Buying DaVinci Resolve Studio 16

So I'm totally sold on the product and want to pay the $299. The big mystery becomes Pay Whom?
Then I see there are a number of options, which is always nice, but not at all clear as to pro's and con's.

A huge Thank You for producing such a fantastic product!

But a huge Boo for not clarifying anything, seemingly anywhere (that I could find) of who to pay and what's the deal with dongle vs license key, versus what's supported on what platform!

I'd prefer to not have to deal with a dongle, I also prefer to run under FreeBSD's Linux layer, but I'm happy to run under Linux and even Windows if I have to. (Not expecting anyone here to use FreeBSD.)

Some say that if you are not under Windows or MAC some features are not working, is that true, please elaborate?

As I pointed out I'm totally sold on DRS 16 but utterly frustrated over not finding a single "authorized" reseller even from Blackmagic's Reseller list that even offered DaVinci, some of them are clearly not even in the business but highly questionable as to the intentions with the website.

Searching the web I've found a few good companies such as Adorama, which I used to buy video equipment from, and they have a dongle and a license key for the $299 so that's good. (Walmart is selling DRS for $360 Model: DV/RESSTUD, sold and shipped by AMI Ventures Inc!?!)

Fortunately, I found this forum and with all the pro people here my questions will no doubt be handled with aplomb!

I added the extra blurb should anyone at Blackmagic care. (Though judging by the huge number of cracks being offered they may not care too much. As a former developer myself, much like the situation with dBase of yesteryear, hackers can help creating an industry standard by getting everyone to use it.)

It would be a really good idea to have an info page (FAQ?) that answered these questions as many others must have wandered into the same situation.

Thanks, Steve

Did you get it working on freeBSD?

[Peter Chamberlain]

There is a list of resellers on the BMD web site.
They can sell to you the Studio version with a current offer of the Speed Editor at no extra charge.
The readme defines supported OS and hardware min. FreeBSD isn’t one of them but someone might be able to help.
The codec list on the BMD support page defines the biggest differences between the OS but Linux also has some audio plugin limitations, amongst others, but is the preferred OS by a number of pro facilities worldwide.
The activation key version offers 2 concurrent activations, Automatic activation reset if a third system is added do u always have 2 seats…. plus one activation on a cloud service (newly added)

Dongle is one system at a time.

V16 or v17 activation keys are the same as far operation and future free updates are concerned

The Resolve dongle also unlocks Fusion starting with version 16. Code does not unlock Fusion Studio versions prior to 17.

The Fusion dongle unlocks recent versions of Resolve and allows you to use earlier Fusion versions, such as version 9 back before they butchered the UI into its current suboptimal format which is preventing many users from downgrading to the newer versions.

If you have any intention of using Fusion Studio in addition to Resolve and you don't want the Speed Editor, you might want to at least give some thought to buying the Fusion dongle instead of the Resolve license.

If you do want the Speed Editor, then you are going to pay just as much either way as last I checked the speed editor was the same price as either license if you don't buy it with the Resolve license.