If you’ve never edited video before, this may come as a surprise. Previewing your video clips is a HUGE part of your workflow. Think about how much footage (in minutes) you have to edit and then think about how long you’d like your final product to be (in minutes). The difference between the two is what’s been edited out. You’ll never know what needs to be edited out without first previewing the footage, so, as you can see, having preview tools at your disposal in an editing application such as DaVinci Resolve is quite the necessity.
In this tutorial, I’d like to review some of the preview tools available to us inside the Cut page of Resolve. There are three methods to preview video and each has its advantages. I’ll cover everything below.
Source Clip Preview
I’ve gone ahead and imported some video clips into DaVinci Resolve. As you can see from the workspace below, the source clips are in the right side Media Pool, and since I selected one of them in that area, I can see a preview in the monitor area on the right.
Let’s look at things a bit closer. In the toolbar above the monitor, there are a few buttons to the left. If I roll over the leftmost button, I’ll see that it says Source Clip.
I’ll click that button to make sure it’s selected. Next, I’ll click in any area other than a clip in the media pool, just to make sure no clips are selected. I should see nothing in the monitor.
With no clips selected in the Media Pool, if I roll my mouse left to right over a clip thumbnail, I’ll see a preview of that clip in the monitor. I can do that with any clip in the media pool. I can roll over any of them and I’ll see the respective previews in the monitor.
If I decide to click on one particular clip in the media pool so it’s highlight in red, I’ll see a still shot of that clip in the monitor, even without rolling over it. If I roll over the selected clip thumbnail, I’ll see a preview in the right-side monitor, just as I did above. The difference here is that if I decide to roll my mouse pointer over any clip that’s not selected, I’ll see no preview. I’ll see nothing.
Metadata, Thumbnail, Strip, & List Views
In the toolbar above the Media Pool are a few different buttons. Take a look below.
From left to right, the different available clips views inside of the Media Pool are Metadata, Thumbnail, Strip, and List. You can click each button to see what each file’s view looks like. Previewing clips works the same way as I explained above in these alternative views.
Metadata View
Thumbnail View
Strip View
List View
Try not selecting any clips and rolling your mouse over them and then try selecting a clip and rolling your mouse over it. You should see some previews. For the List view, you won’t see any preview when rolling your mouse pointer over the file name. But don’t despair…
In any view, you can click to select a clip. When that’s done, you’ll see a still preview frame in the monitor on the right.
To preview the clip, you can click and drag the red playhead left and right, or, you can click on the Play, Stop, or Play Reverse buttons beneath the green sound bar. You can even click, hold, and drag the Jog Wheel to the left and right. This will give you somewhat of a granular control over your preview. To learn what each button is, simply hover your mouse pointer over it.
Source Tape Preview
Let’s take a look at another preview method in the Cut page. This one is called the Source Tape preview and to access it, you’ll simply click the center button of the three in the toolbar above the monitor.
When this button is selected, you’ll notice something happen in the monitor on the right. Take a look at the preview bar beneath the image in the monitor. There’s the red playhead, but there are also all of the imported project clips in this one preview. You can differentiate between clips by looking at the grey and white vertical lines inside of the preview bar.
If I were to click and drag the red playhead to the left and right, I’d pass through every clip in the Media Pool. And if I pressed the Play button, I’d see all of my imported clips play, one after the other. All of the clips combined as a preview inside of the monitor is called a Tape, hence the Source Tape preview name.
To jump to any clip in the tape underneath the monitor, all you need to do is click the thumbnail in the Media Pool.
Fast Review
If you’d like to review parts of, or your entire, tape at a faster speed, you can click the Fast Review button down in the control section beneath the monitor.
Remember, by clicking any clip’s thumbnail in the Media Pool, you can jump to that specific clip in the monitor preview bar. You can also fast review straight from that point.
Sorting Media
If you’d like to sort your media in a specific way to preview in that way, you can easily do this. Simply click the Sort button above the Media Pool and make your selection. Keep in mind the sorting possibilities when naming your files because you can save a lot of time by naming intelligently.
Previewing All Contents of Your Bins
If you have multiple bins with multiple video clips in each one inside of your Media Pool, with the Source Tape preview, you can preview all of those clips in your monitor. So just like you previewed the contents of just one bin, if you climb the hierarchy of your bins and select that bin in the Media Pool, you’ll have more and more to preview in your monitor, all at once.
Timeline Preview
Viewing previews from the timeline is simple. As you begin editing and adding to the timeline in the Cut page, you’ll have the ability to jump back and forth between preview modes by clicking the buttons I shared earlier in this post – the three buttons in the left of the toolbar above the monitor. So if you had clips inserted into your working timeline and wanted to preview those clips in that timeline, you’d click the Timeline preview button. If you wanted to go back and preview some clips that are stored in the Media Pool, you’d click either the Source Clip or Source Tape buttons. Those three buttons up top really help you jump around and preview your work in nearly any way you wish.
If you’ve got questions about previewing video clips in the Cut page, please let me know in the comment section down below. Thanks!
If you’d like to learn more, click through for all of my free DaVinci Resolve Tutorials.
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