DaVinci Resolve BEST Export Settings Explained! 18.6 UPDATE

[@orangespill]

Brilliant. Finally someone making an export video with some genuine knowledge behind it. Thanks so much...

[@kikiLafleurGlam]

THIS WAS AWESOME. I Watched a million videos and not one person gave the these export setting in such a way that made you feel like you understood the what and why for most of the features.

[@CharonFaustinus]

Network Optimization is basically faststart option in ffmpeg, it'll move "moov atom" to the beginning of the file. So having moov atom at the beginning of the file have a benefit with no impact of file size and quality. For example, when you upload it to KZbin, your video will get process instantly *while you're still uploading* This is because moov atom contains information about your video such as resolution, frame rate, and other information that require mp4 or mov container to function. (There are a lot of details about how mp4 container works. I'm not going to write it all in here.) This is the same reason why OBS said when you choose mp4 for recording format that the file will corrupt if there's BSOD or power outage. Because moov atom usually write at the end of the file in the finalizing process when you press stop recording. When there's BSOD the moov atom didn't finalize and result in the corrupted file.

[@EposVox]

Yup

[@svenwalter4293]

quality comment

[@ShravanParthasarathy]

As someone who just transitioned from Premiere to Resolve, this video is SUPER useful. Thank you!

[@hareblix]

I tried your export settings and they've made such a huge difference. File sizes are way down and upload speeds are up. Thanks for this fam!

[@unfriendme8236]

r u using mac or no?

[@hareblix]

@@unfriendme8236 Nope

[@CreativeMindsAudio]

those are some nice features! Looks like I’m gonna upgraded to the studio version. Between the subtitles, transcription stuff, and these export settings, it’s worth it.

[@tobiascrow2792]

The Holy Grail of DaVinci Exporting. Without any doubt, the BEST tutorial on the whole damn internet.

[@EposVox]

What an amazing comment. Thank you.

[@mystifyingentity]

Hey, I was checking out Davinci Resolve again after using it a few times before. I didn't really know what all the extra settings did, but your explanation was super clear! I realize now that I wasn't using the export features to their full potential.

[@Losliving]

I feel like I leveled up watching this. Appreciate you!

[@davidpikedesigns]

I was working on a video for my KZbin channel, and I wanted to say thanks for creating this video. It is so easy to just click the EposVox preset I created in DaVinci Resolve when I'm ready to export my video. Your video was so helpful. Thanks again!

[@livinghero]

Thank you! I always look forward to your deep dives on programs I use!

[@goironic]

amazing content this made a HUGE difference with my content. appreciate the great knowledge!

[@adam_tarantino]

Looking forward to using these suggestions on my next video! Definitely interested in the audio normalization. I typically would upload a test render and compare the content loudness dB to more popular creators so I know my loudness is on par with those.

[@TwinzEdiTz]

if you find it easier, in resolve, you can export everything on your timeline, in the fairlight page, as one audio file, once that file is rendered then you can right-click, analyze audio, to get the respective LUFS and Truepeak you are looking for, which youtube is -14 LUFS and -1 dbTP

[@no_categories]

oh wow. I've been jonesin' for an easier way to normalize audio for KZbin for EVER! I never even knew that feature was added and I'm so happy to have it now. Thanks for the demo of all these good settings.

[@ZachToupin]

Great video! Exports for KZbin - some say not to go full audio/video bitrates and color depth because then you are letting KZbin do the heavy lifting when it comes to compressing to their platform. Instead, they recommend having Resolve compress slightly higher over KZbin's recommended upload encoding settings. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this or if any testing has been done. I guess it can be hard to find out exactly KZbin's algorithm when it comes to these things.

[@EposVox]

I can explain in more depth in a different format better suited to long-form discussion sometime (comes up a lot on stream etc often) but short answer: those recommendations are incredibly misinformed about basically everything regarding video compression

[@NurseLee]

You are the man! I'm currently switching to Davinci Resolve from Adobe. thank you so much EposVox!

[@JeremyLeech]

I started exporting my 1080p videos to 4k and the quality is way better. The bitrate, everyone says to crank it but automatic does seem to work well. I’ll have to test it some more

[@IchBinDerJesko]

This is all I was looking for. Great video...finally I know what to set everything with a good reasoning behind it

[@HVYCHKNRADIO]

Thanks for the video I’ve been using Resolve after the update and you explained the export settings impeccably.

