Best EXPORT SETTINGS in DaVinci Resolve 18
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Best EXPORT SETTINGS in DaVinci Resolve 18 - Best EXPORT SETTINGS in DaVinci Resolve 18
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In this video, I'm going to show you the best expert settings in DaVinci Resolve and I'm going to show you how to save them as custom presets. If you're new here, I'm Alli and I release weekly-ish tutorials all about video creation, editing as well as Gear reviews. If you're into that sort of thing, subscribe to stay in the loop. Let's hop into resolve and check this out!
We're into DaVinci resolves edit page. Before anything, let's go over to the wrench icon on the bottom right just to double check our Master settings. This is going to come in handy when we're exporting. So, our timeline resolution is 1920x1080 and our frame rate is set to 24 frames per second. Okay, good to know. Now, let's pop over to the delivery page and in the render settings tab, there are some export presets already available, but we are going to create some custom export settings. I like to use my own presets so I get the results that I want every time. Now, of course, there may be several different reasons why you'd want specific settings for exporting. I'm going to show you the three export settings I use most. So, let's say you're exporting for YouTube or you have limited hard drive space and you want to save your files in a format that allows for really small file sizes while also maintaining a higher quality. Let's start out with the format MP4, which we're going to choose for now instead of QuickTime because QuickTime will create an mov file which works fine with apple, but MP4 is an international standard and works with more platforms. Let's look at the codec options. So, we have h.264 and h.265.
For now, we're going to stick with h.264, which is currently the most commonly used codec. It will compress your files pretty well and give you a somewhat smaller file size, but the quality will be affected to some degree. Overall, h.264 is a good option because it can be used and watched back on more applications than h.265. Right now, under resolution, if you're exporting at 1080, which we are, then we can leave the resolution at 1920x1080 HD and you want to make sure the frame rate matches the source footage of your timeline, which for us was 24 frames per second. And, your quality, let's choose restrict to and type in 28,000.
Some other editors may prefer a lower or higher number, and from the tests I've done, I found that when I choose a higher number, I don't notice a different prints. However, choosing a lower number, I've been able to see a difference in the shadows and within the fades and transitions. So, for 1080p, that is good. Under the audio tab, you can't really make many adjustments and the default works well, so we'll keep it as is. Cool, let's save this preset by going up to the three dots here, save as new preset, and let's name this 1080p 24 frames per second. Great. If you have a project that was filmed in 4k and you want to export that project in 4k, we can go to the resolution and choose 3040 by 2160. And, because we've changed the resolution, we're also going to change the quality. Let's bring it all the way up to 50,000 kilobytes per second. And, as I mentioned, the h.264 codec is really common and does a pretty good job, but the quality isn't as good as you can get it. So, if you were working on a project where you need to keep the best quality possible, you should probably consider a different codec. And in that case, I would choose a format that can work with prores like Quicktime.
And, we can now change the codec to Apple prores, and notice that even under the advanced settings, we no longer have the option to adjust the bit rate. That's because it's uncompressed. Prores is a finishing codec. It's important to know that you don't necessarily need to use prores unless you're working with a professional agency within your video production company. For example, I'd say 99% of video clients will be happy with h.264 or h.265, and would actually prefer not having the large file size that comes with prores. Beyond that, 99% of people uploading videos to YouTube won't want to upload with prores because it will take 10 times longer for no real change in the quality, as YouTube's gonna compress your video anyway. Keep in mind, this will create a larger file size, so make sure you have a good amount of space available on your hard drive. Let's save this preset by going up to those three little dots again, choosing 'save as new preset', and name it '4K 24fps prores'. Okay, and now I'll show you the third expert option that I use for Instagram and TikTok video, and this is where we're going to use h.265, which you could look at as a more modern version of the h.264 codec. This is a much better codec than the h.264 codec in terms of compression. It will keep your file sizes smaller while also keeping the quality of the video higher.
Before we use this codec, I just want to let you know that it is really process heavy. It might slow down your computer and will make your computer work really hard. You might even hear the fans come on. So, if you're going to be exporting in h.265 and then editing the video later, it might make playback choppy. It's going to be a tougher codec to work with, and if you're not using a really high-end computer, it will probably take longer to export as well. With that in mind, let's select h.265, click the resolution drop down menu, and choose custom, which will allow us the option to check mark 'use vertical resolution'. So now our resolutions 1080 by 1920, and of course, if you are going to be exporting a vertical video, you will want to have made sure that you edit it to fit a vertical frame. Okay, because h.265 is so good at compressing into smaller file sizes while also maintaining a high quality, for this one I only set it to around 14,000 kilobytes per second, which is half of the bit rate that we set it to when we were using the h.264 codec. As mentioned, this is because the h.265 codec is so good at compressing the image quality while staying high quality.
And there you go, those are a few of the best export settings to use in DaVinci Resolve. If you like the music I used in this video, check out the link below for some awesome music that's great for YouTube. We have over 100 plus other filmmaking tutorials on our Channel, as well as a playlist dedicated completely to DaVinci Resolve. And of course, if you're having any issues in resolve or there's anything that you want to learn, let me know in the comments below, because maybe I'll make a tutorial about it. Subscribe for weekly-ish videos from us, and we'll see you in another one. Thank you!
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