I've been using it for many years, and it's grown in power and functionality with every release. BMD has offered free upgrades to Pro users (with no subscription) for many years, which is refreshing given the current state of software licensing.
For those upset with the new agent integration, keep in mind that one of the big knocks on DaVinci Resolve is that it's hard for beginners. Powerful tools like color grading and nodes take years to truly master (and that won't change), but making it easier for users to collaborate with the agents they already use to help learn and perform basic tasks should help with the learning curve.
Ultimately, professional video editing is an art. An agent might save time with asset management, project/timeline setup, etc., but it won't replace the real experience and taste required for larger projects. I would rather spend the extra time on the nuanced/deeper creative work.
Taking away some of the more monotonous and "uncreative" tasks in any job can be taking away some of the variety in the work. Variety is nice. Variety affords us downtime. As the job gets stripped down to its core function, while a machine keeps the pipeline full so that the work can continue uninterrupted, the downtime slips away.
And great for beginners, now they get to pay some chatbot company to cover the gaps left by detereorating software design. Lucky they're already using agents... are they?
Helping more beginners might upset some who have put in the labor.
Over time many things become easier to learn and do, and those who might feel upset should make sure their own feet are moving as well in terms of their learning and growing.
yes to agents! how i had wished i could just point an agent at my footage and instruct "do something sensible with color grading and audio cleanup". i just want something presentable for a hobby video podcast. it doens't have to look a million bucks, and i have no time or desire to learn the intricacies involved. just something that would get me 70% (or 50%!) the way there would be more than fine.
Resolve is not any harder to use than any other NLE.
Although... BMD has actually made it harder, by adding bloat like the Cut page. I have attempted to find value in it a couple of times, and didn't. Now I disable it.
BMD needs to stop throwing crap into Resolve and buckle down and do two things:
1. Fix bugs, including UI defects. The Deliver page is a mess. The clip selection between the Edit timeline and the Fusion page makes no sense. And lots more.
2. Unify the node views. Resolve is a bunch of stuff BMD bought and threw together on different pages. The "integration" is janky and can, especially for the beginner, seriously degrade your work. Once example is how Fusion compositions inexplicably downgrade everything to timeline resolution. So you can bring 4K footage into a Fusion comp, but if your output timeline of the moment happens to be merely HD, the entire composition (including keys) will be degraded to work at that resolution. I mean... really? And beyond that, the relationship between Fusion comps and the timeline events they wind up in is extremely fragile and breaks arbitrarily and unrecoverably all the time.
A single nodeview for all operations would be a long-overdue game-changer for editing software.
No offense whatsoever. But this whole line "but it won't replace the real experience and taste required for larger projects" is not how I see it. I wish people are more humble at this juncture of AI progress. This is not to say humans won't play a part but saying xyz cannot be replaced is a big stretch. Saying its not there currently is okay but saying it won't replace I don't see where that's coming from.
> it won't replace the real experience and taste required for larger projects
[Citation needed]
Not only are the upgrades free, the full license is still only $295 and can be freely migrated between macOS, Linux, and Windows (unless something has changed, serial numbers can be activated on two systems at a time and transferred freely so long as you have Internet access).
I'm no expert, but I never found Resolve materially more difficult to learn or use than Final Cut Pro or Premiere. And if you're doing anything moderately complex, it's potentially easier to learn because things that require external tools in FCPX and Premiere are built in to Resolve Studio.
I suspect the agent integration is primarily workflow/UI related, but regardless, I don't see it as any more anti-creative than incorporating precanned effects and presets into a project, and potentially a very useful learning tool since the Resolve UI is quite good at letting you see how the sausage is made.