Although open source video editing applications such as Kdenlinve, Openshot and Shotcut are fantastic non-linear editing solutions for Linux users, these are not applications that are used at Hollywood production level. But not so long ago, Blackmagic Design has decided to release a Linux version of its highly professional non linear video editing suite DaVinci Resolve to the Linux community for free. And this is not a completely stripped-down version of the commercial product, but offers almost all the functionalities that the paid version contains. And now Blackmagic Design has released version 15.1 with over 80 new improvements. Are you looking for a powerful video editing application under Linux that offers professional functionality, efficient workflow support as a focal point and is very robust and stable? DaVinci Resolve 15.1 is released for Linux. Let’s take a look at what it has to offer.
Video editing tools for Linux
If you are a fan of video editing, creating vlogs or editing semi-professional video, there are plenty of alternatives for the Linux operating system. There is a wide variety of applications available, from simple to very extensive, such as Shotcut, Openshot, Pitivi, Avidemux, Cinelerra and Flowblade. Video editing under Linux unfortunately has the name that it works well, but can be accompanied by frequent crashing. The Non Linear Editing solution Kdenlive proves itself to be a more stable application compared to the other Linux based editing applications, but has a steep learning curve. Kdenlive is one of the most powerful and feature rich open source non linear video editors (NLE) under Linux.
DaVinci Resolve for Linux
However, not long ago a very nice editing application for Linux has been added to this list: DaVinci Resolve. DaVinci Resolve from Blackmagic is a very professional application with its roots in color correction. When it was originally only a color correction tool, it was the go-to tool for many Hollywood films and major TV productions. In the following years, however, it has evolved into a complete editing suite with next to color correction, also non-linear editing and professional audio post production and is a serious alternative to Adobe Premiere and Final Cut X. And recently DaVinci Resolve is also available for the Linux platform. And perhaps the best thing is that there is a free version that is almost equivalent to the paid full version. For the open source purist, keep in mind that this is a free version of a commercial closed source offering.
What has DaVinci Resolve to offer
DaVinci Resolve offers a set of powerful tools for video editing, color correction, audio post production and with the previous release 15 visual effects as well. These functionalities are offered in a streamlined workflow. With a single click, you can instantly move between editing, color, effects, and audio. Plus, you never have to export or translate files between separate software tools because, with DaVinci Resolve 15, everything is in the same software application.
Start below video for a nice overview of all new stuff in the previous release.
Source: Blackmagic Design Youtube channel
Later in this article I will show what is new in release 15.1.
DaVinci Resolve has a number of working areas within the same application which work together seamlessly.
Edit
Creative editing with a familiar multi track timeline, dozens of edit styles, precision trimming, customizable keyboard, stackable timelines and more. The advanced trimming environment offers fast, context sensitive trimming tools, asymmetric trimming, dynamic and realtime trimming during live playback. Speed Effects that quickly create constant or variable speed changes, complete with ramps and editable speed curves. A timeline curve editor where you can animate and add keyframes for virtually any parameter or plug-in using the inspector or the integrated timeline curve editor.
Fusion
Fusion is an advanced internal compositing solution for visual effects artists and motion graphic animators. It offers resolution independent paint tools with flexible brush styles, blend modes and strokes for removing items or painting new elements. Rotoscoping isolates objects and other elements in a scene using bezier and B-spline tools to quickly draw and animate custom shapes. With the 3D Particle Systems you create swirling, sparkling effects in full 3D, complete with physics and behavioral forces like gravity, avoidance and bounce. With True 3D Compositing you combine live action with 3D models, cameras, lights and more in a true 3D workspace to create amazing photorealistic effects.
Color
The color correction module once was the sole purpose of DaVinci Resolve and is still one of the best in the industry. It offers traditional temperature control, tint, mid-tone detail, and more. There are curve editors to quickly sculpt contrast and highlight different shadow areas of an image with separate curves and soft clipping for each channel. You can work in high dynamic range and wide color space formats including Dolby Vision, HDR10 +, Hybrid Log Gamma, and more.
Fairlight
With Fairlight audio built in, you get a complete digital audio workstation with professional mixer, automation, metering, monitoring and sample level editing. It offers a full professional mixer with input selection, effects, inserts, EQ and dynamic graphs, output selection and more. You can add plugins like VST. There is advanced equalization. It lets you produce multi-layered recordings quickly and easily. Real time punch in your record at any time during live playback and you get a complete set of sophisticated ADR tools for replacing dialog.
Media
DaVinci Resolve offers advanced media management. You use the media page to import footage, sync audio and prepare it for editing. Simply drag and drop files from your storage into bins or even your timeline. Create free form or metadata based smart bins to organize clips. Use embedded metadata or add your own sync clips, change display names, manage starts and stops in Multicam angles. Quickly add multiple jobs to the render queue for batch processing. You can even offload output to another workstation.
