Blackmagic Design Announces DaVinci Resolve 20.1, Goes Big on Apple Immersive Video

The first major update to Resolve 20, DaVinci Resolve Studio 20.1 adds support to edit, grade, add VFX, mix spatial audio, and deliver Apple Immersive Video for Apple Vision Pro.

There's other stuff elsewhere as there always is with a point release for DaVinci Resolve, but the big headline with Resolve 20.1 is adding support for Apple Immersive Video workflows to DaVinci Resolve Studio for macOS. It's all fairly comprehensive too; with this update Blackmagic says filmmakers will be able to edit, color grade, add visual effects, mix Spatial Audio, and deliver Apple Immersive Video captured using the new Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive camera.

A new immersive video viewer will let customers pan, tilt and roll clips for viewing on 2D monitors or directly stream to Apple Vision Pro for an even more immersive editing experience. 

It's a decent enough update that CEO, Grant Petty, appended a quote to a press release about it.

“We are excited to release this update for DaVinci Resolve Studio which adds tools for Apple Immersive Video to the edit, color, Fairlight and Fusion pages,” he said. “Now filmmakers can create stunning immersive content that was previously too complex or expensive to produce. The best part is that you can edit, grade and mix 3D immersive video and audio using familiar tools from 2D projects! We can’t wait to see the immersive action, drama, concerts, sports and other incredible experiences our customers will create using DaVinci Resolve!”

DaVinci Resolve Studio 20.1 New Immersive Features

• Adds DaVinci Resolve Studio for macOS support for Apple Vision Pro immersive video workflows.
• Ability to monitor immersive video in Apple Vision Pro from the timeline.
• Support for Apple Spatial Audio Format (ASAF).
• Support for monitoring Apple Spatial Audio in binaural with head tracking for AirPods.
• Ability to edit Blackmagic RAW Immersive video shot on Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive.
• Immersive video viewer for 2D screens with image pan, tilt and roll.
• Automatic recognition of Apple Immersive Video (left and right eye) for dual file stereoscopic 3D immersive content.
• Option to bypass transitions normally rendered by Apple Vision Pro.
• Export and deliver native files for viewing on Apple Vision Pro.

Page By Page Studio Improvements 

According to Blackmagic, the Edit Page lets customers work with files from the URSA Cine Immersive camera, just like any other 2D media, with the familiar drag and drop interface. The new immersive viewer shows immersive video in its native state, converted to LatLong or to a viewport view that customers can pan around in on screen. Customers can even add a 360º backdrop track that can appear outside of the projected immersive image.

When working with files from the URSA Cine Immersive over on the Color Page, new tools in the 3D palette such as the Edge Mask, let customers adjust the field of view captured by the URSA Cine Immersive to exclude microphones or other items that are just in shot. Edge Mask also adjusts the mask blend to soften the transition from the projected space to the backdrop.

The Fusion Page now lets customers create 3D titles and graphics or work with USD files for vfx in immersive video. Familiar tools like the patcher and distort tools are now updated to work seamlessly with immersive video. The immersive patcher converts lens space images to a flattened image so customers can patch or paint, add graphics or text. Converting back to lens space lets customers composite correctly onto the original camera lens space image. 3D images or compositions made in Fusion using the immersive workflow will automatically convert from the virtual 3D space on the Fusion page to the immersive lens space of the timeline. Titling on the timeline has been made easier with the introduction of lens space correction and the addition of the convergence slider for title templates.

With regard to audio, customers can also mix and master immersive Apple Spatial Audio Format (ASAF) soundtracks. Fairlight fully supports integrated native operation with up to 7th order Ambisonic busses as well as objects and channels. The 3D panner view is enhanced for ASAF and lets customers place sounds almost anywhere in 3D space including object position, orientation and room simulation. Customers can also import and remix existing 3D audio formats into ASAF for Apple Vision Pro.

The Media and Delivery Pages have also been updated to include presets for Apple Immersive Video export. Customers can use the presets to render their immersive project, just like a normal project, then drag and drop the rendered file in the Apple Immersive Video Utility for macOS. This means that the immersive video is now ready to stream to their Apple Vision Pro. Customers can also render a ProRes bundle for viewing using Apple Compressor.

Sample immersive video clips for use in DaVinci Resolve Studio 20.1 for macOS are available to download now.

And for the Free Version...

Elsewhere, in non-Immersive and non-Studio additions, the software update improves MultiText character and paragraph level styling and adds the option to process clip compositions in your timeline resolution. This update also improves safe area controls with new custom guides, rulers and snapping tools on the cut and edit pages. Support for 32-bit floating point recording on cut, edit and Fairlight timelines has also been added. 

There's a lot there, there always is (see the full kist below). But one interesting thing to note with this release is that it widens the gulf between the free and paid versions of DaVinci Resolve. The list of features reserved for Resolve Studio is growing and currently includes support for multiple GPUs, 4K output, motion blur effects, temporal and spatial noise reduction, multiple AI-based tools, HDR tools, camera tracker, voice isolation, surround sound and immersive audio, multiple Resolve FX, 3D stereoscopic tools and remote rendering...

Fusion Studio 20.1 and More

What's new in DaVinci Resolve 20.1

The following features have been added or updated.

Key Features

• Apple Vision Pro spatial and immersive video workflows in macOS (see above).
• Direct monitoring of immersive content in Apple Vision Pro.
• Support for Apple Spatial Audio Format.

