Export and Render Settings in DaVinci Resolve for Delivery and Archive

[@JohnnyAllen_]

Its not every day Christopher Nolan teaches you professional davinci skills. Thank you good sir!

[@thedxrrkside]

Half way watching the video....and wow!...Thanks a lot

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Appreciate that a lot!

[@andrewmason8691]

I'm loving your videos, Josh. It makes me want to start being nice to Kiwis, which is not easy for an Aussie. Jokes, of course. But your videos giving me insight into areas I haven't heard before. Thanks.

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Haha! Well i'm stoked i've got some Aussies watching 🤣. Thanks for the support!

[@josephjwoods66]

I learned a lot, great video. Thanks for sharing!

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Thanks Joseph!

[@camnai50]

Thank you, sir. Perfect succinct delivery. I've learned more from this video than any other on this subject. Subscribed in an instant.

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Cheers! Welcome to the channel!

[@michelecattaneo]

Hi Joshua, your export system is very interesting. Well done!

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Thanks Michele, glad it was interesting.

[@MedusaJellyFish300]

This video was wonderful, wonderful, thank you for your knowledge. 🌹

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

You're welcome.

[@jamestramm2327]

Thanks for putting this online. Really helped me.

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Glad it helped out.

[@MedusaJellyFish300]

Wow, thank you for this wonderful topic. You are the best. 🌺

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Thanks!

[@geoffreymee7671]

So well explained Joshua. I've subscribed - thank you.

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Awesome, thank you!

[@criddyla696]

Nice and clear pal, cheers ...

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Thanks!

[@XYZXYZ-db6bs]

Thankyou for this tutorial I am searching for this

[@graysonnapier]

Great video, didn't know about the timelime upscale of resolution.. cheers!

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Thanks Grayson 🙌

[@GuoNuoMinGGG]

Dude, your tutorial is so cool, I love you!!

[@MESSY-AF]

love the colors 😄

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

😄

[@hamradiowithkevin]

This will take some practice getting used to these render options. Great video, thank you Joshua

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Thanks!

[@theplygrd]

So helpful!!! Thank you!!!

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Thanks :-)

[@Bradwoodnz]

Wait, how did I miss this video dropping? My first comment steak is 💣💥

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

🤣

[@RewildingFilms]

Thanks for this, I find the export settings in Resolve really counterintuitive and this helped clarify things! You'd think 'Auto' would give higher results than imposing a kb/s limit, but my deliverables were coming out really poor quality. Setting the limit to 80,000kb/s really sharpened things up.

[@scotty7354]

Very interesting and detailed explanation. Thanks a lot for this!

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Glad it was helpful Scotty.

[@beebeats8194]

This was a big help! Thanks!

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Thank you.

[@virtualfeedback820]

You're really good bro. Thank you!!

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Appreciate you watching 👏

[@SalyarAli]

Thanks a lot for this video!

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Cheers, thanks.

[@Zehahahaa]

Very insightful and helpful. Thanks for a great video. Your energy and methods of explanation are great for this this types of videos. Definitely going to subscribe 👍🏻

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Awesome, thank you!

[@waterslidefilms]

Thank you. Incredibly informative.

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

You’re welcome, cheers!

[@sergiofermin5482]

Great vid

[@JohnnyMoniz]

This video is simply perfect! Thanks so much for this valuable, detailed information. I'm very much looking forward to that future *project* archiving video. I haven't missed it, have I?

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Hey Johnny thanks for the comment! Haha I definitely over promised on this archiving video but is something I hope to get out soon. Thanks for the reminder 😆

[@JohnnyMoniz]

​@@JoshuaKirkNZ Sure thing! Definitely looking forward to it. Here's some food for thought about archiving Fonts in the mean time: I just discovered that a project won't render out or playback properly if a font is missing on the system. (more specifically, I edited my project on machine A, then opened it up 3 years later on Machine B. I had several Fusion errors, and tried everything until I realized that machine B didn't have the font that was used in the titles. Everything returned to normal the moment I installed the font on Machine B. Davinci doesn't have a clear way of identifying offline fonts like it does for off line media) *My current solution is to manually put a copy of any specific fonts into a folder and keep it with the backup media/project. At any rate, I thought you might find that information interesting/helpful. Keep up the great work!

[@JohnnyAllen_]

Love the down to earth style. So sick of the popular obnoxious editing so common these days

[@rogeriofreitas2842]

Thanks for your help, the explanation are very good, I wold like to make a Blu-ray disc, what is the better configuration to export, if you cold help me, thanks very much, Rogerio from Brazil

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Thanks Rogerio - i'll be honest, i'm not sure what the best settings are for this but I imagine you will have to export a ProRes master and convert it to BlueRay in another piece of software?

[@inspireit7047]

Super Helpfull thank you

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Thanks!