DaVinci Resolve available for Linux but …
What is in my opinion a bit strange is that Blackmagic Design offers DaVinci Resolve in the base only for Linux Red Hat and CentOS Linux. That while the most popular Linux distributions are among others Ubuntu and Linux Mint. From design DaVinci Resolve does not run out of the box on distributions other than these preferred distributions, but that does not mean that it is not possible. In a later separate blog post I will explain how you can install DaVinci Resolve on Ubuntu-based distributions. That is not easy to do, but it is doable. Further in another later blog I will describe my own experiences with the use of DaVinci Resolve from a beginners perspective, as most of the readers of this website are probably in that section.
You can download the free Linux version of DaVinci Resolve 15.1 at the bottom of the DaVinci Resolve product page.
DaVinci Resolve 15.1 is released for Linux, so what is new
So DaVinci Resolve 15.1 is released for Linux. Like already said before the latest release of DaVinci Resolve contains more than 80 new and improved functionalities. So let’s highlight some of them. But have a look at the following visual summary by Blackmagic Design first.
Source: Blackmagic Design Youtube channel
RAW support
One of the important updates is the full support for the Blackmagic raw format. Like the unedited and uncompressed raw format in the photography world, raw in the video world gives you the same enormous flexibility to get the images to your hand without losing on other image quality aspects. Raw files contain all image information for the editing process, enabling you, among other things, to perform important high and low light recoveries.
Below overview of new and improved features comes from the release announcement on the Blackmagic forum.
Key new features
- Support for decoding Blackmagic RAW clips from Blackmagic Design cameras
- Support for audio ducking using sidechain compression in track dynamics in the Fairlight page
- Support for round tripping audio clips to third party audio processing applications from the Fairlight timeline
- Support for an IMF preset to generate Netflix IMF deliverables
- Support for creating and delivering supplemental IMF packages
- Support for Photon validation of IMF packages
Fairlight
- Support for audio ducking using sidechain compression in track dynamics
- Support for round tripping audio clips to third party audio processing applications from the Fairlight timeline
- Support for caching clips with FairlightFX and AudioFX
- Support for bouncing clips with FairlightFX and AudioFX to a new layer
- Support for sub-bus and aux-bus routing in nested timelines
- Support for solo-safe for audio tracks by Cmd/Ctrl+Option/Alt clicking the Solo button in the Fairlight mixer
- Support for pasting attributes to audio tracks
- Support for removing attributes from audio tracks
- Support for Fairlight FX Soft Clipper
- Support for clip level panning in the Edit and Fairlight page inspector
Fusion
- Support for creating and opening new Fusion compositions from the Media Pool
- Support for Fusion composition generators in the Edit page effects library for creating comps without source media
- Support for Loader nodes in the Fusion node graph
- Support for automatically scaling the frame range sliders to the edit range
Edit
- Support for showing source timecode overlays for audio and video tracks in the timeline viewer
- Support for displaying clip marker annotations and overlays for the selected clip marker under the playhead
- Support for holding shift while modifying title, transform and dynamic zoom viewer overlays to restrict motion to the vertical or horizontal direction
- Support for an indicator for clips with color grading and Fusion comp updates available in collaborative projects
- Support for actions to update either a single clip or all clips with color grading or Fusion comp updates in collaborative projects
- Support for duplicating multiple selected timelines in the media pool
- Support for displaying the multicam angle name in the timeline, source viewer and the color page clip information
- Support for keywords in clip and timeline markers
- Support for a marker keywords column on the edit index
- Support for exporting subtitle files in project archives
- Support for inserting media pool clips in order of filename when creating a timeline using clips
- Support for importing subclips when importing media from Final Cut Pro 7 XMLs
- Improved freeze-frame behavior to freeze the clip forward from the playhead instead of the whole clip
Color
- Support for ResolveFX and OpenFX static keyframes from the keyframe context menu
Support for ACES 1.1 - Support for accessing and selecting from multiple inputs for OpenFX nodes
- Support for modifying temperature and tint values in the Camera Raw widget without needing to manually set white balance to custom
- Improved behavior for the ResolveFX Warper plugin
Media and Deliver
- Support for decoding Blackmagic RAW clips from Blackmagic Design cameras
- Support for an IMF preset to generate Netflix IMF deliverables
- Support for creating and delivering supplemental IMF packages
- Support for Photon validation of IMF packages
- Support for stereoscopic 3D multi-view EXR files
- Support for encoding per frame timecode metadata in Grass Valley HQ and HQX clips
- Improved layer metadata support when importing PSD images in Fusion
General
- Lots of general performance and stability improvements
Credits: parts of the product descriptions in this blog are copied or partly based on text on the website of Blackmagic Design (https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/DaVinciresolve/) and the Blackmagic forum (https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=79204).