[@LetsBFME]

Excellent video! Would you consider doing an updated video on color spaces and ranges in OBS for recording gaming videos? You have a video on this from a few years ago, but I feel like an update on this topic would be very useful. In particular, ideal settings for recording (maybe streaming?) both legacy SDR games and modern HDR game would be very helpful. Thanks!

[@TheChartreuseLeprechaun]

Thanks for this! Been waiting to upgrade! So much good stuff! Again, thanks for the coverage!!

[@randomcontent2625]

Thanks for the settings. Resulted in my best quality upload to YT so far.

[@ChipLovesCoffee]

I tried this on my first upload and i still get really bad artificting and blockiness :( I uploaded multiple unlisted videos as well trying out various codecs. Still get this weird blockiness.

[@randomcontent2625]

@@ChipLovesCoffee Your video looks good. Actually looks clearer than mine. I just used this guys settings for the free version of Davinci, using the 265 codec as he recommended. I record with OBS at 1080p.

[@ChipLovesCoffee]

@@randomcontent2625 Thanks :) I have the paid version though but i did try both his video steps and his template with similar results. I appreciate the compliment again but i still think my video looks kinda bad in dark scenes/fast motion which is what cod zombies/cod is :( Maybe its ok for now though especially since I'm brand new :)

[@AndieNow]

Whoaaaa thank you!!! seeing an instant change upload speed and quality. Subscribed!!

[@michellemartincreative]

Thank you for this! I just made my first ever KZbin video and this was so helpful to understand the export settings and get my video out there. Thanks for sharing!

[@travflame]

Thank you a lot, this helped me to maximize the quality of my videos. Good stuff!

[@GespachoGrande]

Awesome. I've been using Adobe Audition for loudness. Having it included in the rocket panel of DR eliminates that cumbersome extra step.

[@EposVox]

Yup!!

[@EposVox]

Now we just need presets for VSTs etc to save :/

[@digitalcity1]

The Fairlight page in Resolve has had loudness metering for years with all the standards. You didn't need Audition.

[@EposVox]

@@digitalcity1 It had *metering*, not an easy way to automatically normalize the whole mix that way

[@ImnotAbelsuni34]

Thank you so much! I just started learning Resolve, and this helped a lot.

[@oslthom]

All great points. I'll note one point where I'll dare to disagree, specifically exporting final audio in 24bit. 16bit for masters is perfectly sufficient and indistinguishable in audio quality from 24 bit. On the raw recording and processing side you always want 24bit or more for maximum headroom and flexibility, but for the master 16bit is plenty, because everything already sits where it needs to. Please disagree if I'm missing a good reason to export in 24bit.

[@TheHeruJourney]

Man, that was so helpful. Subscribed and liked, highly deserved! Keep'em coming please.

[@EposVox]

Thanks, will do!

[@TheHeruJourney]

@@EposVox Can I ask what settings do you recommend for KZbin, in Project Settings > Color Management? Thanks!

[@MathNerdGamer]

I typically export DNxHR and then use ffmpeg to encode after-the-fact. It's actually very easy to set up all the latest and fanciest ffmpeg features using the media autobuild suite, and this completely bypasses any export issues I used to have with Resolve.

[@EposVox]

Sounds good for the free version, but would be mostly wasted effort for Studio users

[@caveman3703]

Such a great video, super in depth and exactly what I need. I am just as obsessed as you are with quality :D

[@Sopotastic]

Best video ever super informative 🎉🎉🎉 thanks man

[@BenjaminBjurstrom]

Hey, just wanted to say thanks for a making the preset available. Just used it and it turned out great!

[@steviehowie]

This is GREAT info! Thank you thank you :) I might suggest turning down some of your film grain and the extreme blue hue on the video, but tons of great knowledge in here.

[@Eofold]

This video helped me so much! Thank you so so much in return. I really appreciate your work.

[@ForesightJo]

Thank you for communicating this stuff so well!

[@frozennorthproductions]

All of my videos are .mov h.265 with pcm audio and I noticed none of them had audio when uploading to patreon, so I actually had to render them again using .mp4 with aac audio due to compatibility. The same applies for Plex, not all devices can stream PCM so to avoid constant transcoding, it's worth noting that even though .mov with pcm is far better, .mp4 with aac is basically guaranteed to work on every single platform and every single device that exists.

