All language subtitles for Project Settings Project Settings Kolder Creative

So now that we've created our new database
and project file,

the next thing we need to do
before we start importing

any footage is to check our project
settings.

This is a really important step

because it allows us to tell DaVinci
what resolution and frame rate

we want to be working with
in our timeline.

And it also allows us to tell DaVinci
where we want to store our render cache

proxy media and optimize media.

Now don't worry if you don't know
what any of those are at this stage,

it doesn't matter.

But I promise you at the end of this
course, you'll be an expert

and you'll know everything
there is to know about each one of those.

But for now,
all you really want to know is where

to save all of those files so that
all of your media is in the same place.

Now, one thing to keep in mind
is that once you've set your timeline

frame rate in your project settings
and you've started your project,

you're not going to be able
to go back in there and change it.

So it's really important that you set it

to the frame rate
that you want to be working with.

This is all pretty straightforward stuff.

Let's jump into Da Vinci
and I'll show you exactly how I do it.

All right.

So we have that project file
that we just created open here.

And to confirm that we can press shift
one to open up our project manager here

and we can see this is the one
plus project that we just made.

I'm actually just going to delete
this test one, because we don't need that.

Now, just to show you guys
an example. Cool.

So we can close that.

All right.

So what we want to do
is access our project settings,

and the way that we can do

that is to hit this little gear
icon in the bottom right corner.

Or we can press shift
nine on our keyboard.

That is the shortcut
to bring up our project settings.

Now, in this lesson, we're really only
going to focus on the master settings.

These are the settings
that are most important

when you're starting a new project
and we'll just start from the top down.

So at the top we have timeline format
and we want to make sure that

the timeline resolution is the resolution
that we want to be working with.

Now, you can actually change the timeline
resolution at any stage.

This is actually something
that's really cool about DaVinci,

because if you have a slower computer,
you can actually just be working

in a 1080p timeline,
and then when you're ready to export,

you can switch it back to a 4K timeline
or whatever

resolution your main clips are at
and then export it as a 4K sequence.

But you're working in the 1080 timeline,
which is going to save processing power

and make things a bit
easier on your computer.

So if I'm working on a bigger project

and I find things are going slow
and I'm not getting the actual frame rate

playback on my preview,
then I could switch just down to ten HP

and I'll see a significant increase
in performance from my computer.

But in my experience with my top tier
16 inch MacBook Pro 2020 model,

it's done really well with 4K.

I haven't had an issue with it,
but I have no problem

editing in 1080 honestly,
and then exporting in 4K at the end.

One thing to keep in mind is
if you are editing in a ten epi timeline

and you forget to switch your project
settings back to 4K when you're exporting.

The great thing about DaVinci
is it's going to give you this pop up

and it's gonna let you know, Hey,
you're trying to export your timeline

in a resolution that's higher,
that's greater than the actual resolution

of your timeline, and you can experience
a bit of issues with that.

It's going to let you know that
which is really good.

So then you could just go back
into your project settings,

put it back to 4K,
and then export it in that way.

But it's totally fine
to work in a tiny DPI timeline.

So this timeline resolution area
up here doesn't really matter.

But what does matter is the timeline
frame rate down here.

So I like to work in a 24 frames
per second timeline.

You can choose any frame rate
that you want.

I pretty much only stay in 24 frames
per second.

23.976 is basically like the same thing.

It's personal preference.

Honestly, 24 works and that's always

how I start every single project, 24
frames per second.

So probably about 95% of the time
I'm going to work in the 24

frames per second timeline.

Occasionally I'll work in a 30 FP timeline

specifically for maybe things
like Instagram stories or some videos.

Sometimes 30 frames per second.

It just has a different feel to it.

24, in my opinion, feels more cinematic,
but 30

can feel more like real life.

Like the default setting on most iPhones
is to shoot at 30 frames

per second,
and it just has a different vibe to it.

But 24 is what I stick
to most of the time.

Now, this video monitoring
section down here, this is not important.

I leave everything the way that it is.

The next area that's important here
is the optimized media and render cache.

So really quickly,
I'll give you guys a summary of what

optimized media and render cache is.

But this is in no way a full lesson.

I'll be diving much deeper into each
one of these later on in the course.

But essentially what proxy media is, is

low res duplicates of your main footage
so that you can edit much faster

and you don't have to work with the big,
clunky original files.

DaVinci is able to make smaller resolution

easier to playback Kodak versions of
those files that you can edit with those

and you can switch in between them
whenever you want.

Optimize
media is kind of like the same thing,

but you don't have that resolution
decrease.

