What’s new in DaVinci Resolve 20: AI tools, keyframe upgrades and more

Video editing software is getting more competitive by the day, and Davinci Resolve’s version 20 is now available in its final form.

Black Magic Design’s Davinci Resolve has already made serious inroads into established Adobe Premiere Pro’s customer base, and version 20 offers over 100 new features, including AI tools.

Pricing

A key difference, which thankfully hasn’t changed, is that you don’t need a subscription to use it, and there’s a very capable free version available.

Davinci Resolve Studio v20 can be purchased for a one-off fee of A$495 compared to Premiere Pro’s subscription fee of $A35.95 per month (or $A431.88 per year).

What’s new in DaVinci Resolve 20?

Here’s a summary of the new features in version 20, and my thoughts as an Adobe Premiere and Davinci video editor.

Cut & Edit

The new Edit page is very powerful and has some excellent UI tweaks for vertical video. Credit: Black Magic Design

Keyframe Editor

Resolve now has a proper keyframe editor that sits in its own panel, making it easier to fine-tune animations and transitions. There’s also a new curve editor window for even more control. While Premiere’s keyframe panel was already good, Davinci’s version, with separate curves section is closing the gap, but I’m still faster in Premiere’s setup.

Voice-over tool

You can now record voice-overs directly in the timeline, with a proper input monitor and recording control built in. Again, Premiere already had this, so now it’s much easier to do in Resolve.

AI IntelliScript

Paste in your script, and Resolve will transcribe the media, match it to what’s said, and build a timeline for you. I haven’t used this yet as my videos often don’t have a script, but it’s a smart way of using AI to actually save time by surfacing the best takes.

AI IntelliCut

Removes all the dead air from dialogue automatically. Speeds up editing and helps tidy interviews or run-and-gun shoots.

AI SmartSwitch (Multicam)

This one’s clever — it detects who’s speaking and cuts to the right camera in multicam edits. I love this and it doesn’t appear to be a feature available in Premiere Pro. It’s a fantastic option for making short work of really long Podcasts!

Colour

There’s nothing better than Davinci Resolve’s colour grading tools, and v20 makes it ever better. Credit: Black Magic Design

Chroma Warp

You can now push hue and saturation around in a visual way — it’s like mesh warping for colour correction. I’ve tried this out and it’s a precise and super-powerful way of tuning hue while retaining the parts that you don’t want to mess with.

Magic Mask v2

The Magic Mask tool now includes a brush, so you can refine edges or paint in missed areas more easily. It’s uncanny how accurate it is, and now it only needs a single click on the area you want to mask. It takes some serious processing power though, and no, Adobe Premiere has nothing like this.

Depth Map upgrade

Better depth extraction for faking depth of field or isolating backgrounds — works faster and holds edges better. The Depth Map is another very useful tool for masking out parts of your scene and either changing the grade or even playing with the depth of field. Not in Adobe Premiere either.

Fairlight (Audio)

While Adobe’s Audition is very powerful, the built-in Fairlight tools are fantastic, and new AI enhancements are both innovative and time-saving (but a but scary). Credit: Black Magic Design

AI Dialogue Matcher

Matches tone, volume and ambience across different dialogue clips — good for jump cuts or dialogue replacement. I really like this as there are times when we need to pick-up some audio, mainly due to client feedback, but we’ve already done the shoot. Works well and not an option in Premiere, although this does have some AI enhancements for audio cleanup.

AI Voice Transformer

You can now use AI to transform one speaker’s voice into another — handy for localisation, re-recording or voice filters. This is a little scary to be honest, but I can certainly see the applications, especially when you need a few extra words from your talent but they’re not available.

AI Audio Cleanup Tool

Automatically balances your mix, including background noise reduction, speech isolation and EQ shaping. During the Beta of version 20, this would fade out parts of my audio at the wrong times, however the final versions seems to have fixed it up. It does a good job of balancing the audio levels between speaker, music and sfx, however, might struggle identifying your intent with completed timelines.

Fusion (VFX)

I’m still getting my head around the node-based Fusion page, but if you know how to use it, it’s both powerful and capable. Credit: Black Magic Design

Deep Image Compositing

Adds support for deep image workflows using OpenEXR — niche, but good for compositors. I have no idea what this does, as I’m still trying to figure out Fusion!

Vector Warp Tools

Useful for advanced cleanup or warping overlays, logos or masks — gives more precise shape control. This is a welcome edition, but Adobe’s After Effects is also very good.

MultiText Tool

A much easier way to manage titles with multiple lines or layers — all within a single node. You can use this in Edit page too, however, I’m at a loss to understand why you can’t individually time the text elements, and need to use this in the Fusion page for more control.

Deliver & UI

Davinci Resolve 20 has many AI features that will actually save you time. Credit GadgetGuy

Custom Export Presets

You can now save export settings across different projects or clients. Simple, but overdue. However, I still find Premiere’s project structure (and lack of a centralised database) easier to understand and manage.

MV-HEVC and ProRes Support on Windows/Linux

Now supports spatial video encoding (MV-HEVC) and ProRes export outside macOS.

Vertical video UI tweaks

Resolve now adjusts the UI for vertical video editing automatically — good for social media projects. As I often create vertical video, or wide and vertical versions, this is a very welcome edition. Premere, on the other hand, has a more customisable interface, but I do like that Davinci keeps things tidy.

Blackmagic Cloud media sync

You can now sync local folders and drop them into a shared cloud media pool — makes remote collab easier. I’ve just switched this on and it looks to bring similar features to Adobe’s Team Projects, although Frame.io is very established, and my camera exports directly to it. It would be good to see more direct-camera support for non-Black Magic cameras.

Final thoughts

Davinci Resolve sees some substantial improvements. For my workflow, having support for vertical videos is a real benefit, as Adobe Premiere already has this covered, not to mention the new AI tools.

And while Adobe is also investing in some impressive AI capabilities, such as the ability to generatively extend clips, Davinci seems to be taking a more practical approach. You’ll probably use its AI tools more often to save time, like Magic Mask v2 for all sorts of effects and adjustments, AI Intelliscript for picking the best takes, or AI SmartSwitch for making short work of multi-cam Podcasts.

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