DaVinci Resolve 17.3 Announced – Up to 3X Faster on Apple M1 Macs

Software Update

by Jakub HanAugust 20^th, 2021

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Blackmagic Design announced the new DaVinci Resolve 17.3 that promises to bring up to three times faster grading and editing in 4K and 8K on Apple M1 Macs and many more new features.

When Apple launched its M1-equipped Macs last year, Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve (apart from Apple’s own Final Cut Pro of course) was one of the first NLEs to provide a version specifically designed for the Apple Silicon machines. Now it seems that the Resolve development team has no intention of slowing down anytime soon. Blackmagic Design launched a new version of DaVinci Resolve 17.3 that promises to bring up to 3x faster editing and grading on Apple M1 Macs. Let’s take a look at the details.

DaVinci Resolve 17.3 – all about speed

The new Resolve 17.3 adds support for a completely new processing engine. That’s why it is possible to work faster on 4K and even 8K projects on Apple M1 Macbooks. Furthermore, the new processing engine uses tile-based rendering, which also gives users up to 30% longer battery life on laptop computers when working in DaVinci Resolve. DaVinci Resolve 17.3 also supports a new option on Mac computers with M1 for H.265 hardware encoding. Prioritizing speed versus quality when rendering, can further improve render times up to 65%. DaVinci Resolve will now also decode AVC Intra files using the media engine built into the Apple M1 chip, making decoding and playback faster when working with these file formats.

New Resolve FX controls have been added, such as new grid shapes and greater control when using mosaic blur, allowing customers to more precisely adjust the amount and appearance of pixelation. Keyer garbage mattes now have rotation controls for easier removal of unwanted items from view. New saturation and gamma controls on the glow plugin allow greater control and subtlety over lighting effects. Aperture diffraction in DaVinci Resolve Studio has new anamorphic aperture controls which allow a wider range of lenses to be emulated.

Fairlight audio also has improvements in latency with new drivers, better Fairlight export dialog that allows including clip levels, fades, EQ and effects, or iXML metadata as well as being able to normalize clips to match different loudness standards. There are many more new features – you can check the following list of improvements.

Fairlight Page Updates

• Improved thru-latency and adjustable processing and input buffers.
• Improved export dialog with naming, metadata and format control.
• Timeline clips can be selected from the Fairlight edit index.
• Improved Fairlight timeline ruler resolution.
• Buses can be reordered by dragging in the track index.
• New audio I/O preference options with support for separate I/O selections.
• Improved mix-down support for LRC, 5.0 and 7.0 track formats.
• Improved edit, nudge and fade behavior for linked clips.

Color Page Updates

• Color Warper supports persistent default grid resolutions.
• HDR color controls support persistent default zone presets.
• Active playheads can be switched by clicking on the split screen viewer.
• New anamorphic aperture controls for Resolve FX Aperture Diffraction. Studio only.
• New shapes and finer mosaic control for Resolve FX Mosaic Blur.
• New rotation controls for Resolve FX Keyer garbage mattes.
• New sat and gamma controls and faster performance for Resolve FX Glow.

Cut Page Updates

• List views in the media pool can be sorted from column selection.
• New badge to easily identify still clips on the timeline.

Edit Page Updates

• Edits from sub-clips can now be match-framed to original media.
• Shape and iris transitions can be rotated from the inspector.
• Play around selection now works with transition selections.
• Newly added subtitles retain playhead position to allow text preview.
• Compound clip instances in the timeline can be renamed.
• Fusion compositions can be renamed from the inspector panel.
• Options to name and use full clip extents when creating a subclip.
  Fusion
• DRFX bundles can be double-clicked to install on Windows and Linux.
• Support for viewing the node type by holding Ctrl/Cmd-Shift-E.

Codecs and Deliver Page Updates

• DaVinci Resolve Studio support for audio encoding in the encoder plugin SDK.
• Hardware accelerated AVC Intra decodes for on Apple Silicon.
• Support for decoding and encoding JPEG-HT .JPH image sequences.
• Improved H.264 and H.265 decode performance in Windows Intel systems.
• Optimized H.265 encodes for speed on Apple Silicon systems.
• Support for decoding MKV clips with VP9 video codecs.
• Improved decode performance for MKV clips with AAC and AC3 audio.
• Support for embedding MPEG2 bitstream captions in XDCAM clips.

General Improvements

• Improved startup speeds for disk databases with many projects.
• Support for simplified database creation and connection process.
• AAF imports now support the translation of simple nested clips.

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 17.3 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 Studio license also comes with all new Blackmagic Design cameras.

Do you use DaVinci Resolve on Apple M1 Mac for your post-production work? What do you think of the new 17.3 update? Let us know in the comments section underneath the article.