[@GDCoriginal]

Thank you for sharing, your great man.

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Thank you mate ✌️

[@samsol3090]

That was super informativ! Thanks so much :) Quick workflow question since you are archiving the flat render for later use, do you delete all the original Footage after wards to safe storage?

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Sometimes, but it is a case by case depending on the contract we have with the client. Often they pay for data storage so we hold onto it.

[@JimRobinson-colors]

Really good video - easy to follow and well explained. I think that a lot of problems with gamma issues these days is partially due to Resolve defaults in color settings. I have asked everybody I have talked to including Blackmagic design and can't get a decent explanation of why the default color space changed from Rec709 2.4 to now rec709( scene. The explanation thus far is that is the color space of camera data - but not all footage is straight out of the camera. Also changing the input in color management to rec709(scene) changes the image going to the calibrated display through an Ultrastudio 3g breakout box. Which then begs the question if it is the right choice for a default? And to date - the newest version ( beta ) now has the ability to grab the current frame for export. Which is great - except the render tag that you added in all your settings there of rec709-a - is not engaged on the frame grab - So I have found that the rec709-a then needs to be added to the timeline in order to have the gamma correct to the frame grab. Don't know how to deal with that problem - If I take a screenshot on my Mac - it appears closer than the export of the frame grab. Anyway - thanks for giving people all this excellent information Joshua. I am going to keep this video in mind when the topic of rendering comes up in our "Davinci Resolve User Group" facebook forum. Cheers.

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Cheers Jim! Great value add.

[@BihnDan]

This was super instructive -- thanks for explaining not just the settings but the thought process behind your whole work flow. Question: what is the impact of turning on Enable Flat Pass have after you have removed all the color grades? Super cool stuff. Keep it coming!

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Thanks Dan! Good question about ‘enable flat pass’ for the render. It won’t really make a difference, but it’s a habit of mine just in case I have missed removing a node adjustment in the colour page. Technically you don’t have to remove any colour adjustments at all if you are using ‘enable flat pass’ - I just like to triple down and ensure everything is flat before rendering an archive :-) Thanks for the support mate 🙌

[@BihnDan]

@@JoshuaKirkNZ Ah! Great.. I guess I'm slowly understanding this stuff LOL. Thanks!

[@rogeriofreitas2842]

Thanks again

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Thanks!

[@bernardubrich4587]

Thanks a lot for your video.....just one question about ProRes....got 4K drone footage in 10 bit, so I use 422 HQ in place of 4444....should I use ( use constant bit rate or not ) considering constant is a quiet more heavy ? Or unchecking constant would not be visible ? .....best regard from France 🙏🏽👏🏾👏🏾👍🏽

[@DjSabio]

Top video champion! Can I ask what your rough export frames are for a 4k 24/30fps h264 delivery for youtube as an example? Just trying to gauge if my machine is running at its full potential and if there are any other hidden secrets I can adjust to make export times as quick as possible. Thanks

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Man it varies a lot depending on what I have in the timeline. OFX plugins like Grain, Halation, Noise Reduction, Depth Map all add a tonne of time in the render. Also titles and transitions will add a lot of time. You could setup your render caching while editing to speed up renders.

[@DjSabio]

@Joshua Kirk thanks for the response. Have you produced a video showcasing how to do that? If not I'll look into it. Thanks

[@TheRealBarkinMadd]

Doesn't your change to timeline resolution affect your low-bandwidth queued job? My experience is that the queue job applies to the current timeline at the time of render, not at the time the job is queued. Thoughts? Great presentation of the various render options. Thanks.

[@misperlasfilming]

Tus videos son excelentes. Muchas felicidades por el gran trabajo. Una duda, por qué para subir a youtube prefieres el h.264? siempre subo en h,265, debería exportar mejor en h,264 para youtube? Mi metraje siempre es desde video RAw. Un abrazo.

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Thanks for the kind words! Yes h.265 is totally fine for KZbin. I only use h.264 because it suits our workflow due to some hardware we use for other purposes. H.265 is fine for KZbin.

[@RobertsonDMcI]

Thank you for this video. I intend to deliver my video by DVD and I hope you will be kind enough to mention the settings for this render.

[@robertoarosio5495]

Hy Joshua, great great video, thankyou! I have a doubt: for stock footage, saying you can't export in Prores because of windows, at the moment I havn't seen platform accepting DNxHR unless is native codec. So the best quality option would be Quicktime with H.264? At what bitrate you think would be a excellent spot for quality instead of sticking to the 80000 of a youtube delivery? Thanks so much!

[@scotey]

Amazing video as always. I'm curious how you'd color grade the flat pass if there are no longer any clip handles? Is the flat pass more of a stringout so you can access ungraded portions of the original material?

