NAB Resolve 19 update adds DaVinci Neural Engine AI tools, colour grading palettes, Fusion FX, Fairlight 3D audio panning, new rotoscoping tools, and multi-source and live replay editing.
Emulating film looks
Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve 19 adds feature upgrades for post such as ColorSlice six vector grading, effects that emulate film looks, multi source editing and multipoly rotoscoping tools. New DaVinci Neural Engine AI tools include AI audio panning to video and Ultra NR noise reduction. Fairlight also features ducker track FX and ambisonic surround sound. Other updates have been developed in Blackmagic Cloud to help larger facilities manage work and teams across their organisations.
Editorial
The Cut page has new broadcast replay tools for live multi camera broadcast editing, playout and replay with speed control. For instance, an editor can select live camera recordings in realtime for instant replay to air with slow motion and stingers. The new multi source viewer displays all live cameras, or even just clips with a common timecode, in a single multiview screen. The editor can scrub, play and select shots to add to the timeline, play them to air or switch live from any of the available angles.
When watching live cameras or clips in the multiviewer, should a signifiant event occur, editors can instantly capture that moment with a point of interest (POI) marker. The POI is placed on all the clips at that same time, finding the event on every camera angle, playing them to air and automatically building a highlights timeline.
Because of the frantic pace of live TV, these new replay palette controls in the Cut page are clear and quick to navigate. For instance, you can set a POI with a single key, select a camera and cue the event, and then select run to play to air automatically via an ATEM production switcher. From there, you can switch cameras or, if you have finished, dump the playout to prepare the next replay. New stinger transitions – moving graphic and sound transitions – let the viewer know the program has switched from live to a replay, then back, or switched to a new scene. The tools are a quick way to see all your cameras live and edit to the timeline, while the cameras are still recording.
Auto stingers
Editors can work directly with transcribed audio to find speakers and edit timeline clips. Improvements to the transcription workflow make it possible to edit clips based on the transcribed text directly on the timeline. The analyser is now able to detect multiple voices, which means users can assign names to different speakers and refine text based search and text replacement operations.
Colour and Looks
Colourists can produce richer, more film-like tones with the ColorSlice six vector grading palette, which uses subtractive colour processes to adjust image colour density, saturation and hue. In such a process, cyan, magenta and yellow are used as subtractive primary colours – each one absorbs one of additive primary colours – red, green, blue. That is, cyan absorbs red, magenta absorbs green and yellow absorbs blue. Thus, adding two subtractive primary colours filters together will transmit only one of the primary additive colours. Parameters in each customisable vector slice will allow the colourist to enhance and deepen colour without spill, in a naturally pleasing way.
By emulating photometric film processes, using the new Film Look Creator effect applies cinematic looks that replicate traditional film properties like halation, bloom, grain, flicker, gate weave and vignetting. Colourists can adjust exposure in camera stops and use subtractive saturation, richness and split tone controls to achieve looks usually associated with feature films.
UltraNR denoise mode
One of the Neural Engine-driven updates is UltraNR, a new DaVinci denoise mode in the Color page’s spatial noise reduction palette. Colourists can use it to reduce digital noise from a frame while maintaining the image clarity. It can also be combined with temporal noise reduction when denoising images with motion.
Another Neural Engine tool is IntelliTrack AI Tracking, which optimises tracking and stabilization in the Color and Fusion pages. It can also be used in Fairlight to track on screen subjects and automatically generate audio panning within a scene.
Fusion VFX
VFX artists now have a larger set of USD tools on the Fusion page, plus a new multipoly rotoscoping tool. MultiPoly displays all of the VFX artist’s masks in a single list, which makes switching between nodes unnecessary and roto tasks faster and more accurate. On complex projects, artists can view, select, add to and modify specific shapes, toggle their visibility and adjust parameters – from a single location.
uVolume is a tool that directly imports volumetric VDB files into Fusion, without the user taking time out for conversions. It also adds creative control of imported effects such as smoke, fire, clouds and explosions, allowing full control over density, temperature and colour parameters of the VDB file in Resolve.
Management
The new Organizations application in Blackmagic Cloud enables larger companies to define and manage a work group as a single working organisation. A manager can share projects to that group, rather than one person at a time, manage storage access, share presentations and create a single sign-on. Managers may also buy or rent DaVinci Resolve Studio licenses, making it simpler to assign and manage license allocations within the larger company. Licenses can be costed against specific projects, and then removed when complete.
Fairlight Audio
As mentioned above, in Fairlight, IntelliTrack AI tracking can be used to track motion and automatically generate precision audio panning by tracking people or objects as they move across 2D and 3D spaces. The user can quickly pan multiple actors in a scene, controlling their voice positions in the mix environment.
AI-based dialogue separator FX include tools for rebalancing dialogue against background sound and the reverberant sound of the room. Other controls for voice, background and ambience are included to help reduce, remix or remove competing sounds, making it useful for field recordings and interviews in busy locations.
Audio panning
Specifically, the ducker track FX allows one audio track adjust the level of another track automatically, without the need to set up complex side chain compression or automation curves. For example, users can set music or background noise to lower automatically when dialogue is present, and then fine tune the audio mix with dedicated controls. With the music remixer track FX, music can be adjusted to fit with the style of a show. Controls include mute and level adjustments for voice, drums, base, guitar and so on. The user can turn a vocal piece into an instrumental, automate changes and refocus the music mix to highlight particular instruments.
Fairlight now has native effects processing, 2D and 3D spherical panning, binaural and channel based monitoring, dynamic in-viewer metering and head tracking support. Ambisonic surround sound is a new spherical format that audio engineers use to record, mix, monitor and deliver full sphere soundtracks, representing the sound field at a point in 3D space. Ambisonics captures directional information for each sound wave entering the microphone – the full 360° around the microphone, plus height information.
Ducker track FX
Fairlight also includes fully integrated native operation with 1st to 5th order busses and tracks. Bus tracks receive signals from other source tracks via a bus, or signal path used to combine individual audio signal paths together so that they can be manipulated as a group, like any other track. Bus tracks are used to apply effects or act as submixes to control and organise multiple source tracks at once.
DaVinci Resolve 19 public beta is available for download now from the Blackmagic Design website, and is being demonstrated at NAB 2024. www.blackmagicdesign.com