[@meronmountains7052]

Thank you so much for making this video! I'm very new to Davinci. I've spent two weeks learning how to edit my project and now I am finally ready to export it! I've watched soooo many KZbin tutorials on the correct export settings that my head is spinning! I just want to make simple videos for KZbin using Iphone 15 camera. (No ProRes or Raw footage) I am not worried about mega quality, just want it to be decent and keep the file small and render time fast. (I'm using a MacBookPro.) Thanks for the extra tip about Audio Normalization: KZbin Mode....got that box checked! Hoping your setting will work for me.

[@tripparian8913]

Amazing video! Thanks for explaining the whys! Great content!

[@EnCoreLabTV]

Thank you very much for your tips. I will apply them right from my nearest rendering.

[@GamerHeavenOfficial]

Very helpful, thank you.

[@madkingalger]

Hey Epos, great video as always! Been a long time viewer (just subscribed on this account, as I didn't even realize I wasn't already), and I wanted to touch base with you regarding some information you have in this video and an older video of yours. To preface, I currently stream on twitch and don't do much editing, but use DVR to cut up my streams into slightly smaller videos to upload as VODs to YT. In your previous OBS 29.1 BETA video, you stated with the new lossless audio encoders, you would be recording using Fragmented MOV (once it works), Nvidia NVENC HEVC, and 32 bit PCM. I have been using these settings to record/ stream at the same time and the quality has been superb and great for editing in DVR, but due to me streaming 5+ hours twice a week, it generates MASSIVE file sizes (some being 100+ GB), and storage has been rough. To get to the point of my comment, you mention in this video that you should render your videos in 1440p or 4k due to how YT encodes/renders 1080p footage. Are the settings you listed in your OBS video the best settings necessary to ensure that the final upscaled render quality has the least amount of issues (artifacting, noise, etc.)? Or are those settings extreme overkill for doing something like recording at the same time as streaming? To add to this, I currently stream at 936p (as I've seen many videos stating it is less resource heavy for single PC set ups and is more optimal for fast paced content) and record at 1080p with your above preset. I understand that I could easily set my OBS recording video encoder to the stream encoder in order to save resources as I am on a single PC set up, but I am unsure how to physically test the pros/cons of each encoder, and what that would mean for my overall work flow. Without having to make you pool over my pc specs, how would you go about optimizing the video quality to system intensity ratio from recording/streaming in OBS to upscaling in DVR? Is having separate streaming/recording settings completely suboptimal for my use case? Sorry for the long essay, I am sure you are very busy and hope this long comment doesn't come across as too much, but thank you again for the video and any insight you may have! (P.S., I would love to know if you have any recommendations for programs/systems that can help compress these massive file sizes, as my external hard drive can only handle so much lol)

[@ShishaWG]

Unfortunately i dont have the AV1 on my Mac but i am able to export Quicktime h265 with Main 4:2:2 10 - going to try that - Thank you for all the work you put into this :)

[@jeromelightbody5155]

This is such a beautiful video definitely, will be sharing this

[@anyadunstone7548]

Thank you 🙏 this has been super helpful. very appreciated 🙏

[@_fluxreversal]

YES!!!! So timely for me as I am dealing with this right now!

[@theirregular013]

These are good tips. I'm using DaVinci for color grading and Vegas for rendering. I uploaded both a 4k h264 and 4k h265 video to test on youtube and they came back visually identical. Note I'm editing anime and gameplay footage captured in 1440p. Gonna stick to h264 for speed/efficiency tradeoff for the same results. Will however be switching to flac instead of aac for maximum uncompressed input for yt.

[@rickclise.creative]

Wow! Excellent content and tutorial. Thanks very much for sharing.

[@demon6937]

Thank for this i was using the H264 and the rendering time was 3hrs for a 5hr video once I used the H265 the rendering time was drastically lowered to 30mins

[@tailaihaha]

thank u sir! Very informational! Helps me a lot on what these settings exactly are! Appreciate it!

[@AranFever]

Excellent explaining, thank you!

[@SpitfireSpud]

This was a great video. When you say Automatic for best results etc... Is this the same for HDR content too?? As I normally set my Encoding Profile to Main 4:4:4 10 or Main 4:2:2 10, I can't remember off the top which one. Cheers! Also, when you are not using the inspector, you normally have 2 preview windows, which one is the best for getting an idea of what it will look like after render? or is the Render/Deliver page the best place to get a real preview of what it will look like. Thanks.

[@timothybolden9955]

Thanks for the vid! In the transition from premiere to Davinci. This helps a lot!

[@AxeRugby]

Mate this was class. thankyou, would pay for your tutorial when it comes out.

