Blackmagic Design has announced DaVinci Resolve 20, a major update to one of the best video editing software packages and an industry standard application, used by big-budget Hollywood productions, with recent features including Alien: Romulus, The Brutalist, and Wicked. And while the base package is still free, and the software is still a one-stop shop for video editing, color grading, visual effects, motion graphics, and audio, DaVinci Resolve 20 has changed quite a bit, adding over 100 new features. And yes, some of these are brand-new AI-powered tools.
The news comes shortly after Blackmagic released a FREE beginner’s guide book to DaVinci Resolve 19. But before I get into the extensive updates, it’s worth mentioning Blackmagic Design’s extremely attractive pricing structure.
The base version of DaVinci Resolve 20 is free to download, and the more powerful DaVinci Resolve Studio 20 is $325 / £306. But users with DaVinci Resolve Studio 19 can currently upgrade to DaVinci Resolve Studio 20 for free.
DaVinci Resolve 20: What's new?
Perhaps the biggest news for long-time DaVinci users are changes to the interface itself, including a dedicated keyframes palette, which can also be toggled below the timeline, automatically implemented vertical page layouts, and a dedicated voiceover and teleprompter interface. But as with any new software release in 2025, the most glamorous additions regard artificial intelligence.
AI IntelliScript can be used to instantly organize footage into a timeline based on a text-based script document. This will even generate alternative takes on different tracks. DaVinci Resolve 20’s audio transcription engine now boasts over 60 languages, while AI Animated Subtitles will animate subtitles as words are spoken.
The AI Music Editor seeks to remove the pain of trimming music by automatically fitting the track to the desired length of footage, while AI Detect Music Beats automatically places markers over footage in the timeline to indicate beats, making it easier to cut or align specific moments within clips to correspond with the beat. And if you want to automatically create a mastered final mix, you can turn to AI Audio Assistant.
DaVinci Resolve can even use its AI Voice Convert to improve upon the original voice or generate an automated dialogue replacement, all while retaining a voice recording’s inflection, pitch variation, and emotion. Ideal if you’re struggling to capture clean audio out in the field. There’s an AI Dialogue Matcher, too, which will match the tone, level and room environment of dialogue, allowing for consistent dialogue across a range of locations.
AI Multicam SmartSwitch has the potential to save a lot of time by automatically switching to the necessary speaker when editing productions with a multi-cam setup. The software’s AI SuperScale has been enhanced with 3x and 4x upscaling, while AI Magic Mask and AI Resolve FX Depth Map are both upgraded to version two. Finally, AI IntelliCut can be used to remove silences, split each speaker’s dialogue into separate tracks, and generate ADR Cues.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, here are the rest of the upgrade highlights…
- Import Blackmagic Cloud Shared folders to the media pool.
- Text+ tool features paragraph, line wrapping and bounding tools.
- MultiText tool boasts layers and easy transform, clip and wrap controls.
- Live overwrite now supports edit keys and search dial.
- Click and drag to live overwrite multi source and sync bin.
- Trim with safe edit avoids overwriting adjacent clips.
- Full-featured audio mixer added to cut page.
- Voiceover tool with record and monitor options in edit page.
- Chroma Color Warper grading.
- Display viewer overlays for remote monitoring.
- Stream and monitor H.265 4:2:2 (on supported hardware).
- Deep-image compositing toolset.
- Multi-layer pipelining for OpenEXR, PSD and stereoscopic 3D.
- Vector warping toolset for image patching and cleanup.
- Fusion support for 180 VR.
- 3D Scene Dome Light.
- View color page grade in media out node on Fusion page.
- Clip EQ now features 6 bands.
- EQ and Level Matcher processes match tone and clip levels.
- EQ and Gain, now also available as Fairlight FX plugins.
- Fairlight Chain FX to create and restore frequently chained plugins.
- Resolve FX AI Set Extender.
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