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Yes it’s really a safety that you can access in the future if needed. It is really easy in Davinci to cut your string-out up into individual clips again for grading. Here’s some instructions copied from another source: 1. Open your project and go to the Edit page. 2. In the Media Pool, select the clip or clips you want to analyze for scene cuts. Right-click on the selected clips and choose "Detect Scene Changes". 3. In the "Scene Cut Detection" window, adjust the settings as needed and click "OK" to start the scene cut detection process. 4. When the scene cut detection is complete, you will see the detected cuts marked in the clip's waveform on the timeline.

[@scotey]

@@JoshuaKirkNZ Thanks, man. Love your channel, and I really love the videos on long-form documentary editing. So helpful!

[@forevertight]

Thanks for the video! For the Final Master for Online Delivery, should you always set the timeline resolution to the export resolution? Or do you get better results if you set the timeline resolution to the resolution in which the footage was shot in?

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

For the final output I would set the timeline resolution to the resolution you want to deliver in which would either be Full HD or UHD in most cases. Often the footage might be higher res than than in which case those clips would be put inside a UHD timeline. In the export page the export resolution will default to match your timeline res.

[@arthurcastellano_dp]

Hey question for you sir... I got my project colored and now have the session at my house but when I export it here at home I can't get an export that looks like my davinci grade... would love to hear back of tips.

[@hkm2023]

Hi Josh, thanks for sharing your process. How would you go about delivering your grade to several presentation formats? For example, as I am grading a lot of short films from my film schools colleagues, I have to deliver both for Web and for Cinema (for Film Festivals). So far my workflow would be to grade using a CSTout that matches my display calibration (so mostly BT1886 at the Grading Suite and sRGB 2.2 for my Windows Laptop). Then after the grade is finished, for the Web Delivery I would switch the CSTout to Rec709 Gamma 2.2 with Export Color Tags set to Rec709 / Rec709-A. For the Cinema Delivery, I would switch the CSTout and Color Tags to P3 DCI Gamma 2.6. And I would not adapt my grade afterwards, although the P3 is slightly more green, because I don`t have a Monitor calibrated for it. I hope it makes sense what I am saying, English isn`t my native language. If you could share your process or opinion on this topic, would be highly appreciated!

[@hkm2023]

for example, DCPs expect X`Y`Z Color Space, not P3, so that further confuses me

[@lisale_brows]

Awesome! I work on a PC, should I be tagging rec709-A as well just to ensure people viewing on a mac device dont have a gamma shift?

[@pierrerobert4672]

Thanks for the video. Question (beginner). On a sequence of 5 shots I performed on 1 of the shots changes in brightness, contrast, etc... and it works very well BUT when I finalize (export) it's as if I hadn't done anything on this shot, the final render remain the same as the original shot? Did I miss something?

[@garychuntz1450]

very good tutorial. what are your colour management settings for timeline colour space and output color space.r

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Hey Gary - I work in Rec709 Gamma 2.4 for almost everything. Sometimes I use a DaVinci Color Managed workflow during the edit to preview all the RAW / Log footage in Rec709. Output is always Rec709 Gamma 2.4 (or Rec709-A) for online.

[@barnshowproductions6152]

Is it possible to export a specific timeline and its associated media?

[@jasonsedmak3077]

Joshua, I'm curious about the Gamma Tag change to Rec-709A... 1st; what are your RCM settings? 2nd; is this just changing the NCLC tag to Apple's version (1.96)? or is it ALSO "remapping the gamma" to 1.96? 3rd; Have you found the Rec-709A tag best overall for web content, or could sRGB be better? Thanks, and great content!

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

For me the 709-A tag is only really to help the Quicktime playback on a P3 iMac screen. without the tag the preview looks very different to other players like VLC. I'm not sure it remaps the gamma to 1.96 because there is no difference between the '-A' tag and regular 709 when uploading to KZbin or Vimeo for example. I use a standard Rec709 2.4 project setting for RCM. There is lot's of conflicting advice and results on the net about this haha.

[@EllieEspi]

How do I get past KZbin’s compression ? The video on my channel looks good, but it’s a lot less clear then when I made it or play it on QuickTime.

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

The million dollar question! I'll be honest, I hate what KZbin does to my videos sometimes and haven't figured it out haha!

[@freedomoflife-tf1xq]

❤❤❤❤

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Thanks

[@milquetoes]

Fantastic video. Quick Question, Im exporting for web and cinema and was going to use timeline CSTs for the different deliveries, but wondering if this is the best way. Projects settings are rec709 2.4 for monitoring and output. For online export I was going with a timeline CST output gamma 2.2, and export tag rec709A? For Cinema timeline CST rec709 gamma2.6. Does that sound right

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Yes you could! It is best practice to do a trim pass while monitoring in the intended colour space and gamma so you can proof the work for that deliverable. Most modern cinemas use the DCI-P3 color space Gamma 2.6, which has a wider color gamut than sRGB or Rec. 709 so it’s best to monitor it in that colour space and tweak it otherwise you might get some unwanted surprises when you see it in a cinema screen.

