The future of Davinci Resolve?! 18.6.6 update

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Something big is coming. I can feel it. I

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can feel it in my bones, I

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tell ya. But it's not today.

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Today, Blackmagic released the DaVinci

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Resolve 18.6.6 update.

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And it's not really all that

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interesting, to be honest, for the vast

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majority of users. We've

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got things like the ability to

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encode Panasonic AVC150 in MXFOP atom

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format. Cool. As well as

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some other stuff like options

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to encode Big Endian and then address

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some other issues, general

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performance and stability

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improvements. Now, seeing this update pop

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up on my computer today

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made me realise we haven't had

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a substantial update to DaVinci Resolve

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for quite some time. About 12

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months. You see, it was last

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April 2023, just before NAB when they

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introduced DaVinci Resolve

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18.5. And that was the last big

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one. Really, we've had some stuff since

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then, but the last real big

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major update was in April last

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year. And 18.5 was a pretty massive one.

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It introduced things like

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the AI generated subtitles

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and the AI speech to text function,

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timeline level colour

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management, the remote monitoring,

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the relight tools, the cut page update

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and the ability to

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stabilise multiple videos in one big

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go, which was super duper handy. And of

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course, the ability to

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upload directly to TikTok. So,

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generally, a pretty good bunch of

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introductions, new features to DaVinci

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Resolve. Following on

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from 18.5, they did a couple of small

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updates when they were just adding new

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languages and doing a

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couple of bug fixes and that sort of

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thing. And then in September of last

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year, they introduced

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DaVinci Resolve 18.6. Now, this was quite

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a chunky one. It did

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add some funky stuff,

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but it's mostly based around the

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Blackmagic Cloud workflow and the

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Blackmagic Cloud storage. They

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did the little update. They obviously

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introduced the Blackmagic 6K camera as

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well as the Blackmagic

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app for iPhone. And then it was all talk

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about cloud stuff.

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Obviously, they can't do 18.5

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levels of new stuff every single time,

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but you know what I'm

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saying. They also introduced some

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other handy new things like the audio

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normalisation on renders, which I use all

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the time. It's really,

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really good. And they did the pretty

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substantial actually

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improvements to the GPU accelerated

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effects. If you're using an AMD or an

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Nvidia card on Windows, everything just

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got literally twice as

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fast, which was super useful. Since then,

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we've had DaVinci Resolve 18.6.1, 2, 3,

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4, 5, and as of today,

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18.6.6. And nearly all of them have just

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added support for new

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cameras, support for new codecs,

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maybe having some gyros, stabilisation

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abilities for the new 6K

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camera, as well as lots and lots

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of bug fixes and general performance and

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stability improvements, which is not a

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bad thing. Whenever a

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new DaVinci Resolve update comes out that

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has loads of new features, I

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always get a bunch of comments

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saying, I wish that stop adding new

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things and go back and fix some of the

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old bugs. That's kind of

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what they have been doing for the past

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however many months, six, seven, eight

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months, whatever it's

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been. So, you know, DaVinci Resolve

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should be smoother and more

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stable, hopefully. It's now

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March 2024, as you probably are fully

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aware, and we have NAB just

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around the corner. So that's

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happening in Vegas. As always, it's

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Saturday the 13th of April until

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Wednesday the 17th of April.

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Now I will be there. I'm heading over to

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Vegas for my second annual

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NAB. So if you're there and

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you want to say hello, come say hello.

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And NAB, just like last

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year, is where Blackmagic save up

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some of their big announcements. They

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showed off the app and they

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showed off 18.5 and then they

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did a bit of talk about all the AI stuff.

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So I think that's probably

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going to be happening again

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this year. It feels like because nothing

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new has been added, they're kind of

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saving it up for one

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big update, hopefully, at NAB next month.

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So what big new stuff is

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going? I don't know, honestly.

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I have no real idea of what to expect for

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this one. This time last

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year, we all had a rough idea

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that the AI generated captions or

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subtitles were coming. So when they

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arrived, it was great news,

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but it wasn't necessarily a massive

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surprise because lots of

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people online had been hammering

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on about having auto generated captions

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and subtitles in

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DaVinci Resolve. So, you know,

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this year though, I don't really know. It

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kind of feels like they've

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added an awful lot and there

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is a lot to get to grips with in DaVinci

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Resolve already. And it

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doesn't feel like any of the

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competition are doing anything

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particularly above where Resolve is now.

