STOP Lagging! SMOOTH Playback in DaVinci Resolve 17 & 18

We keep hearing from creators about performance issues in DaVinci Resolve. In this video, we are tackling this issue and we will see how you can achieve butter smooth playback while editing and this, even on a lower spec computer.
Learn more about type of codecs on Frame.io: bit.ly/3hLy7Lo
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Table of Contents:
0:00 - Intro
0:40 - Codecs
1:40 - DaVinci Resolve Free vs Studio
2:29 - Playback issues vs HEVC/H265
3:19 - The problem with H265
4:12 - Render Cache
5:25 - The issue with the Bypass feature
6:24 - Timeline Resolution
7:11 - Creating Proxies
8:44 - Working Folders
9:28 - Timeline Proxy Mode
9:59 - Render in Place
10:42 - Delivery
10:59 - Conclusion
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#CoreAndBlue #VFX #DaVinciResolve

[@CoreAndBlue]

What are YOUR best practices to improve DaVinci Resolve performance? Editing only as the color and Fusion pages have their own workflow.

[@fredschenk_VVD]

Proxies. I import all the media, then generate the proxies over night and on,h the next day I start editing.

[@CoreAndBlue]

That’s a good practice! Are you recording in camera with H.264 or H.265?

[@fredschenk_VVD]

@@CoreAndBlue h.264. But I have a very slow / low spec laptop, so I need all the "help" I can get.

[@gltchd_]

You helped so much.This tutorial made me like DaVinci Resolve 17 again. It's a bit complicated for beginners, but tutorials like yours are the reason I didn't gave up on this program.

[@CoreAndBlue]

@@gltchd_ That’s amazing! Glad we could make it a better experience for you.

[@powerfuldot]

You have absolutely saved me, thanks so much for this easy to understand tutorial. I have been struggling for months to learn to edit with Davinci and have been greatly hampered by the lagging and skipping in my timeline. Playback is smooth and I can now finally make cuts without going back over the same spot 6 times. I can't thank you enough.

[@Rosic4]

Life saver! I needed this because lyric videos are hard to do ESPECIALLY when the playback is that laggy. Appreciate it.

[@techlitindia]

Your ability to break complex things and delivery is very good. I learned a lot just from watching few videos of yours. Keep it up bro and Thanks ! 👍

[@Las_cacas]

Guess i need the crash course on this subject... thanks for your hard work and sharing your knowledge, to think a person once had to go to college and pay an ass load to get training like this... and honestly this is way better than any class i took.

[@ThatHobby]

Thank you so much for the detailed video! Clearing the cache under Delete Render Cache really helped smooth things out during editing. The jumping and skipping in the playback were so frustration. Before I watched this video I looked like your thumbnails. 👏👏👏

[@CoreAndBlue]

Hey, glad we could help making the experience a little better. 😊

[@rainyrogue1205]

This was also my issue!

[@JSONSEC]

Amazing tutorial, better explained than a lot of other videos out there. You've saved me from a heap of trouble. Thanks!

[@CoreAndBlue]

Glad that this video is helping that many users. Maybe it should come bundled with DaVinci Resolve. 😄

[@honglifeng9868]

Wow! You save my day! Thank you so much! I just bought the R6 and use it to shoot a lot of videos. The shooting is fun. But, when I come to the editing part, it is so painful. The pain go away after I saw this video. Thank you again!

[@CoreAndBlue]

Glad this can make the editing part of your workflow a better experience. 😊 We love the Canon R6 and 10bits 4.2.2 is great for color grading. H.265 is simply not a suitable editing codec. Thank you for watching!

[@redford4ever]

That's an extremely good tutorial. To the point, incredibly clear and left me feeling I got it all.

[@silviosantoz]

Thank you! Proxies with DNxHR SQ completely solved the lagging for me. I had never tried it before simply because it cost computing power upfront. My typical workflow includes browsing my library (5 terabytes) for clips and throwing them directly into the timeline. This wasn't amenable to generating proxies because I would have to make proxy files for everything I capture with my camera (encodes in H.265). I've rearranged my workflow to require a bit more planning for the clips I want to make proxies of. However, it's well worth it since I now get perfectly smooth playback - including massive timelapse files. Thank you, again, for taking the time to show the community the proper way to handle H.265 media!

