I am brand new to Resolve, so forgive me if these have already been addressed. I have used Premiere for many years, but can't afford the subscription model right now. I happen to already have Vegas Pro, but that has several limitations that really hinder my workflow. So, seeing as there is a free option for Resolve, figured I would give it a try. I am now pretty much hooked on it. I realize that it is primarily color correction software and only recently becoming a more full-featured NLE, but I love it for its NLE features more than anything. The audio tools are absolutely fantastic and, as a musician and audio editor, I am glad to see someone finally willing to bring powerful audio tools to an NLE. It's super awesome that you added AC3 support in this version, so syncing audio to my video is now very easy. Also really excited that MP4 render support is there. Having said all that, here are a few things I would love to see at some point (though none are dealbreakers for me at the moment):
- Would love more options when rendering to MP4. For example, would like to be able to specify that I want 2-pass VBR, target bitrate, etc. Would also like to be able to encode the audio at 256 kbps instead of a max of 192. I am using the free version, so maybe that's only in Studio, but if not, would love to have that added.
- When I auto-sync my audio to video, there is no change in the media pool. What I mean is that the original two clips are there, it's just that the audio in the video clip has been "replaced." As a minor usability tweak, I would like it if the synced video would be in the media pool as a third file and/or the original two would be removed and replaced by the synced file. Maybe just an option to do that? Would make it easier to tell at a glance.
- Would really like the ability to change the timeline frame rate. I don't see much need for having multiple timelines at different frame rates, I would just like to be able to change it after I have imported my media in case I forgot to set it correctly when I set up the project. That way, I don't have to completely redo the project just to change the frame rate. A pop-up when dragging my first clip to a new timeline to change the timeline to match the clip would be nice, too. That is, I drag a clip to the timeline but the clip doesn't match the timeline settings. The box asks if I would like to change the timeline to match the clip. Alternatively, an option in the project settings to match the project to a clip, similar to Vegas (I think).
- I'm sure there are other options for better titling, but I would like it if there were some more options in the titler. The first thing I would like is just an option for the stroke to be an outer stroke instead of an inner stroke. Ideally, I would also like options to be able to automate on a per-character or per-word basis. For example, could use one title and automate so that it appears one word (or character) at a time instead of having to make multiple titles to make that happen.
- Mentioned in another thread, but repeating here for completeness. After syncing my video and audio, I see that the mono audio track is correctly identified in the media pool. If I check the clip properties, it indicates that it is mono audio. When I play it, it plays through the center channel. However, when I drag it down to the timeline and a new timeline is created, the audio track created seems to follow the project settings of stereo audio instead of creating an audio track that matches what is in the clip. This causes the audio in the timeline to play back only on the left channel until I manually change the track to mono. It is only a minor time loss to do that now that I know what is going on, but I spent a good 10-20 minutes trying to figure that out the first time and, ultimately, didn't even know there WAS a track audio channels setting until I saw it in a tutorial video the next day (I had just turned off panning, which also seemed to work).
I think that's all I've got. These are all minor grievances for me, though they might be bigger deals for people who do more than the occasional YouTube video. Other than that, I am absolutely loving the software. I'm amazed that you even offer a free option for such full-featured software. Keep up the great work!