In this tutorial, I’d like to discuss how to go about the very important task of importing media assets to the Cut page in DaVinci Resolve. In order to initiate any type of work, you’ll first need to import media. Importing to the Cut page is slightly different than importing to other pages, so it’s critical to understand how this is done.
The Media Pool
To start, open DaVinci Resolve and visit the Cut page. Click the Media Pool link in the upper left corner to make sure you’re in the correct area.
You can think of the Media Pool as the uppermost level folder that will store your media assets inside of DaVinci Resolve. This top folder, or bin, is called Master. You can see the name of the bin in the upper left corner of the media pool. Remember though, any media you import into the Media Pool will not actually reside there. What you import will simply be a virtual copy of the actual file. All physical files will still reside in the folders on your computer. That’s important to remember.
There are a few different methods for importing media into the Media Pool on the Cut page of DaVinci Resolve. You can import individual files straight into the Master bin or you can import folders with files into them into the Master bin. I’ll show you how to do both below.
Importing Individual Files
The first method for importing media files to the Cut page is to right-click inside the Media Pool area and choose the Import Media… option.
Doing this will open an Import Media dialog box on your computer so you can locate your files.
From here, all you need to so is select the specific files you’d like to import and then click the Open button in the bottom right corner of the dialog box. Once that’s done, you’ll most likely see a message asking if you’d like to change the frame rate of your project to meet the frame rate of the video clips you’d like to import. Most of the time, you’ll click the Change button, which will update the project frame rate in DaVinci Resolve.
Another method for accomplishing the exact same thing is to click the Import Media icon that’s located directly above the Media Pool area. I’ve circled it in red below.
Clicking this button will open the same Import Media dialog box as above, where you’ll be able to import the files of your choosing.
If you’ve got only a few files you’d like to import to your project and those files don’t need any organizing, this is probably the way to go. This is what the imported media will look like inside the Media Pool.
If you have lots of files in multiple folders that need to stay organized, please read on below. Also, just as a reminder, any media you import to the Media Pool hasn’t actually been transferred there. All you’re seeing in the Media Pool is a virtual connection, or copy of the files. If you’d ever like to remove any of your imported media assets from the Media Pool, simply select the asset and press the Delete button on your keyboard. For this example, I’ve removed any imported assets already. The physical files haven’t actually been removed from my computer, just the virtual connections to them inside of Resolve.
Importing Folders
FYI, when you import a folder into Resolve, you’ll call that imported folder a bin. It’s just what Resolve calls them. Really though, the terms folder and bin are interchangeable.
In this section, I’ll demonstrate how to import a folder with media files contained inside of it into DaVinci Resolve. The process is just as simple as the previous process above.
To import a folder (or folders), click the Import Media Folder icon above the Media Pool area.
When you do this, the Import Media Folder dialog will appear.
From here, select the folder or folders you’d like to import and then click the Select Folder button in the lower right area of the dialog. This will import the folder along with its contents to the Media Pool.
I went ahead and selected one folder from my computer and imported it. I can now see the folder’s contents inside of the Media Pool. Here are the contents. Notice how the breadcrumbs have changed for the Media Pool. Where as it used to say only Master, it now says Master / Harpswell. Harpswell was the name of the folder I imported.
If I click the word Master in the breadcrumbs above the Media Pool, I’ll go up one level and see the folder I imported. Since it’s been imported, I’ll now call it a bin.
I can now treat it just like any other folder on my computer. To access the bin’s contents, I’ll simply double-click it.
Creating New Bins
Let’s say I’ve got lots of files in a folder on my computer, but I don’t want to import them all to the same bin. I’d like to create new bins directly inside of DaVinci Resolve and then import media directly into each bin. In this section, I’ll teach you how to create bins. It’s very easy.
To create a new bin inside of the Media Pool, I’ll right-click inside of the Media Pool and choose the New Bin option.
Once I do that, a new bin will appear, where I can rename to anything I want. For this example, I created two new bins to the right of the Harpswell bin.
Once a bin has been created, I can double-click it to enter it and then I can import files to it by following the instructions I gave above. It’s just like importing files to the Media Pool itself.
Deleting Bins
If I’d like to remove a bin from the Media Pool, I can simply click it once to select it and then press the Delete key on my keyboard. Or, I can right-click the bin and select the Remove Bin… option.
If you have any questions regarding how to import media, import folders, or how to create and delete bins in the Cut page of DaVinci Resolve, please let me know below. Thanks!
If you’d like to learn more, click through for all of my free DaVinci Resolve Tutorials.
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