What You Need to Know About the Most Recent DaVinci Resolve 18.5 Beta 3

This upgrade comes with text-based editing improvements, plus multiple cut page improvements and Blackmagic RAW SDK 3.1 support.

By definition, a beta release of a product or service is meant to be a work in progress. So, it should come as no surprise that Blackmagic’s public beta version 2 of DaVinci Resolve 18.5 is getting a new update to a beta 3 version. Will this one be final? Probably not—again, that’s what beta means.

But this update is actually packing a lot of improvements and updated support for a host of tools and features in Resolve 18.5. Some of the highlights include multiple improvements to the cut page, a new fusion multi-merge tool for multiple layers, and some smart updates to Resolve’s text-based editing (which we’ve been excited about since NAB).

Let’s dive in and explore everything new and improved coming with Beta 3 to DaVinci Resolve 18.5.

DaVinci Resolve 18.5 Beta 3 Update

Released early this morning, there’s quite a bit packed into this new update. Sure, we’re getting some cool beta support updates for some of the more future-minded features like text-based editing. Still, there are also plenty of improvements worth mentioning for your day-to-day professional video editing needs.

Blackmagic continues to double down on growing DaVinci Resolve with AI improvementsCredit: Blackmagic Design

Some of the biggest updates off the bat have to do with improved padding for subtitle backgrounds and several improvements to Fusion’s multi-merge tools. In particular with the multi-merge, you’re going to see improvements with a display of large multi-layer inputs and a new ability to now show the input names for inputs, which should make it easier to see and manage everything directly to the multimerge node.

Here are some of the features updates:

• Support for importing Universal Scene Descriptor (USD) files
• Introduction of the USD toolset for managing USD assets.
• Support for USD Hydra-based renderers including Storm.
• New multi-merge tool for compositing multiple layers.
• Support for a native AI-based depth map tool.
• GPU accelerated Clean Plate.
• GPU accelerated Anaglyph.
• Up to 3x faster renders when using the splitter tool.
• Support for OpenEXR DWA compression in saver nodes.
• Support for BMD Film Gen 5 in the CineonLog tool.
• Support for previewing individual shape tools.
• General performance and stability improvements.

Blackmagic is also adding support for their new Blackmagic RAW SDK 3.1 as well as support for all Blackmagic color spaces in Fusion for Resolve Studio.

Text-Based Editing Gets Automatic Language Detection

While not the biggest news in the world, it was a little bit odd that Blackmagic unveiled their new AI-powered text-based editing at NAB without more widespread language support.

However, multiple languages were always in the plans and now Beta 3 will have a new automatic language detection feature with 14 additional languages including Chinese, Japanese, French, and Spanish.

Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 18.5 in actionCredit: Blackmagic Design

This public beta 3 will also add support for auto subtitles in these languages as well as new support for editing and deletion of generated text, silent segment detection and display, and even a new ability to remove silent segments from transcribed text.

A key element to Resolve’s text-based editing moving forward is also going to be centered around a new ability for words and paragraphs to be highlighted and deleted, as well as used for searching out content with AI, which can ultimately save several hours of searching in through your footage looking for a single shot or line from an interview.

Beta 3 brings updates for both free and studioCredit: Blackmagic Design

DaVinci Resolve 18.5 Free vs. Studio

DaVinci Resolve has always been unique simply for the fact that it offers both a free version and a paid studio version. While the free version includes many of the same high-quality processing features as the studio version, there are some limitations to “free” when it comes to limiting project mastering and output to Ultra HD resolutions.

Resolve 18.5 also only supports a single processing GPU on Windows and Linux and 2 GPUs on the latest Mac Pro.

However, if you need features like support for multiple GPUs, 4K output, or other motion blur effects, temporal or spatial noise reduction, deinterlacing, camera tracking, etc… you’ll still need to update to Resolve Studio 18.5.

To get started, DaVinci Resolve 18.5 Beta 3 is now available as a free download from Blackmagic’s website.

How do you feel about this Beta 3 release? Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited to try out?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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