[@alix.144]

thank you but im having an export issue if you could help me

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

What's the problem?

[@Mjbentertainment86]

So if I’m rendering a feature film not for KZbin or Vimeo etc but rendering the movie for full quality I.e Netflix, Tubi, Hulu etc what is the best codec? Would that be ProRes master?

[@ahmadneri5602]

Thanks for your explanation. I got the export but our movie does not show only sound. What should I do? I am using version 18. Thank you for your help

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

It could be a range of things. Make sure you can hear sound in the timeline, then in export click over to audio settings and make sure that is enabled before export.

[@JoeFPSGamer]

Hi Joshua, I have a question - when rendering a footage where masks are made, it is not rendering the masks or not tracking the masks before the render. sometimes it does, other time it doesn't. What should I check? Many thanks

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

I've never noticed or heard of that. Have you worked it out?

[@JoeFPSGamer]

@@JoshuaKirkNZ yep, looks like flat-pass with clip settings did the magic in my case, not working 100%, but 95% it actually is

[@dakoolguy111]

Anyone have a recommendation for a project of individual clip color grading/rendering where I'm using NR and OpenFX nodes which is causing my render speed to be painfully slow (0-0.5fps) and take days to weeks? I've tested rendering to all DNXHR, H264, uncompressed AVI, etc formats- all stick within 0.5-1.5 fps which is just such a slow render speed for this project; any help is appreciated!

[@candicecan1634]

Thanks a lot for this helpful vid! I have one question: Why do you use h.264 and not h.265?

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Good question. You totally can use H.265. For us we haven't standardised this for our workflow yet as there are a range of hardware and software limitations currently with our clients.

[@sethgrabow]

Very well spoken, Joshua! I do have one question about possibly using a 5th render export setting: I'm fairly certain Instagram, TikTok, etc all convert Rec.709 to sRGB when uploading. If this conversion happens, the export looks worse because the platforms also compresses the export even more. Do you ever export sRGB for social media platforms? Or am I crazy?

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

I’ve haven’t heard of that but could be right. I do know the sRGB color space is effectively the same as the Rec. 709 color space. Both of these color spaces use the same color primaries and have a similar color gamut, so the colors they can reproduce are very similar. The main difference between the two is that sRGB is a device-dependent color space, while Rec. 709 is a device-independent color space. This means that the colors in sRGB will look different depending on the device they are viewed on, while the colors in Rec. 709 will look the same on all devices that conform to the standard. It’s worth testing though!

[@JimRobinson-colors]

@@JoshuaKirkNZ sRGB is being deprecated ( phased out ) it contains the transfer function for old CRT TVs and computer displays. The social media is more likely using rec709 gamma 2.2 which is really close to sRGB. But it is confusing as to whether they assume rec709 2.4 as industry standard and transcode accordingly. I am reading that a lot of TVs are doing that.

[@jacked4422]

what are your audio export settings?

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Hey Josh - Linear PCM, 16 Bit, 48000 Sample Rate.

[@alexlandherr]

Is there a way to crop video in Resolve but export the video at the resolution of the selected area? E.g. if I’m cropping a 4:3 video to 16:9 and the 4:3 is 1440x1080 I want the exported 16:9 video to have a resolution of 1440x810 without any black bars. I want to avoid scaling up and the artifacts that come with it.

[@Pilelyx]

Anyway its possible to download these presets?

[@Will-ru4fx]

pls, what is the difference between exporting in h.264 master or h.264 hyperdeck in davici resolve?

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Heya, what do you mean by hyperdeck?

[@bitspacemusic]

I don't have the prores option. Do you need Studio for this?

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Yes that's correct.

[@manujithmohanan7771]

Mxf possible?

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Yes you can choose whatever codec you like for your needs.

[@geoffallan]

B=Bytes b=bits

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

😅 Yeah always get confused.

[@casanova9227]

will i did render i saw many videos but nothing change i have 1080 want to upscale to 4k nothing change like wtf ? nothing change same video quality same shit but only change the diamention of video quality same not even close to 4k any stepes to solve this stupid issue

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Did you work this one out?

[@casanova9227]

@@JoshuaKirkNZ yes nothing change

[@JoshuaKirkNZ]

Have you selected all your clips in the timeline of the edit page and selected ‘super scale’ at the bottom of the Inspector?

[@casanova9227]

@@JoshuaKirkNZ i did same steps 2 times nothing change so useless software app i dont belive in those app anymore unless original is already high quality cause its useless fake even those like cupcut and other app