[@CoreAndBlue]

Glad you found this helpful. 😊 Using low bitrate proxies can be a lifesaver, particularly when dealing with a lot of footage as DNxHR SQ is CPU friendly and doesn’t require an excessive amount of space.

[@sahil.studio]

So helpful, thank you! Your content is always so well made - hope you have an amazing day! :)

[@CoreAndBlue]

Thank you for the very kind words! Glad you enjoy our work. Day was great also. 😁

[@JimGaleForce]

Wow. Really impressed with the speed and quality of your information in this video! You got me up to speed... with speed... quickly. Thank you.

[@CoreAndBlue]

Haha, thank you Jim! Really appreciated.

[@VitalityFitnessScience]

Maaaan you are so underrated, very well explained. I save up so much time now without these super annoying lags, big thank you man! Greetings from Freiburg, Germany!

[@CoreAndBlue]

Thank you for the kind words! Glad this could help. 👊

[@originalpeasant8179]

You've got a new subscriber! Great tutorial and delivery of information is as professional as can be.

[@randomdoodlesandye5922]

This helped me so much, I was getting so annoyed at the laggy playback and this really helped, thank you so much!!

[@ericdolley709]

This video was PERFECT. Thank you. Just turning on the Render Cache made a huge difference for me.

[@trecaa]

An excellent video! A must see for anyone starting out with Resolve. I can't wait to watch your other videos.

[@CoreAndBlue]

Thank you! It is definitely something that a lot users struggle with.

[@1208KenyonM]

bruuuuh the rendering cache bit helped so much, I was actually able to see my fusion transitions. Thanks so much!

[@melvinsa]

This tutorial should come bundled with DaVinci. This helped a me so much. Thank you!

[@Llorx]

This is the most detailed video about this subject. New user struggling with Davinci Resolve, and this video is gold.

[@CoreAndBlue]

Glad you found it useful! Thank you for posting a comment. :)

[@t3herstich541]

Thank you very much for this video. As someone who is relatively new to editing, this was a huge help.

[@MichaelWalker-fq5kz]

Straight to the point and lots of options. Very cool tutorial. Now a new subscriber.

[@CoreAndBlue]

Thank you very much for joining us! 😊

[@GravelRat]

Thanks! Your video on caching and proxies etc was so instructive and clear. You have answered so many of my questions.

[@CoreAndBlue]

This is really appreciated! Thank you Phillip!

[@maryjeanyamamoto4627]

Thank you so much for your videos , I’m a new creator just started having trouble with the render que taking to much time ~ I watched many videos , just only your videos made me understand it well~ More Power! & God Bless ! ~

[@GravelRat]

FANTASTIC VIDEO. Thank you so much for your truly excellent explanation. Your teaching style is so clear.. i have been searching for days to find someone who could explain proxies and cacheing.. you have done it! The structure and logic of your video is the best..

[@CoreAndBlue]

That’s really kind of you! We do try to make those as instructive and clear as possible. Glad to hear that we are doing a good job. 😊

[@periyasamyshyamsundar8685]

Thanks, Core and Blue, I was looking for a solution to bring smooth playback and now got it after correcting my settings. you are awesome 😍

[@CoreAndBlue]

That’s great! Glad to hear that this was helpful. 😊

[@freezergonza2969]

I don’t normally comment on KZbin but after watching numbers of videos about this issue i found this video which is agame changer to me you deserve my subscription with a like and tap a bell in that I don’t miss any of your videos thank you bro from another mother

[@andreK560]

Thanks a lot, this improved playback speed immediately. Can't recommend the video enough! Great job!

[@boganboy55]

I have been searching for a fix to my lagging and stuttering issues for SO damn long now... NEVER did it occur to me that having my recorded clips on a HDD would course such issues. Swapped them to my SSD and now it runs as smooth as butter. Cheers mate.

