capable hardware. Let's check this out. To get DaVinci Resolve, head to the following website.
You can click on the card right up above or the link down below in the description.
Once you land on this website, click on the button that says free download now. And this opens up a
pop-up and there are four different options here. So, which one should you choose? Right up on top,
you have the beta version, and this contains all the latest functionality, but it may be a
little bit less stable. Down below you have the release version and it'll be more stable. Now,
at least for me personally, I like being on the cutting edge. So, I would recommend going with one
of the beta releases. DaVinci Resolve comes in two different versions. Over on the left-hand side,
you have DaVinci Resolve, and this is the free version. If you just don't want to pay anything,
I'd recommend going with that. Over on the right-hand side, you have what's referred to as
DaVinci Resolve Studio. So, what's the difference and why would you want to go with Studio?
Studio costs a one-time $295, and it gives you access to all future updates. You can also
install it on up to two different PCs. With Studio and by paying that money, it unlocks
additional features. For example, you get AI tracking, you also get additional plugins. Here,
for instance, I can apply this beauty filter to myself and now my skin looks a lot smoother.
You can also render videos faster. You could also render videos in 8K quality or higher.
Those are just a few of the benefits you get. But again, the free version will give you 98,
99% of what you need and it'll get you started. On this channel, my first few hundred videos
were all made using the free version, and I only recently upgraded to Studio because I wanted to
experiment with some of the additional features. So, I would recommend starting with free. If you
are thinking about going the Studio route, I would recommend buying it through a retailer like B&H.
I've included a link down below in the description that supports this channel. Here, you can buy a
speed editor for $395, and that includes a license to DaVinci Resolve. It makes editing so much more
efficient. Once you've made your choice, click on the platform that you'd like to install DaVinci
Resolve on, and then you'll need to fill out some information about yourself, and then that'll kick
off the download. You might be wondering why would they give away such amazing software for free?
They want you in their ecosystem. They want you to learn their software and to grow with it. And
as you grow, you'll probably want to purchase some audio panels, some color panels, maybe one
of their cameras, and they want to be the one to sell that to you. It's really a long-term play.
As you grow and as you do well, they also do well. I really like their business model.
Hopefully now you have DaVinci Resolve and next, I want to show you a few tips that you can use to
make your editing experience smoother, even if you happen to be using older hardware.
When I click on this play icon over here, right up in the top right-hand corner,
you'll see how many frames per second that you're getting. Right now, I'm getting 29.97 and there
was also a green circle. That means it was playing back smoothly, but sometimes it doesn't play back
smoothly and that's really painful when you're trying to edit a video. One of the best ways to
get smoother performance, over in your media pool, here I have two video clips already imported. Here
I could select these two media clips and then I can right click on them. Within this menu, there's
the option to generate proxy media. Proxy media is a lower resolution version of the video file
that you can edit. And once you're ready to render your final video, it'll use the original clip for
that render. So, this just ensures that you get a smoother editing experience. Here, I'll click on
generate proxy media. The one downside is that it may take some time to generate that proxy media.
When I look in my media pool now, you'll see this icon that indicates that this is a proxy file. To
make sure that DaVinci Resolve uses this proxy file while you're editing, up on top, click on
the playback menu and here there's the option for proxy handling. Make sure that this option that
says prefer proxies is checked. This way it'll use that proxy file that you just generated. You might
be wondering what is the quality of that proxy file and in DaVinci Resolve, you can define that.
Let's go over to the file menu and then go down to project settings. This opens up the
project settings and I'm currently in the master settings. Let's scroll down just a little bit,
right down to the optimized media and render cache category. And here you can define what the proxy
media resolution is. If you want smooth playback, I'd recommend experimenting, but here I have
quarter selected. I typically edit 4k video. So, when I select quarter, this means I'm working with
a 1920 by 1080p file, and that'll be a little bit easier for my computer to work with. Over here,
you can also select the proxy media format and I currently have it set to standard quality. This
is a lower bandwidth format compared to let's say the high-quality format. Over here, you can also
define the optimized media resolution and also the format. Down here, you can also select the render
cache format, and then you have many different settings related to caching various transitions,
composites, or even fusion effects. With the cache, DaVinci Resolve will go through and
let's say with the transition, it'll render that once. And then if you play it again, it'll rely on
the cache instead of needing to re-render it and that results in improved performance. Once you
go through and configure all of these settings, you probably don't want to have to do this for
every single project that you work on. In the top right-hand corner, you can click on the three dots
or the ellipsis, and here you have the option to set the current settings as the default preset. I
would recommend doing that. Once you're all done, click on save down below. To use the new cache
settings, up on top, let's click into the playback menu and let's go down to the render cache option,
currently it's set to none, but you can set it to smart where DaVinci Resolve handles the caching,
or you could select user and this will match all of the settings that you configured in the
project settings. One additional change that I recommend making. Within this playback menu,
click into timeline proxy resolution. Currently it sets a full, but you can reduce it all the way
down to quarter, and here you'll notice that the image in the preview area, isn't quite as sharp,
but it should result in much smoother playback. One important thing to note, although the
resolution doesn't look quite as good here, when you go to render or export your project,
it'll rely on the original files. So, although we're using proxy files and we've adjusted the
timeline resolution, that won't at all affect the final video that you render. All right,
well, hopefully you’re now up and running with DaVinci Resolve. If you now want to learn how
to use DaVinci Resolve, be sure to check out the video right up above. There you'll set up
your very first video and you'll start telling your story. It's really great place to start. To
watch more videos like this one, please consider subscribing and I’ll see you in the next video.