In DaVinci Resolve, I dragged a video file into the timeline to edit it, and I wanted to duplicate part of it to use in a cold open. It turns out that the way to do this is kind of unintuitive for beginners, so I'm documenting it here for future reference.
To copy part of a clip to a new track, follow the following steps:
1: on the bar at the bottom, switch to the "Edit" view.
2: move the playhead (the red timeline cursor) to the start of the part you want to copy.
3: click on Mark -> Mark In on the menubar (keyboard shortcut: I).
4: move the playhead to the end of the part you want to copy.
5: click on Mark -> Mark Out on the menubar (or press O). Doing this will set some sort of selected range for your timeline-related operations.
6: make sure that the clip you want to copy is NOT selected. Make sure there is nothing selected at all by clicking on an empty space on the timeline.
7: on the left side of the timeline, you'll find 3 icons with the tooltips "Lock Track," "Auto Track Selector," and "Disable Video Track." Clicking on the "Auto Track Selector" toggles on and off the auto-select feature of DaVinci Resolve. Toggle it off in all tracks above the track you want to copy. If you have many tracks, you can quickly toggle it on or off for all tracks simultaneously by holding Shift as you click on the icon. The track you want to copy must have the auto-selector on, the rest can be disabled.
8: click on Edit -> Copy on the menubar (or press Ctrl+C). This will copy the selected track.
9: disable the auto-track selector on everything except the track where you want to paste.
10: click on Edit -> Paste on the menubar (or press Ctrl+V). This will paste the copied section.
Alternatively, you can use the blade tool to do this, but then you'll need to merge the sectioned part back.
If you need to clear the marked area, click on Mark -> Clear In and Out (Alt+X).
Troubleshooting
Pasting Pastes in the Same Track?!
This happens if you have the auto-track selector active on the track you copied it from. Since you need to activate it in order to copy, it`s very easy to forget to disable it when you try to paste.
To fix this, disable the auto-selector on the track you copied from, and enable it in the track you want to paste to.
Pasting Pastes the Clip from the Beginning / the Whole Clip?!
This happens if you select the track manually by clicking on it in the timeline. Yes, this is extremely confusing! If you click on the track, and it gains an orange-ish, red outline, then it's selected, and if you press Ctrl+C it will copy the whole track. As you have set the in/out region or selected area, or whatever it's called, when you paste it, it will paste the whole track, but it will be "masked" by the selected area on the timeline, so it ends up getting cropped and in result it appears to paste only the beginning of the track instead of pasting starting from the area you selected.
This is very confusing because it's like marking the selected area isn't working, but it's kind of working.
To fix this, you must not click on the clip. If you have it selected, click on an empty area in the timeline to select it. You need to configure the auto-track selector to make DaVinci select the track for you.
When I Try to Render It Doesn't Render the Whole Video?!
This happens because, by default, DaVinci Resolve will render the area you marked with the in and out markers.
To fix this, remove the markers, or in the "Deliver" view change the "Render" option above the timeline from "In/Out Range" to "Entire Timeline."
Version
This tutorial was made using DaVinci Resolve version 18.6.
References
Thanks to Jack Swart1 and Adam Wentz2 for explaining it on the forums!
- https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?t=83592&p=463239#p463233 (accessed 2024-06-21) ↩︎
- https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=153189#p891990 (accessed 2024-06-21) ↩︎
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