Blackmagic Forum

I film with the BMPCC and I love that little guy. The detail, the color...I love working in RAW. I don't think you can get a better image at even twice the price.

But the camera does have it's flaws. I'm grading a wedding I shot recently and decided to purchase Resolve Studio to take advantage of the noise reduction.

I went with the dongle version from B&H. I like the idea of being able to edit on any machine by moving that dongle. But it seems like a lot of folks are happy about the activation code, which someone is already having an issue with after a mobo crash.

So what's up with the dongle that folks dislike so much?

Jim Simon wrote:So what's up with the dongle that folks dislike so much?

To some it's just one more thing that can get lost or damaged.

Definitely just user preference, I am glad there are multiple options that both work for all user types.


For a large facility dongles are great, they live in the back of a machine in a rack and no one ever goes near it and they rarely move. If a machine were to die the dongle can just be moved over to a new one and it's back up and running with no internet required or any other work to be done.

A home user will probably not want to use up a USB port exclusively for a dongle and then yes they could lose it or break it from moving a laptop around daily. It also matches most other software vendors who use non physical license keys nowadays.

Jim Simon wrote:I film with the BMPCC and I love that little guy. The detail, the color...I love working in RAW. I don't think you can get a better image at even twice the price.

But the camera does have it's flaws. I'm grading a wedding I shot recently and decided to purchase Resolve Studio to take advantage of the noise reduction.

I went with the dongle version from B&H. I like the idea of being able to edit on any machine by moving that dongle. But it seems like a lot of folks are happy about the activation code, which someone is already having an issue with after a mobo crash.

So what's up with the dongle that folks dislike so much?

With the existence of only one USB-C port in later release of Macbook Pro means we have to get an adapter to plugin the dongle.
Personally, I still prefer the dongle.

I have a Media Composer license that I’d like to transfer to a dongle, but I still can’t justify the cost of $500 just to get the dongle.



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I'm a dongle guy: Resolve, Fusion, Avid, Pro Tools, all sitting on a USB 10-port hub. Not a big deal -- it's just part of life in post.

I'm also a fan of the dongle version, I regularly switch between several editing computers at work, or I need to take work home. I like not having to do some internet reach around to get permission to use my software.

Dongles are pretty standard for a lot of software.

Have a dedicated Flux dongle for all their audio plugins, a dedicated Bias Peak Pro dongle, three iLok dongles for the multitude of audio plugins and software (each iLok holds a maximum of 500 licenses), a dedicated Cedar Audio dongle, and then the Resolve Studio dongle.

7 dongles via USB hub plugged in to a single Mac Pro.

Situation is no different on all the other machines.

Some software companies provide two licenses for their software, allowing one license to be present on a “stationary” iLok, and another on a “portable” iLok. Perfect solution.

Can’t imagine switching exclusively to license codes any time soon, especially if the internet is required for activation and deactivation.

Yuki.Ariandi wrote:With the existence of only one USB-C port in later release of Macbook Pro

You do this kind of work on a Laptop?! Eeesh!

Reynaud Venter wrote:Can’t imagine switching exclusively to license codes any time soon

B&H sent me the activation version, then removed the dongle version from the web site, listing only the code version.

Thankfully, Peter from BMD went out of his way to correct the issue and get me the dongle, which is working wonderfully.

I'm also happy to report that B&H has relisted the dongle version on their web site (though it is backordered).

Jim Simon wrote:You do this kind of work on a Laptop?! Eeesh!

One of the biggest problems that I see on this forum (and in real life for that matter) is the inability for people to imagine workflows outside of their own.

Everyone has different needs, different ways that they like to do things, etc. Resolve 14 being touted as a next generation NLE makes total sense on a laptop...no eeesh about it.

Kays Alatrakchi wrote:Resolve 14 being touted as a next generation NLE makes total sense on a laptop...no eeesh about it.

Given the screen sizes, horrible keyboards and lack of sufficient internal drives, I maintain my Eeesh!

There may be situations where you edit optimized media on a laptop (my keyboard is quite OK) and then come into your workplace, plug bigger drives and screens or even an external GPU and continue happily with original sources. What's 'eesh' about that?

Jim Simon wrote:Given the screen sizes, horrible keyboards and lack of sufficient internal drives, I maintain my Eeesh!

I think if it was a massively-powerful laptop with at least one (if not two) big GPUs, and it had a 17" screen, it might be satisfactory for editing.

Travel....laptop....just saying