Cut and Edit Page

• Improved easing behavior for multiple keyframes.
• More consistent easing for curves, keyframes and inspector controls.
• Improved curve editor for active curves, ease, locked parameters.
• Ability to adjust curves from the timeline keyframes and curves tray.
• Keyframes are now displayed beyond clip edit points.
• Ability to set a shortcut to switch between curve and keyframe views.
• Curves option to disable auto zoom graph height for custom zoom.
• Support for built in MultiText character level styling.
• Support for MultiText indent, align and paragraph level styling.
• Ability to import CSV files as column-aligned MultiText text boxes.
• Additional smart reframe mode to affect pan only, tilt only or both.
• Support for custom guides and snapping in the timeline viewer.
• Ability to toggle extents for selected safe area overlays.
• Ability to create subclip from edit timeline in out range.
• Support for find in media pool for USD based geometry clips.
• Options to sync media pool audio using in, out and marker.
• Ability to sync audio for stereoscopic 3D videos.
• Menu action to move playhead to mouse pointer using the C key.
• Menu actions for full extent, detailed and custom zoom for timeline.
• Timeline tab action to load to source viewer.
• Configurable actions to explicitly enable or disable clip.
• Audio and video only insert controls in the source viewer.
• Improved right to left language handling in transcriptions.
• Ability to view transcriptions for clips on the source timeline.

Fusion Page

• Support for new immersive option in the viewer 360 Views menu.
• Support for new immersive patcher tool.
• Support for Magic Mask v2 in Fusion.
• Support for caching deep composites to disk.
• Option to downscale clip compositions to timeline resolution.
• Improved DoD and RoI support for deep image compositing tools.
• Improvements for USD Renderer for overscan.
• Edit individual tool controls from the inspector context menu.
• Improved shape duplicate tool with style, jitter and aligned rotations.
• Support for swizzler to create alpha only multi layer outputs.
• Support for swizzler background channels.
• Support for regular expression based selection in Cryptomatte.

Color Page

• Improved color viewer safe area display selection.
• Ability to switch timeline resolution on the fly from the color viewer.
• Improved cache retention for copied versions and timelines.
• Improved magic mask retention for copied versions and timelines.
• DCTL Support for ACES 2.0 Core.

Resolve FX

• New ColorTone Diffuser emulates light based lens filters.
• Natural and strong split tone modes in Film Look Creator.
• New Split Tone with additional controls.
• Separate RGB sliders and shimmer controls in light rays.
• Secondary glow ability in glow.
• New atmosphere controls in light rays and glow.
• Ability to regrain skin smoothening areas in face refinement.

Fairlight Page

• Support for half speed timeline playback.
• Action to enable focus mode using the W key.
• Ability to record in 32-bit floating point.
• Audio waveforms are now accurate when recording.
• Clip context menu action to regenerate waveform profiles.
• Faster Audio Assistant analysis with short clips improvements.
• Audio Assistant option to view the full UI of underlying effects.
• Dialogue matcher ambience controls and improved wet dry matches.
• Support for deleting busses from track headers and index.
• Shift option command for fine mouse based scrubbing zoomed out.
• Shift and command click to add to selection in mixer.

Codec and I/O

• Support for Blackmagic RAW 5.0 SDK.
• Faster decodes for URSA Cine 12K LF and URSA Cine 17K 65 clips.
• Support for decoding and encoding webp images.
• 12-bit support and custom quality controls for DNx.
• Support for encoding H.264 and H.265 in MXF Op1A clips.
• Support for decoding Samsung APV clips.
• Improved native Windows H.264 and H.265 bit rate controls.
• New deliver preset for Tencent video uploads.

General

• Improved layouts for small, dual screen and vertical video views.
• Improved per-system bin layout retention for multi-user projects.
• Use shift space to display the effects search dialog in all pages.
• Ability to search for effects in both English and application language.
• Clone tool support for xxhash64 checksums.
• DRT timeline exports now include Fusion media references.
• Viewers now reflect updates to still images by other applications.
• Concurrent viewer overlays for DeckLink and remote monitoring.
• Scripting API support for voice isolation for audio clips and tracks.
• Support for Electron 36.3.2 for workflow integrations.
• New Javascript promises API for asynchronous workflow operations.
• Support for audio only TS growing files.
• General performance and stability improvements.

What's new in Fusion Studio 20.1

The following features have been added or updated.

• Support for new immersive option in the viewer 360 Views menu.
• Support for new immersive patcher tool.
• Support for Magic Mask v2 in Fusion Studio.
• Edit individual tool controls from the inspector context menu.
• Support for caching deep composites to disk.
• Improved DoD and RoI support for deep image compositing tools.
• Improvements for USD Renderer for overscan.
• Support for MultiText indent, align and paragraph level styling.
• Support for built in MultiText character level styling.
• Ability to import CSV files as column-aligned MultiText text boxes.
• Improved sDuplicate with style, jitter and aligned rotations.
• Support for swizzler to create alpha only multi layer outputs.
• Support for swizzler background channels.
• Ability to isolate layers in LayerRegex using named captures.
• Support for regular expression based selection in Cryptomatte.
• Support for Blackmagic RAW SDK 5.0.
• General performance and stability improvements.
  
  

What's new in Blackmagic Camera 9.7 Public Beta

Adds support for URSA Cine Immersive.

Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive

• Adds support for Blackmagic RAW Immersive files.
• Adds ‘toggle eyes’ to function button parameters.
• Sets ‘HFR’ button to ‘toggle eyes’ by default.
• Adds Immersive heads up display elements.
• Adds support for dual 8K recording.
• Adds ILPD embedding support.
• Adds 90p project rate support.
• Sets 90p default project rate.
• Adds 30p external locking for 90p.
• Adds 30p external timecode for 90p.
• Adds USB-ethernet into Setup menu.
• Fixed setting record rate to 90p using REST API.
• Fixed Immersive guides resetting on power cycle.
• Fixed ND filter control from Blackmagic Camera app.
• Fixed crash when timeline scrubbing before playback.
• Fixed Immersive Control REST API resetting on power cycle.