Blackmagic reveal several exciting updates at NAB 2023

Firstly, Blackmagic Design announced DaVinci Resolve 18.5, a major new update which adds new AI tools, over 150 feature upgrades such as Resolve FX relight, speech to text editing, automatic subtitling, AI audio classification, Universal Scene Description file support and new menus on the Cut page that let customers work faster while allowing more time for being creative. DaVinci Resolve 18.5 public beta is available for download now from the Blackmagic Design website.

The addition of three new menus to the Cut page timeline allows for quicker and more flexible editing. Use the timeline options, timeline actions and edit actions to toggle ripple editing, trim edit points to the playhead, resync audio, and change the appearance of the timeline and more. Scene cut detection is also now possible directly on the Cut timeline. Simply navigate to the timeline menu and click ‘detect scene cuts’. Selected clips will be analysed for content and cut points automatically placed on every new edit in the rendered clip. Customers can modify or remove trim points as needed.

The Cut page has a new ripple button which enables and disables rippled edits. Previously edits were always rippled, now by disabling the ripple button the duration of the edit will be preserved so customers can create gaps in the timeline. Customers can hold the option key to disable ripple for that edit only. Split A/V allows the edit point for video or audio to be adjusted separately. Simply drag the lower part of a clip to separately adjust the audio track, allowing the dialogue to be heard before or continue after the video clip is seen. Editors can now creatively focus visual attention on the scene using audio to add interest, drama and even tension to dialogue scenes on the Cut page.

The auto subtitle feature on the Cut and Edit pages transcribes speech to text automatically into a subtitle track on the timeline. To activate, simply click ‘create subtitles from audio’ in the timeline menu. Once analysed, click the individual captions to modify them in the inspector.

Speech to text editing has also been added in the ‘transcribe’ feature which automatically transcribes video and audio clips. Customers can search for specific terms or jump to the section of a clip where a word appears. Instead of listening to entire scenes or interviews, customers can quickly locate the topic they need and add it to their timeline saving countless hours.

Content creators can now upload videos directly to TikTok by simply signing in to their TikTok account in preferences, and using either the render preset in the Deliver page or the quick export dialog. A new option for vertical aspect ratio output makes creating content for social media even easier.

Support for the OpenTimelineIO (OTIO) format makes importing and exporting timelines from other NLE applications faster and easier. OTIO supports metadata for clips, timing, tracks, transitions and markers, as well as information about the order and length of cuts and references to external media. Plus customers can also now quickly backup and restore their work by enabling per timeline backups in preferences. Modified timelines will be backed up locally for both collaborative and non collaborative projects on local, network and Blackmagic Cloud project libraries for greater security on multi user projects.

Fusion now supports Universal Scene Descriptor files for easier collaboration between VFX artists. USD data such as geometry, lighting, cameras, materials and animation can be imported. Fusion’s new USD tools let customers manipulate, re-light and render files using Hydra-based renderers such as Storm. The new multi-merge tool lets customers merge numerous media sources into a single multi layer stack, so it’s easier to create composites by merging clips, stills or graphics using layers. Each layer has its own controls, so customers can still change individual properties like position, size and apply modes. The native AI based Depth Map tool is now also supported in Fusion Studio.