Blackmagic Davinci Resolve Speed Editor for Cinematographers

[James0b57]

Opion on why the Speed Editor is great for Cinematographers.

Ok, i’ve been using Davinci Resolve since 2016, primarily to look at footage. not to edit or colour too often, although i have delved into the colour tools quite a bit, i still don’t consider myself a true expert there. A big part of using Davinci was it being a more robust and affordable colouring option to analyze footage and play around with looks.

most of the time, i just want to scrub through shots i’ve done, grab a few selects, or maybe even a trouble shot, and then play around with looks and grades, or see what is possible with automated trackers and noise reduction etc.

One of the issues, i find is getting those clips onto a timeline with as little fuss as possible. FCPX does this wonderfully, but i am still a little irritated by all the auto scrolling any time my mouse moves past a clip. but fcpx is fast. but what i really want beyond speed is no fuss.

enter the Speed Editor. what i like about this is the hard keys and the ability to scroll between every clip and quickly toss select portions of clips onto a timeline.

- scroll
- in
- scroll
- out
- add clip to timeline
- keep scrolling

i think there is something to taking the tedious bits of getting clips onto the time line that help. however, scrubbing through raw can be painful. so, either using Prores, or having a hulking machine to beast through raw clips can be beneficial. Lately i’ve been shooting prores proxies along with redcode. so, i’ll only add a raw clip when i need to, and work with prores for basic “looks”.

the appeal of the Speed Editor is a lot like having a camera with buttons instead of a gui and menus. the scroll wheel is a huge improvement over the “jkl” playback keys on the keyboard. the scroll wheel feels right and adapts intuitively to the speed of the scroll from insanely fast to one frame at a time.

while i know this tool was created for editors, part of me feels this is equally or better suited for DIT and Cinematographers that want to lay down a sample scenes without much fuss.

[ahalpert]

Sounds cool. I'll put a link here because at first I didnt know what you were talking about
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/repla...ed_editor.html

Don't forget that you can turn off skimming in FCPX so it doesnt scroll footage when you mouse over clips.

I can see the appeal of this device although the old way isn't paining me too badly

[Matt Gottshalk]

It is a solid device and definitely lives up to it's name when reviewing and putting together best takes.

[Andy9]

It's very clever marketing as well. Once you've tried a specialised hardware controller you won't want to go back. You'll start looking at what else is on offer.

The first hit is always free.

[James0b57]

It is a solid device and definitely lives up to it's name when reviewing and putting together best takes.

100%

[JAMedia]

It's very clever marketing as well. Once you've tried a specialised hardware controller you won't want to go back. You'll start looking at what else is on offer.

The first hit is always free.

True. I got mine free when I bought Resolve Studio 17. It's is quite handy and designed for the CUT page (though some of it works on the edit page)

It has some design flaws. No on/off for either power or Bluetooth which is permanently on and trying to pair. The Bluetooth only goes off when connected to Resolve via USB.

[Samuel Dilworth]

This is being sold in a bundle with Resolve, as noted. Is there anything to stop a buyer of that bundle selling on the Speed Editor and keeping Resolve or vice-versa? I’m wondering if I could pick up a cheap copy of Resolve from someone who already has Resolve but wants the Speed Editor.

[JAMedia]

This is being sold in a bundle with Resolve, as noted. Is there anything to stop a buyer of that bundle selling on the Speed Editor and keeping Resolve or vice-versa? I’m wondering if I could pick up a cheap copy of Resolve from someone who already has Resolve but wants the Speed Editor.

You can do that but Resolve is hardly expensive anyway. There are the odd few Resolve for sale on the BMD forum. Usually in USD. Not very many, often from people who get free Resolve Studio with a camera rather than the Sped Editor.

Due to the usual lack of attention to detail from BMD when they announced the resolve/speed editor package there was no stock and even now people who ordered in November 2020 are only just getting them in March 2021!

[Joshua_G]

It's very clever marketing as well. Once you've tried a specialised hardware controller you won't want to go back. You'll start looking at what else is on offer.

The first hit is always free.

Clever marketing or not, as long as the users benefit, it's perfectly okay that Blackmagic Design will also benefit.
Overall, their products, support and pricing are superb.

[Joshua_G]

True. I got mine free when I bought Resolve Studio 17. It's is quite handy and designed for the CUT page (though some of it works on the edit page)

It has some design flaws. No on/off for either power or Bluetooth which is permanently on and trying to pair. The Bluetooth only goes off when connected to Resolve via USB.

For the price of it (free), it's a good buy, even with those design flaws…