DaVinci Resolve 17.2 released, featuring much faster start-up times

Development on DaVinci Resolve continues apace with the release of version 17.2. The new update features faster start-up times and the ability to read gyroscopic data from the Sony VENICE.

The most notable improvement is of course the start-up time, which it has to be said was pretty slow on previous versions of Resolve 17, so it's good to see this tackled. Live Save is now on by default, possibly preventing a lot of hair being torn out! Making sure this is turned on is one of the first things I set up, so again it's a small, but nice touch that this is now on by default.

Another stand-out feature is support for AV1 decoding on Windows. AV1 is seen as a successor to HEVC and is a royalty free codec. With the codec bringing claimed 30% better efficiency than HEVC it's likely to play a much bigger role in our lives from now on. It is, however, extremely processor intensive, and so BMD has included accelerated decoding on supported systems.

Other useful additions include batch editing of cross fades in the Fairlight page, support for the V1.2 ACES colour science, and the ability to read gyroscopic data from Sony's VENICE. If more camera manufacturers included gyroscopic metadata in their video recordings like this it could be very useful for both stabilisation but also for camera move matching with SFX across the board.

The full list of improvements is as follows:-

• Dramatically improved application startup performance.
• Live save is now on by default.
• Support for custom naming for individual timeline clips.
• Support for adding transitions by double clicking or dragging to viewer.
• Support for decoding AV1 clips on Windows.
• Accelerated AV1 decodes on supported Intel, NVIDIA and AMD platforms.
• Support for decoding MKV clips.
• Support for exporting IMSC-1 compatible TTML captions in IMF clips.
• Support for option to include project name subfolder in media management.
• Support for pasting HDR and color warper attributes in the Color page.
• Support for Fusion template bundles.
• Support for applying and managing crossfades in the Fairlight timeline.
• Support for a batch fade and crossfade editor in the Fairlight page.
• Support for persisting Fairlight edit mode between application restarts.
• Support for moving audio clips to match timeline timecode position.
• Support for setting handles when performing audio only renders.
• Support for controlling track processing order in the Fairlight mixer.
• Support for accessing Fairlight patch and link in the edit and deliver page.
• Ability to show or hide specific audio I/O ports for patching in Fairlight.
• Support for Fairlight console firmware 1.6 with full FlexBus mixing support.
• Improved waveform displays in the Fairlight timeline.
• Improved auto scroll behavior when dragging clips in the Fairlight timeline.
• Support for ACES color science 1.2.
• Support for selecting per-clip ACES DCTLs from context menu.
• Support for new IDTs for the Canon EOS-R5 cameras.
• Option to use white point adaptation in project settings for RCM workflows.
• Option to use white point adaptation in Resolve FX color space transform.
• Support for codec passthrough when rendering IMF JPEG2000 clips.
• Support for trimming Sony Raw and XAVC MXF in media management.
• Support for reading gyroscopic metadata on Sony Venice clips.
• Ability to update RMD metadata files for R3D clips.
• Improved spatial and temporal deinterlace quality.
• Improved curves range display for position and zoom on the edit timeline.
• Improved color management for Blackmagic RAW Gen 5 color science.
• Improved decode performance for 8K H.265 clips on Apple Silicon systems.
• Improved scripting API with the ability to import custom frame sequences.
• Improved scripting API with the ability to delete timelines.
• Improved scripting API with the ability to query current page.
• Improved scripting API with the ability to add generators and titles.
• Improved scripting API with the ability to specify render alpha options.
• Improved scripting API with the ability to switch layout presets.
• Improved scripting API with the ability to quit the application.
• Improved iXML data support with AAF export workflows.
• General performance and stability improvements.

Download the update from Blackmagic Design's support page.