You can have that resolution decrease
if you want, but it's meant to maintain

that same resolution, but just convert it

to a better format for the computer
to be able to read easier.

It's something that I honestly don't
really use optimize media.

I don't really know
anyone that uses optimized media.

For me, it's really just proxies.

And then we also have render cache.

And render cache is just basically Da
Vinci working in the background

to render out the parts of your timeline
that are going to have a little red bar

over top of them.

And basically that just means
those are the areas that Da Vinci

is not able to playback
at the full frame rates of the timeline.

So those are the areas of the timeline
that it experiences lag.

And if you set DaVinci to smart cache,
then it will be able to

start working on caching those segments
of your timeline in the background,

storing them in the area
that we're going to be saving them here

for you to be able to playback
your timeline much easier.

But that's just a general overview of what
all three of those are.

And this section here is where we choose,
where we want to save these files,

and also what resolution do we want
these files to be created.

And so proxy media resolution,
I like to switch this to half.

I don't want Da

Vinci to choose on my behalf,
so I'll just choose half most of the time.

But if you're trying

to save a lot of space,
you can definitely make this much smaller.

If you're just editing, maybe like
talking footage or like a long interview

and you don't really need to see
all the detail.

You just need proxies as a reference.

You can go up to like 1/16
and it will be a lot more pixelated,

but it's going to be a lot
easier to edit with.

I usually like to set mine
to have the proxy media format.

I'll do two six forwards
because I find that that saves space.

Typically, Prores
is going to be a more uncompressed

and easier file
format to read by six four.

I've had no issues with it on my MacBook
and DaVinci

has been performing really well with that
optimized media resolution.

So for this I'll just leave it out.

Choose automatically or you know,

we can just leave that original
if optimize media

is something that you choose to do.

I do not use optimized media and down here

we can leave these both at 4 to 2 HQ,
the render cache.

I'll leave that as progress 4 to 2
just because I don't need

that extra bit of quality for the cache.

So the last thing we want to do in
this section is to change enable

background
caching from 5 seconds to one second.

Now, basically what we've done is
we've told The Vinci to allow it to start

caching the files
that need to be cached in our timeline

after one second
if we're not working in the program.

So basically, if I take a break

from editing and I step away,
I don't touch my mouse for one second,

it's going to start
caching those red areas of my timeline,

the areas that have
that little red bar up top

and you'll see what I mean
later on in this course.

And it's just going to start caching
those areas right away in the background,

which is really helpful

because I could take a little bit
of a break and then when I come back,

all of the areas that were sluggish
in my timeline are now going to be cached

and they're going to be able to playback
smoothly.

Now, below

the optimized media and render cache area,
we have the working folders area

and this is what I was talking about
before this is where we choose the folders

that we want to save the proxy
and the cache files

and also something called gallery stills,

which is something we're going to learn
a lot more about later on in this course.

Now, the place that I like to save
all of these files is that

same Da Vinci folder
that we created within our Project Files

folder on our main drive
that we're working on.

So one thing to keep in mind is
that this area is going to default

to the last place that you saved
to on your previous project.

So it's always really important
to check this.

Otherwise the proxies
that you're creating in the cache files,

they're going to be saving
to the old database

or the old folders that you had selected
previously.

So let's go into the proxy
generation location.

Let's click browse
and let's go to our drive here.

We got one plus phone
project, project files, Da Vinci

and in
here we can make a new folder called

Working Folders.

And in here

let's call this next one Proxies.

So proxies

create and we'll click open.

Same thing with the next one.

So it access that same folder

and we're going to call this one cache

click open and same thing
with the last one.

We are going to save this
in the same folder.

We're going to call this one
Gallery Styles

Working folders, new folder,

gallery, stills enter and open.

And that's pretty much it.

We do have this one section down here
at the bottom of our master settings here

that's frame interpolation,
and this basically allows us to tell

DaVinci how we want our slow motion
or sped up motion,

how we want our change in speed
in our timeline to be processed.

And this is

something that I don't touch here, but
it is something that you can keep in mind

for future.

Later on in this course,
you'll be learning about optical flow

and speed warp

and how those settings affect the
look of the speed change in your clips.

And this is kind of like a global change
that you can make to how

the read time process is going to
be affected throughout all of your clips.

Right now, not important,
but it is something

that you can come back to and modify.

But personally I leave that the way it is,
and that's totally fine with me.

So once everything is how we want it,
we can click

Save and will be asked
if we want to update the gallery path.

We can click update and we are good to go.

Okay,
so we have dialed in our project settings.

Everything is good to go.

We are officially ready to start
importing our footage into Da Vinci.

I'll see you guys in the next lesson.