[@iamMNKY]

Thank you so much, I swear to god ive watched so many bloody videos and this is the only one that fixed my issue, thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

[@tornado9632]

Ayyyy Core and Blue at it again!!

[@CoreAndBlue]

Thank you! We haven’t talk for way too long my friend. Hope everything is going well.

[@parliamentpictures2217]

Wow!! This is the best video I’ve seen in years!! Wow! Keep them coming.

[@CoreAndBlue]

That's some serious praise! Thank you very much!

[@ujimin5510]

Thank you! clicking render cache color output fixed it, it was driving me crazy!

[@CoreAndBlue]

Excellent! Glad we could help.

[@gedatreides]

💛 Best guide ever, and amazing clarity to let us understand what's going on. My compliments good sir.

[@CoreAndBlue]

Glad you like it! 😊

[@peterknopf]

Holy sh.t. Thanks man. Solved all my stuttering issues regarding playback. You are a hero.

[@slo369]

Just came back to it after I followed instructions. Thank you bro it worked like a charm

[@HUMANETRAVELLERS]

Really helpful , Thanks a lot for such video :) Keep creating

[@FPSpsychoYT]

Thanks for this, idk why I didn't lower time timeline resolution to begin with! I render in 1440p, but having the playback the same was making DaVinci lag quite a lot.

[@daniel6sharma]

There are quite a few videos on this subject but taking time to explain what everything does is what helped me fix my playback! Thanks

[@CoreAndBlue]

That’s great! Glad we could help make things smoother.

[@dolores5]

Thank you sooo much!!! With your help I finally figured out a way to make my videos run smoothly

[@birdofprey12]

Great tutorial, You explain everything so well. Enjoying your channel immensely. Thanks Bro.

[@CoreAndBlue]

Thank you for those kind words! Very appreciated.

[@denyo_rasmi]

This is definitly one a nice and productive Christmas present for me..Thank you and yeah thanks again

[@CoreAndBlue]

Glad we can help. Merry Christmas and Happy editing! 🤟🎅

[@nossguillaume7336]

Thank you so much for your video !!!! It's really help me !! I was thinking of buying a new computer but in reality i don't need a new one

[@SuchetB]

Thank you this was amazing and the most easy to understand and fastest way I have learned to speed up my work in Davinci - This one was the best - Thank you for making it so easy!!!!

[@uncleanAlibertine1]

Amazing! Thnx! When everybody is like “which machine to get to work with 12k braw” this kind of knowledge is more than gold! Thank you excellent!

[@CoreAndBlue]

Thank you very much for the appreciation!

[@KodiakThunder]

Super helpful for someone brand new to the software as well as editing 4k in general!!! Thanks

[@CoreAndBlue]

Once you find the right settings for your setup , it does make editing 4K+ footage a lot easier. Glad we could help.

[@GraphicdesignforFree]

Best video about the subject on KZbin!

[@VictoriaArteyDecoracion]

First video I watch, subscribed.

[@CoreAndBlue]

👊🏼🔥

[@souzahenrique2956]

It was so helpful!! Thanks a lot

[@chrisfernon689]

You are helping understand this complex issue. You made me smarter)) I like that you write notes on your hand)

[@SergeyRyabenko]

Great advises. I just starting with DaVinci and this video helped me a lot.

[@spencerhagerstrand3257]

great video. I have an HP Pavilion 2020 Laptop. Had some problems with 4k video playback. Was very frustrating but your video helped my problem. I will have to use proxies. Do you think my laptop is adequate enough to handle 4k or will I always have to do proxies?