[@Ishimuro]

So much great information! Going to try the switch from Premiere to davinci next year and will come back to this video xD

[@Eddy04tv]

I will definitely going to try this out. Thank you Adam.

[@BigThingsTour]

Thanks Heaps Great Video Lots of great info!!

[@Hazardteam]

This is a very useful video. And concise.

[@iamdriy]

2:17 The BIG asterisk here is that setting your render cache format to something like DNxHR HQ or ProRes 422 HQ will QUICKLY fill up your drive as Resolve has no real cache management system. As an example, I just finished my first project consisting of about ~30GB of raw 4K footage, using these settings, my cache took up 1.5TB of space by the time I finished my project, and since Resolve has no real cache management system as mentioned earlier, you have to manually delete it. How frequently? Well that depends on how large your drive is. For most people (who aren't doing heavy color grading using cached media) I'd argue that it's better to set the optimized media and render cache to something lower quality like DNxHR LB, and then in the advanced settings (10:33) I would uncheck "Use optimized media" and "Use render cached images" and just bite the bullet of longer render times.

[@CrashGame]

Thank you! These give me great results!

[@BrandonBurch]

This is super useful 🎉 DR 18.6 FTW!

[@Redfoetus]

Thank you so much for this video dude ! 🔥

[@Helio4k]

Great Video as Usual, Thank you for the presets :)

[@collinausbury]

Insanely helpful thank you brother. Subbed.

[@gster109]

Perfect information as always !!

[@joanharmonize]

The one export setting video that I will be keeping for future reference for sure. Thanks for this buddy! Quick question regarding baking subtitles into the video in the export setting, doesn’t this mean that your video will always have the subtitle when in reality some people may prefer the option to have it turned off? Or have I missed something obvious here?

[@EposVox]

It's still a separate track, just to have in the master. Doesn't show on KZbin - user still has to turn that on in the player

[@ElieHaykal]

Very informative video. Thank you for giving great tips for us who upload videogame content.

[@__Nicholas__]

Could you make a video that slightly enhances the quality of the video? For instance, Microsoft Edge has a feature that you can find when you hover over a video that you're watching called 'enhance' that slightly makes the video better, where the colors/sharpness/clarity/etc. all gets slightly improved.

[@SEEK2FLY]

New subscriber here, This is gold dude thanks so much.

[@EposVox]

Thanks for subscribing!

[@joshelias8472]

Great video! I have a problem though, I don't seem to have the main 422 10 encoder setting. Do you know why that is? I have the Studio 19

[@RandomPatDunn]

awesome tips with the storage locations! SUBBED UP!

[@EposVox]

Thanks for the sub!

[@Drakoviche]

First off great video very informative! Just wondering for my case I am doing gaming content / live streams and I was wondering if when I edit it, should I do 4k 30 fps or 2k 59.9 fps or 60 fps? Mostly high motion action style games through obs

[@FloydVDocDeVore]

Thank you very much for making a useful video about export. I recently upgraded to DR19 Studio and I see under Audio Normalization a checkbox "Output Track1" that was not in 18.6.x. Should I check that box for KZbin (or other platforms)?

[@jmurray2018]

Great video where’s the export settings located ?

[@youtubewatcher6933]

6:41 your face and your beard is just like stoicism statue. Experienced and wise. I like it.

[@DmoYuKusho]

Should I use H.265 for my proxy media resolution in my project settings if my Export Settings is also H.265?

[@ech33]

Im using da vinci resolve studio 19, but my encoding profile has mo other option except main. Why is that? Thanks

[@NatLifeSounds]

I'm using your settings, really helpful. But one thing I can't change is bitrait. I'm still using 80000kb/s for my 24fps video from BM 6k Braw, I just afraid that automatic can change it somehow

[@YoPeteyYoPetey]

Amazing and super useful thank you so much for this 🤩🤩🤩🙌🙌🙌

[@RogerEngland]

Wow, impressive video! Thank you.

[@Tonellacam]

sorry do we chose Main 10 or Main 4:2:2 10 for encoding profile ? thanks in advance , I don't know if I got what you said there because you say use main 10 but on your screen you selected Main 4:2:2 10

[@toxicjester]

Same question there .

[@outlawkings6133]

Very usefull video. Thanks. What about Format MKV/ Codec AV1/Type Intel - there few options for Rate Control. Which one is the best and what best settings forit if we doing 4k export? We can choose between: - Constant QP/ - Constant Bitrate/ - Variable Bitrate/ -Intelligent Constant-Quality ? I suggest it must Constant QP but there 3 values QP I - 87 QP P - 112 QP B - 134 Do we need to change them if Constant QP is best option for AV1 export with intel ARC graphics cards?

