Fairlight is famous for being used at the world’s highest end studios for audio post on film and television. Following the acquisition of the Australian audio company, precisely a year ago, Blackmagic Design added the missing piece in its complete post-production vision. The new DaVinci Resolve 14 adds a massive set of professional audio tools for recording, editing and sweetening, professional bussing, mixing and routing, and multi format mastering to 3D audio formats such as 5.1, 7.1, Dolby and even 22.2.
The state of the art, super low latency audio engine is designed to work with 192kHz 24-bit audio with real time EQ, dynamics processing and plug-ins on every track when used with the Fairlight Audio Accelerator. Plus the new Fairlight audio can record up to 96 channels while simultaneously playing back up to 150 audio channels, while mixing it all in real time.
DaVinci Resolve 14 is also the biggest release in the history of the product, and has been designed to be a complete revolution in post production, as the world’s only fully integrated professional editing, color correction and audio solution. It scales from a single user all the way up to the largest collaborative studio workflows.
New features include up to 10 times performance improvement, a whole new audio post production suite with Fairlight audio built in, and multi user collaboration tools that let multiple people edit, color and mix audio from multiple systems, all in the same project at the same time. In addition, DaVinci Resolve 14 includes hundreds of new features for editors and colorists, including over 20 new effects such as automatic facial recognition and tracking so users can quickly refine and enhance faces in their shots.
In addition to extensive CPU and GPU optimizations, the new version also offers better threading and GPU pipelining, lower latency, much faster UI refresh rates, support for Apple Metal and much more. This makes DaVinci Resolve 14 faster and more responsive than ever, even on long timelines with thousands of clips. Scrubbing and playback are instantaneous and there is powerful new acceleration for processor intensive formats like H.264, making it possible to edit 4K images on a laptop.
For multi user studios, DaVinci Resolve 14 Studio features bin and timeline locking, secure chat, a graphical timeline comparison tool for accepting and merging changes, and more. These features dramatically change post production from a linear to a parallel workflow. Users no longer have to import, export, translate or conform projects. Everyone can work on the same project at the same time.
“DaVinci Resolve 14 is the first NLE that offers me all of the professional tools I need in one app,” says Eric Wilson, Editor of the hit television show NCIS: LA. “The combination of editing, color correction, effects and high end audio, along with 4K multi format support and all of the new collaboration tools, is exciting and innovative. It’s going to be a game changer.”
The new Fairlight audio in DaVinci Resolve 14 supports up to 1,000 tracks and features subframe editing of audio, down to the sample level. The mixer is designed to let users create sophisticated sequences and has several main, sub and aux buses for mastering and delivering to multiple formats at the same time. Every channel on the mixer features real time 6 band parametric EQ, along with expander/gate, compressor and limiter dynamics. Clip time warping allows stretching or compressing audio without shifting pitch. In addition, every single parameter can be automated, even VST plug ins, using a variety of automation modes.
In addition to audio editing, sweetening, and mixing, Fairlight audio in DaVinci Resolve 14 also includes multichannel recording tools that are far superior to those found in most editing systems. Users can record voice overs or even an entire symphony orchestra while also monitoring video and multiple channels of dialog and sound effects. The advanced monitoring can handle buses up to 24 channels wide with customizable fold-up and fold-down for crossing between formats. Monitoring can be done on up to 16 different sets of speakers, including massive cinematic installations.
DaVinci Resolve 14 works with the Fairlight Audio Accelerator card, which provides hundreds of zero latency tracks and real time effects processing for EQ, dynamics, and up to 6 VST plug ins per channel. Even without the accelerator, most modern computers can still process more than 60 tracks in real time. In addition, DaVinci Resolve 14 can also be used to drive the entire line of Fairlight hardware mixing consoles, which makes working on complex multi track projects faster than any other system available.
The advanced busing and mixing architecture also allows multi language and multi format delivery to be handled simultaneously from the same project, dramatically reducing the time required to deliver final masters.
The new multi user features of DaVinci Resolve 14 eliminate the need for importing, exporting, translating and conforming projects. New bin, clip and timeline locking lets users safely work on a specific part of the project without overwriting each other. The new timeline comparison tool makes it fast and easy to see differences and merge changes between two timelines by viewing a side by side comparison of every single change made between users.
“The public beta of DaVinci Resolve 14 has been downloaded more than any other version of the software in its history,” says Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “This new version is a major leap forward because it now gives every customer, from individual users to large studios, a way to seamlessly move between editing, grading, and audio. That means they can spend more time being creative and less time translating projects and switching between multiple applications!”
The free version of DaVinci Resolve 14, which includes more features than most paid software applications, is available for download from the Blackmagic Design website. For even more creative options, Blackmagic offers the purchase of the full DaVinci Resolve 14 Studio for only $299, which is less than the cost of most annual cloud based subscription plans. The paid DaVinci Resolve 14 Studio adds the new collaborative multi user tools, over 20 new Resolve FX including the advanced face enhancement tools, 4K and 120fps project support, stereoscopic 3D, optical quality blur and mist effects, film grain, de-noise tools and much more. Best of all, DaVinci Resolve 14 Studio does not require a connection to the Internet or a cloud subscription to work.
DaVinci Resolve 14 runs on all major platforms, including Mac, Windows and Linux, making it easy to integrate with existing systems and workflows. Users running Red Hat or CentOS Linux can even build their own workstations using low cost motherboards, extremely fast processors, massive amounts of RAM and up to 8 GPUs for incredible real time performance.
DaVinci Resolve 14 is available now as a free download from the Blackmagic Design website for all current DaVinci Resolve and DaVinci Resolve Studio customers. DaVinci Resolve Studio is available for $299 from Blackmagic Design resellers worldwide.
www.blackmagicdesign.com
