Purchasing Studio -- Dongle? Activation?

Can I purchase Resolve directly from BlackMagic? Does it require a dongle?

I see that Resolve Studio is available from B&H Photo, but I'm wondering if there's somewhere I can purchase it online, or if I'll actually need a physical dongle.

I know this is basic, but I haven't found a clear answer in looking around on the Blackmagic website.

Thanks!

Tac

This depends on your goal.

1. I always promote activation over dongle since dongles can get lost, and activation is only a key away...
2. BMD redirects you to resellers.

You can purchase an older version (14) from amazon (choose a seller with activation and NOT dongle), then upgrade to v15.1 for free. Some sellers will even give you the key via email instead of you having to wait for it to arrive in the mail.

i have both dongles and activation

my workstations use activation

one dongle is backup in case the interwebs fail.. and it's happened to me, only once, but that was when i restarted the machine before rendering - it could not contact BMD, and Resolve could not start... BMD's server was down for a short time frame, but that was the exact time i was re-starting....

very glad i had a dongle that night with a 8am deadline looming and a entire feature film to export

the other dongle is mainly handed off to assistants as needed so they can work from their home, or cleints so they can finish a show with matching software

been at this a while and never lost a dongle yet, closest call was around 2002 when an Avid licence was 60k, and Unity 150K, DS was 240k.... had 4 MC dongles, a DS dongle and a unity Dongle.. all purple sticks... worth $630k

came in one morning and an overnight dubbing assistant was looking for a thumbdrive, found a bunch of what looked like purple thumbdrives on the back of the machines in the rack, but he could not copy a file on any of them so he threw them in the trash assumeing they were broken...

the night cleaner had already emptyed all our trash into the dumpster in the basement of the building

the assist was the one who got to dig them out of the dumpster....

Thanks, Dermot, funny story!

That's amazing, over half a million dollars in video editing dongles. I'm blown away by Resolve, can't believe it's only $299.

I'm still not sure about the dongle v. activation, though. I currently have Resolve on my brand new, bought-for-Resolve laptop, but the fan sounds like a small plane getting ready for take-off, so I'll likely get a desktop at some point. Regardless, I'm sure I'll need to move it between computers.

Isn't there a risk, if you buy an activation code on the second-hand market, that more than one person may end up with a copy of it? What happens when multiple machines in different places try to use the same activation code -- I presume it's first-in, first served for that session so you could find that sometimes you DR doesn't work, depending on whether someone else has a copy of the key and is using their copy.

Or I could be completely wrong -- it happens all the time.