Media Encoder of choice?

Hello people,

I am fairly new to the world of video editing and certainly new to this community and Blackmagic's awesome software suites! So, first off, well met!

I am shooting film with my GoPro and it uses the HEVC codec, which gives me trouble in Resolve Free indicating 'Media Offline'. The footage plays correctly in other apps, so I presume it's a limitation of the free version of Resolve.

I have no issue with Re-coding footage to a format Resolve can use, but I was wondering which Media Encoder software you would recommend and which settings to use for the re-coding?
I've ran a trial of Adobe's Media Encoder and it's super quick, but it isn't free unfortunately and will run out after 7 days of trial use.

Many thanks!

Ffmpeg is the base of all free software encoders. If you don't like command lines, there are free or donate-ware GUIs too,
I like Shutter Encoder. And, don't encode to another GOP format, use Cineform or DNxHD/HR, and you can enjoy smoother editing at the cost of more space needed.

I still use AME regularly.. it's not free but i'm paying them for After Effects anyway and it does an awesome job!

I would recommend getting the Studio version of Resolve, where a transcode won't be necessary.