[@MOBASkinMaster]

oh thankfully, within the 3minutes of your video, my playback finally smoothen after checking youtube ang searching google on how to work on it as I am trying to preview a video collage of 6 videos. wow such a help. thank you

[@pinoycommuter8635]

Thank you so much. I just started to learn video editing. I used to work as an audio engineer so I got the basics for video editing, but this is really helpful to get a better workflow in video editing. I just downloaded Davinci 2 days ago and learning it. I’m very lazy with video editing. I’d like to try vlog while riding my bike. See how I go. Again, thank you so much. 😊🙏🏽

[@CoreAndBlue]

Hey, happy to help. Just like for most things, good preparation and organisation gives a much better workflow and make for a much more enjoyable experience. DaVinci Resolve is a great tool that offers a ton of features to make editing faster and easier. A great first step to get familiar with the software and making sure that you don’t develop bad habits is the free beginner course offered by BlackMagic on their website. They provide all the ressources to learn while building a proper project. We’ll also have more practical tutorials coming soon. 😊

[@stayover7315]

Same exact scenario here, audio engineer learning video editing. Great video!

[@CoreAndBlue]

@@stayover7315 Audio is such a fascinating topic! Glad you like this video.

[@blackfeather7686]

Excellent video. Really helped sorting out some playback problems I was having.

[@CoreAndBlue]

That's great! Glad it helped.

[@hicetnunc_]

you're truly good! thank you

[@tomavellino9553]

Great informative video, thank you for sharing.

[@juannpablo4322]

Amazing vidéo man, thank you

[@thehumanchris]

Thank you so so much!! This is an incredible and super useful video for so many of us 🙏

[@dainamik_]

DUDE THANK YOU I SPENT A WHOLE HOUR ON THIS

[@CoreAndBlue]

Thank you very much for watching! Glad it helped. 👊🏼

[@blysswave]

I love how he speaks in french using english words! :D. Thanks for the video, I didn't grasp much as a total noob but generating proxy media solved the issue.

[@CoreAndBlue]

Haha thank you! 😅 Proxies give the best performance so you got the essential. The rest is particularly useful when you start adding effects or heavier color grading.

[@mysisterskeeper9593]

After searching and searching thank God I found your video! Your video helped me fix my playback problem, simple and easy once I understood the problem. Thank you !! Great step by step instructions !

[@CoreAndBlue]

Glad it was so useful and thank you for letting us know. 😊

[@R.O.F.]

I'm not a pro but I have many hours of underwater video that I will edit on a modern, graphics-capable desktop. Editing on a poorly performing timeline is deeply frustrating and unpleasant. This is a well detailed explanation of why my GoPro 9 4K video was so difficult to edit, despite implementing the cache and proxy "fixes" found on other sites. None of them detailed how unscrambling the recording codec was such a big deal. Back to work for me!

[@CoreAndBlue]

H.264/265 recording is so widespread among modern cameras that most users understandably think that they should be able to edit their footage without hurdle. Glad we could clarify few points and hopefully, make your editing experience better.

[@treedai7787]

THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH!!! I AM LAGGING BETWEEN CLIPS BEFORE AND ONCE I ENABLED THE RENDER CACHE OPTION IT INSTANTLY BECOME SUPER SMOOTH

[@CoreAndBlue]

That’s awesome! Glad we could help.

[@YanaNik]

Awesome tutorial! Helped me a lot! Thank you ☺

[@theory_underground]

Hello! Does anyone know why at 4:54 when Core and Blue right clicks he is getting a lot of options that I do not see when I right click the segment? The render option he uses doesn't even show up, but neither do others such as those rename options, normalize audio levels, etc., though I do have options like clip color, copy and paste, etc.

[@CoreAndBlue]

Hi! If you don’t see those options, it is because you might be in the Cut page instead of the Edit page. BlackMagic removed everything that is not essential for fast editing in this page.

[@andreasvourakis6968]

Amazing video thank you so much

[@CoreAndBlue]

Thank you for the appreciation Andreas!

[@kret9258]

taught me so much in 10 mins, thank you!

[@dicedion0254]

Yooo! I thought is wasn't real until I tried it and it's crazy unbelievable, thank you so much! 🎉

[@rushanksavant314]

Saved the day brother, god bless you!

[@gtamediaproductions1]

Well done buddy! Thank you for this information!

