User Manual

Table Of Contents
Optimized Media Improves
OverallPerformance
If you’re editing processor-intensive source formats such as camera raw, H.264, or 8K media,
and your computer isn’t fast enough to work with it easily in real time, you can create pre-
rendered, low-overhead duplicate media to use instead, that’s automatically managed
alongside the original media. This is called “Optimized Media.” Optimized Media lets you work
more quickly by allowing you to edit with a more processor-efficient media format and
resolution, while providing the ability to easily switch your project back to the original source
media whenever you want. So, you can use Optimized media to edit, and switch back to the
original source media when it’s time to finish and output. Switching is as easy as choosing
Playback > Use Optimized Media if Available to toggle Optimized media on and off.
The advantage of using optimized media to help you work faster is that it’s pre-generated,
meaning you can render it once and then use the files for the duration of your work in that
project (unless you change the debayering settings of the raw media). Also, optimized media
improves the playback performance of clips throughout DaVinci Resolve, including in the Media
page and in the Media Pool and Source Viewer of the Edit page, whereas the similar but
different Fusion Output Cache component of the Smart Cache only improves the performance
of clips that are already in the Timeline by caching them at the Timeline resolution. This makes
optimized media ideal for editing workflows of all kinds.
Choosing the Appropriate Optimized Media Format for Your Project
You have the option of choosing the Format of the optimized media you create, using
controls in the Master Settings panel of the Project Settings. Be aware that the format
you choose via the “Optimized Media Format” menu will determine whether out-of-
bounds image data (also known as “overshoots”) and Alpha Channels are preserved
when the clip is cached.
Preventing Clipping: You should use 16-bit float, ProRes 4444, ProRes 4444 XQ, or
DNxHR 444 if you plan on grading using optimized media. This is particularly true for
HDR grading.
Preserving Alpha Channels: Also be aware that the format you choose will determine
whether Alpha Channels will be preserved if theyre present in the clips being optimized.
Currently, the Uncompressed 10-bit, Uncompressed 16-bit Float, ProRes 4444, ProRes
4444 XQ, and DNxHR 444 formats preserve alpha channels.
Creating Optimized Media
Creating optimized media to work with is easy. Resolve automatically manages the relationship
between source clips and the optimized media you create, so all you need to do is choose
which clips to make optimized media for. You can manually choose which clips to optimize, or
you can use a Smart Bin to collect all of the media corresponding to one or more formats you
need to optimize to gather it procedurally. In either case, this gives you the option of only
optimizing clips in formats that require optimization, saving you time.
For example, if you’re editing a project that consists half of camera raw media, and half of
DNxHD media, you probably only need to optimize the camera raw media, so you can create a
Smart Bin that gathers all of it, based on Resolution, Codec, File Name, or whatever other
metadata is appropriate. Once gathered, it’s an easy thing to select all of these clips in
preparation for the next step.
Chapter – 6 Improving Performance, Proxies, andthe RenderCache 203