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So what can we expect? I'd

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love to know your thoughts. Let me know

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down in the comments below.

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I made some rough notes of

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things which I think maybe, and I'm just

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going to throw them out

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there into the world because

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why not? First one, sticking with those

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auto subtitles in

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Resolve. I know lots of people

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would like some improvements to those

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because they can't really be

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animated or stylized as they

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are at the moment. And lots of people

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want some new abilities and they want to

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be able to customize

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them and maybe turn them into text plus.

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There are some third party

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people, third party people,

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party people. There are third party

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people doing stuff. I've

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linked them down below. So Patrick

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did a video introducing you to one tool

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which runs scripts and

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allows you to do that. And there's

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another chap which also introduced a

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subtitles tool as well. So

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I've linked those down below.

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Spell check. I don't really see the need

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for it personally. I've

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never felt the need to have a

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spell check in DaVinci Resolve. But

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whenever there's an update, there's

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always a bunch of comments

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saying I'd love to see spell check in

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DaVinci Resolve. So maybe they'll

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introduce that. I don't

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know. But whatever it is, I think AI is

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probably going to be a big

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part of it. AI is everywhere at

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the moment. You can't really get away

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from it. Artificial

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intelligence is the thing. It's making

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its way into everything. So maybe we're

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going to get some more cool

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AI features on top of what's

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already there. Auto subtitles, speech to

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text, the magic mask, the voice

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isolation. Oh, talking of

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voice isolation. We still don't have the

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reverse voice isolation. I

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know lots of people want that

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and actually does make sense. So if

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you've been out and about

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recording some b-roll and you want

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the ambient noise and someone is

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yabbering away, have a reverse isolation,

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which just gets rid of

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the voice from the audio track. I think

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that would actually be kind

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of cool. Actually, I'm quite

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useful. There is something which Adobe in

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Premiere Pro still has,

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which Resolve doesn't. And that's

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their music feature, which is really

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quite cool. So it allows you to re-time

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music to fit your edit.

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So you can make songs longer or shorter

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and it will kind of cut it up

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and fill in the gaps for you

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so that it all kind of fits. So maybe

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we're going to see more of these AI

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features, which are just

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there to speed up your workflow and make

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your editing a bit easier

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and a little bit faster and

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do some funky stuff. I don't personally

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think we're going to see any of the

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generative AI stuff.

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So things like your auto image creations

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and your generative fills

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and all that sort of thing.

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Purely because that needs a subscription.

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It does. You need to

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pay for that sort of thing

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and it needs a subscription. All the

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generative AI stuff needs to

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be sent up to the cloud where

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the AI can work its magic. It has tons

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and tons of resources for it

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to look through. It's a big

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thing, which can then generate the small

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thing, which you've asked

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for. That can't really be sat

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locally. Even something like the auto

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subtitles, it needs all of the words and

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all of the languages

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to be stored locally on your machine,

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which takes up loads and

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loads of room. If you try to do

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generative AI locally, the DaVinci

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Resolve install would

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balloon massively. It'd be huge.

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So all of that stuff does need to be sent

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up to the cloud for

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that processing to happen.

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And they just don't think Blackmagic are

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going to want to do that.

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They're not going to want to

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implement all that stuff and then start

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charging subscription fees

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because we know how they feel

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about subscription fees, although they

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are happy to do subscription fees when

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it's relevant because

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you've got the Blackmagic cloud. I don't

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know. I just can't see it,

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but who knows? Maybe they will.

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Maybe they'll surprise us and throw out

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some really cool, super

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clever, super advanced stuff.

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Or maybe we won't see any of that and

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we'll see a new take on

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the edit page or it'll be

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slightly redesigned or we'll see

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something else. Maybe they'll finally

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bring some of the cool

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cut page features over to the edit page.

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That would be nice.

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Maybe. I don't know. I'm just

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waffling because I've got a coffee.

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There's no update out and

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I fancied talking about it.

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So there you go. So honestly, I have no

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idea what to expect this

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time around, but I do feel it.

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Feel that something's coming and we're

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going to get a nice big

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update ahead of NAB. I may well be

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wrong. I've been wrong in the past and I

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will definitely be wrong

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again in the future. But who

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knows? It does feel like it's been quite

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a long time and I think something is

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brewing. Let me know

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what you think down in the comment

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section below. I'll be sure to update you

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when something does come

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through. Enjoy editing. Happy days. Fun

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times. See you next time.