Sunday, March 17, 2024

Davinci Resolve - A Great Experience When Using It With an M1 Mac

I mentioned maybe a month ago that I'm now using Davinci Resolve to manipulate videos to post to YouTube.  I'm still using it.  I don't think I'm going to be able to go back to using iMovie.

Prior to iMovie, I was using Cyberlink PowerDirector, which was OK, but felt a bit bloated and cumbersome to use.  That software as full-featured, though, and much more robust than iMovie.  I used Cyberlink PD on my Del G7 17", and while PD didn't crash, it always caused the cooling fans to kick in.  As well, it would take a while to create videos.  I had bought a one year subscription and let it lapse.  While the software was OK, it wanted something better.

I tried Davinci Resolve because I heard someone mention it on one of the Mac-centric subreddits.  Not only that, I wanted to try to use my M1-powered Mac to crunch video, as I'd only used iMovie.  I knew that Resolve would leverage GPUs (it's probably a requirement) and had heard that M1 Macs were very efficient when compiling video footage.  Yeah, I'd used iMovie, but no real professional is using that to create movies.

When I crunched my first video on my M1 Mac, using Resolve, I was shocked.  Two things were immediately apparent.  One, the M1 Mac didn't studder when editing footage like my Dell G7 does.  Granted, my G7 is only powered by a 5 yr old i5 CPU and is running a mobile version of the RTX 2060.  The system is probably throttling, too (most non-Mac laptops do).  Secondly, the compilation portion is FAST, no matter what configuration you are using.  I crunched some ProRES footage and the M1 positively flew through the process.

Yeah, I'm not going back and will probably purchase a license for Resolve so that I can use some of the features that are locked in the free version.  I may as well pay for a license if I'm going to use it as my primary editor.


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