[@jasonzdora]

I was waiting to comment about the lack of PCM audio in MP4. I made a video showing the differences and Im so glad you mentioned that! side note: Why they limit the AAC format to 192kbps on Windows (even on the Studio version) is a mystery to me.

[@GespachoGrande]

I have DR 18.5 Studio on Winbloze and it goes up to 320. Relatively recently though.

[@EposVox]

My Studio still only has 192. Odd

[@Jonathan_Elizer]

same here@@GespachoGrande

[@bsv01]

Thank you for this settings. I am not only make better video quality but alsow make faster render because it starts utilising my graphics card for free Davinci!

[@stormsofevermore]

The PCM Linear is awesome. I'm recording my music at 24/96 so this keeps everything perfect. Question though... as a musician/mixer I would think that in my case (music videos) selecting normalization of audio) would mess up any automation in the song such as adding a few dbs making the song pop here and there for choruses etc., Unless you're saying KZbin is going to do that anyway automatically? Thanks, mate! I owned the Lewitt 640 when it first came out... nice mics. Now I'm all about the Vanguard Audio V13. I've owned roughly 40 to 50 mics. Take care

[@joshuau.]

Very helpful! Thank you!

[@AGuyCommenting]

Right on! That’s pretty cool how much ya can do to ensure your videos are in best quality. For the exporting in 10-bit, I’m curious to wonder if there’d be any quality difference if the source footage was recorded in 8-bit? Other than that though, really nice tips!

[@goshorts]

There won't be any quality increase since the original clip was 8-bit. 10-bit export will only create a larger file.

[@kylemckenna]

Excellent video! Do you still recommend normalizing audio while editing or just using the export normalize option for youtube?

[@EposVox]

You still need to balance your levels of different tracks and have your overall mix in the right ballpark, but for KZbin videos and such I wouldn't bother trying to perfectly normalize it during edit IMO

[@kylemckenna]

@@EposVox appreciate it!

[@flare6030]

I currently only have 1 SSD and 1 HDD, what would be the best workflow for recording clips, cache, and exports? If I buy another SSD should I use the HDD and what for? Is it better to use the HDD for exports or recording clips? Right now I just have everything on an SSD. Thanks

[@HeyImJanC]

My guy, good tutorial but my color grading changed to everything more red in the export which looked horrible. How do I fix that?

[@ESBKLife]

Thx for this!! However, the "Network Optimization" feature doesn't work for me for some reason. When rendering, it will get to 99% then stall and never finish. This only happens when "Network Optimization" is selected, so I just don't use that feature. Everything else works great!!!!

[@НИИВВ]

thanks for audio tips its useful for noobs who dont know how to work with sound!

[@JohnCiber]

The only feature I miss from Premiere is read Wav files cue markers

[@globalfinancetrading]

Bro gets a view every time I export a video from Davinci Resolve. Thanks for these settings, this helped alot!

[@EposVox]

Glad it helped!

[@motionblurgamer]

My experience with the Automatic Best profile in DaVinci Resolve is completely different from yours. The export quality has been so much better for me if I restrict bitrate myself. It seems that the "Best" don't select a high enough bitrate to preserve details properly. Maybe a difference between Mac and PC? Different Hardware encoders?

[@EposVox]

Well I've gotten identical results on PC and Mac, having only just switched to Mac within the past month or so.

[@infernalreapers]

@@EposVox @motionblurgamer I had the same issue with automatic bitrate while exporting HDR color graded files. Maybe in SDR or not spuer high quality projects Auto works fine.

[@WeekendGamerTX]

Thank you very much for this. I appreciate it.

[@rollvideo]

Unless I'm mistaken; I think a lot has changed to the Preferences and Project Settings. I changed some of your suggested settings but I get the impression that BMD has deleted some of them due to recent efficiencies inside DR. Would it be worth making an updated video on this subject so its easier to follow along?

[@EposVox]

Nothing has changed from this video to now o_O

[@__Nicholas__]

These are the best by far

[@ProducerMode]

Please make the full course available on KZbin, thanks.

[@steivene2hot915]

From Adobe Premiere Pro to Davinci Resolve Studio, will look into this. Sucks Adobe does not support AV1 but they Davinci is way better!