[@CoreAndBlue]

Glad you found it helpful! Thank you for watching! 😊

[@mahgoubsoft]

thanks for your hard work and sharing your knowledge❤👌👍

[@salamanderpreston2044]

This helped a lot, thank you.

[@mr_delivery]

Man this video is awesome you had great in depth knowledge of the program. i had watched a ton of videos on davinci to speed up and stop lagging while playback but i was not able to find the root cause but this video really helped me to solve and understand the program. thank you soo much Mann . keep going don't stop. 😍😍😍❤ from Travel with Mr delilvery.

[@CoreAndBlue]

Thank you very much for the love! Glad you found it useful. 😊

[@mr_delivery]

@@CoreAndBlue yes bro it brought my hope back and got trust for my laptop 😇😅

[@FinancialFaiz]

Thank you. This video helped a lot!

[@CoreAndBlue]

Awesome, glad this could help.

[@andrewdiestler884]

legit saving my life rn, this has been killing me and I literally only have a laptop rn (that's not a mac), didn't know this was going to be such a thing

[@amateuranalyst]

Great video, you probably saved me 100 hours on my current video. The accent makes it 10x better

[@CoreAndBlue]

Hey, thank you! That’s really nice of you. 🤟🏼🖤

[@bastilombardi9964]

Thanks! Best video in space!!!

[@harrisjudoclub]

Great tutorial. Learnt a lot today. Many thanks.

[@clevelandsfinestentertainment]

I love your content just subscribed I have a lenovoLenovo - Yoga 7i 16" WUXGA 2 in 1 Touch-Screen Laptop - Intel Core i5-1335U - 16GB Memory - 512GB SSD - Storm Grey ram is soldered in and gpu also so not much upgrading i can do i was thinking about installing this do you think it will work for 1080p ? With minor effects like rotoscoping some clips and transitions Or should i look at a different software for video editing i

[@fayvfx9668]

This was needed. Thank you!

[@CoreAndBlue]

Glad you found it helpful. 😊

[@Goati_]

When given the option, like when recording with OBS, which video encoder should one use for optimal playback?

[@CoreAndBlue]

OBS is limited to H.264 in term of codec except if you use FFmpeg as type but this bring a lot of issues and would require an entire tutorial to explain how to set this up. H.264 will only playback smoothly with proper hardware decoder support. In OBS, we record in a MKV container using NVENC H.264 (CQP:17, Max Quality). Choice of encoder and it's settings really depends of the content/Length/Frame rate that you are recording and your hardware. Even then, as we explained in the video, a little editing and visual effects will make performance take a dip as this is not a codec made for editing. Creating Light Proxies in DVR is usually the way to go for smooth editing but if you have a very long recording, storage space can become problematic. One trick to reduce the impact on storage is to assemble roughly your timeline using the source footage and use the Render in place feature (keeping some extra frame handles for editing flexibility). This way, you can transcode what is on your timeline to a DNx codec which will play smoothly. It will relink automatically to your source footage when exporting. Hope this help.

[@mikami9921]

Hello, I would like to ask a question: When I edit, I usually have 3 characters with transparent background on top of a background, and I start animating them by adding some key frames. I also add some fusion effects (masking part of the image), and I also transform 2 related images into a compound clip ( a man with a flower in his hand). The problem is that when I render cache (smart option), each time that I do a small modification, I should wait for the cache to be rendered again. But I don't understand why the video is stuttering in the first place. It's just images on top of each other with basic fusion effects. My laptop is the asus rog zephyrus g14 with a good cpu and gpu. The only solution working for me is to render in place, but by doing that I lose all the keyframes of the clip and it also takes a lot of storage

[@JeppPadilla]

You're a lifesaver. Additional question though, do you color grade usung the proxies or is there a way to revert them back to their original files before color grading? Thank you!

[@HaulYT]

This was very helpful. Thank you.

