DaVinci Resolve 17.2 Released – Faster Startup, Live Save ON By Default

Software Update

by Jakub HanMay 12^th, 2021

Blackmagic Design released the new version of the popular NLE DaVinci Resolve. The version 17.2 brings a long list of new features and improvements. Perhaps the most interesting are much faster startup times and the fact that the Live Save feature is now turned on by default.

Yet again, Blackmagic Design releases a new version of DaVinci Resolve. The Resolve 17 is with us since November 2020. After a long series of Beta Releases culminating into the final 17.0 version, Blackmagic Design is continuing with new sub-versions. The 17.1 update introduced optimized support for Apple M1 computers. The new version 17.2 is now available for Windows 10, macOS (including Apple Silicon machines), and Linux. Let’s take a look at which improvements the new version includes.

DaVinci Resolve 17.2

The first thing that caught my interest, is that with 17.2 Blackmagic Design finally turns the Live Save feature on by default. I am actually surprised this did not happen earlier because the Autosave and Live Save features are a must for anyone who wants to seriously work with Resolve. There have been several cases where hours of work have been lost because users have not enabled these features. Another nice thing is that Resolve now starts up faster.

There are, of course, more improvements. The full list of new features and improvements includes the following:

• 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 the 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 on 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 on 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 the 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 the 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.

Price and availability

As always, the latest version of DaVinci Resolve is available now as a free download from the Blackmagic Support Center. The full Studio license of DaVinci Resolve 17.2 is also available on the same page, but you will need to purchase an activation code in order to launch it. The full license for two computers costs currently $295, but you can also get a free Blackmagic Speed Editor (check our review here) with the purchase. The license also comes with all new Blackmagic Design cameras.

For those using DaVinci Resolve or DaVinci Resolve Studio on Windows, Blackmagic Design strongly recommends uninstalling previous versions prior to installing 17 Public Beta 5 and higher versions. Going forward, all Fairlight, grading, and editor keyboard firmware updates will be managed from the DaVinci Control Panels Setup utility.

When it comes to database, DaVinci Resolve 17.2 requires a database upgrade from Resolve 16.2.7 and previous versions. It is strongly recommended that you back up your existing database (both DiskDB and PostgreSQL) and then restore that database for the upgrade before upgrading to this release. There is no database change from 17.0.

Is DaVinci Resolve your main editing software? What do you think of the latest update? Let us know in the comments section underneath the article.