Our favorite free video editor is now even more powerful
Lights, camera, action for DaVinci Resolve 18
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After months in beta, Blackmagic Design has officially launched DaVinci Resolve version 18, with the latest edition of the free video editor app packed full of goodies for editing professionals.
DaVinci Resolve18 is a major update to thebest free video editing software, with a slew of under-the-hood performance boosts and cloud-based capabilities.
Version 18 is available as afree downloadnow, with the company recommending professional editors upgrade to the paid-for Resolve Studio 18 for features such as “support for multiple GPUs,4Koutput, motion blur effects, temporal and spatial noise reduction, de-interlacing,HDRtools, camera tracker, multiple Resolve FX, 3D stereoscopic tools and remote rendering.”
What’s new in DaVinci Resolve 18?
In recent years, DaVinci Resolve has seen a surge in popularity from film & TV professionals. Offering a genuine, Hollywood-gradealternative to Adobe Premiere ProandAppleFinal Cut, the non-linear editing software has been deployed in major productions likeDune,Godzilla vs. Kong,andBlack Widow.
Little wonder, then, that topnew featuresin the DaVinci Resolve update focus on streamlining workflows for experienced editors.
Chief among the upgrades is the welcome integration of Blackmagic Cloud, the company’scloud storagesolution, which enables teams to host, manage, and remotely collaborate on cloud-based projects. A new proxy generator app has also been added, which will automatically create proxies linked to the source footage to help speed up workflows.
One of the best free video editors just became an even better option>Apple promises Final Cut Pro upgrades in response to backlash>The latest Adobe Premier Pro release brings simplicity to video editing at last
Designers and motion graphic artists working withVFX softwarecan expect new Resolve FX presets, extending the existing library of tools. In the same vein, Fusion - Resolve’s free and built-inAdobe After Effects alternative- has been granted performance enhancements, including faster GPU accelerated paint tools.
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Resolve’s post-productionaudio editortool, Fairlight, has also been tweaked, with small quality-of-life improvements alongside bigger changes, such as native support for Dolby Atmos on Linux and Apple silicon.
On the accessibility side, DaVinci Resolve 18 has rolled out a raft of subtitling improvements, like support for timed text TTML, XML and embedded MXF/IMF subtitles, the ability to view and import subtitles from storage, and region support for multiple captions per track.
A word of warning
DaVinci Resolve users can get their hands on the upgraded version now. However, Blackmagic Design notes that the newest version of the software for video editing “requires a project library upgrade from DaVinci Resolve 17.4.6 and previous versions. We strongly recommend that you backup your existing (disk based and PostgreSQL based) project libraries before performing an upgrade.”
Steve is TechRadar Pro’s B2B Editor for Creative & Hardware. He began in tech journalism reviewing photo editors and video editing software at the magazine Web User, where he also covered technology news, features, and how-to guides. Today, he and his team of reviewers test out a range of creative software, hardware, and office furniture. Once upon a time, he wrote TV commercials and movie trailers. Relentless champion of the Oxford comma.
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