[@CoreAndBlue]

Glad we could help! 😊

[@casevannon]

bro. the proxy render setting is a complete game changer!! feel like that setting alone could have been the whole video with a mic drop... I have a mac pro 12 core and was wondering why I was still getting all that lag... thank you so much for the help!!

[@kod-da-vinchik]

Big thanks for the guidance!!!

[@CoreAndBlue]

Glad we could help and thank you for your appreciation!

[@amirnetwork8629]

thank you. this is relly helpful

[@tangoexplorer]

I did everything you sugested and still have like fraccion of the second lag problems that transfers to the finish video I even changed the frame per second that it wasa 23.9 to 24 and in the clip is 25 it only helped a little. In the original it runs smoot before I move it to Davincy Res. 18 free version. Every time I conect to davincy 18 it comes out that the hardware accelerator encode and decode has been disable because of the intel grafics. I downloded the las version but this window continue appering. Will that be the problem? Thank you for any help.

[@svoimiglazamieu]

Hi, this is he best video about Davinci timeline playback. You saved me a lot of time. In the middle of the video you show that CPU is struggling with real-time playback, will the CPU upgrade will help with it somehow or even maxed out CPU will still work at 100% ? Cache takes time and it is a bit annoying when the timeline starts to lag during editing process. I am looking for way to have it seamlessly. Usually I have material from 3-4 different cameras with 4K resolution and all of them have different codecs.

[@CoreAndBlue]

Hi, thank you for your comment! A CPU upgrade can’t hurt but first, you need to pin point where is the bottleneck in your hardware and workflow. Footage access (Disk) -> Frame Decoding (CPU if no dedicated decoder) -> Effects and color grading computing (CPU and GPU)-> Image processing (GPU) -> Cache Writing (Disk). So depending of the type of footage you are working with (H.264, H.265, ProRes, Raw?), you will have vastly different results and as shown in the video, the CPU will max out no matter what if it has to decode H.265 footage even before it can compute anything else. You can brute force the decoding with a very powerful CPU but this will always be an intensive process and why the industry works with proxies. If you are a one man shop handling Editing, color grading and VFX, this is be a balancing act between visual quality and playback performance as pages like Color and Fusion are not designed for smooth playback but pixel perfect image processing.

[@alyrus]

Very useful guide, thanks!

[@CoreAndBlue]

Glad you found it useful.

[@Maureen295]

My issue is different. Can you say why the timeline viewer is consistently ahead of the timeline cursor in the free version of 17? Both for 8 & 10 bit & for 1920x1080 or other sizes. No one on the forum knew. it's not in tutorials. Thanks.

[@ArcanePath360]

Was wondering why the cache was so slow, thanks! I might have to turn this feature on again. Just sucks how much hd space it uses and doesn't flush automatically. I wish Resolve had a RAM playback like AE

[@luxdalet]

Awesome video! It helped, but still using proxy or rendering of individual clips with quarter resolution or in 720p takes long. Average of 2 minutes for a single clip of 32 seconds. Not sure if this impact is because the clip is being slowed down to 50% speed using Optical Flow and best enhancing mode?

[@AlexGramm708]

BIG BRAVO IT HELPS A LOT THIS

[@MrExel47]

I used proxies in Premiere Pro any the colours where falling apart. This is why I hasitate to use them. I still have to try them in DaVinci Resolve. Thanks for all your advice!

[@ducgus]

je viens de découvrir lla chaine. Félicitation. super qualité ;)

[@GuilDormeus]

Great video. Recently I’ve been thinking about learning how to use DaVince Resolve

[@CoreAndBlue]

Thank you! Definitely recommending it as DaVinci Resolve is a powerful all in one tool that scales up to all kind of workflow and projects.

[@Marysedits]

Thank u so much for this video! It really helped me ❤️

[@CoreAndBlue]

Thank you very much for watching! 🖤 Glad we could provide you some info on the subject.

[@PoppaClutch]

Even though this video is a year old it actually prevented me from going bald, mad thanks for that. Will not subscribe as I would not guarantee a click on new content and would not want to be a detriment but you are a legend and a scholar ;)