Welcome back to another DaVinci Resolve tutorial! Frame rates can cause a little bit of a headache, but there are always ways to fix things to keep yourself and your clients happy. Today, I will show you how to change frame rate in DaVinci Resolve in two different ways.
How To Change Your Frame Rate In DaVinci Resolve
Let’s start with setting it properly so you don’t have to worry about changing it moving forward. This is an important step so you can see where things may have gone wrong. We always want to start out with zero problems instead of diving into the internet for answers. As the saying goes, it’s always better to teach a man to fish.
How To Set Your Frame Rate In DaVinci Resolve
I always recommend setting your timeline frame rate before doing anything else because DaVinci locks your frame rate once you have created your timeline. We will touch more on that a bit later. Therefore, if you create your timeline first before dragging in any media and you need to change your media frame rates to match, you already know you have the proper timeline frame rate.
- Your timeline and media pool should be empty at this stage
- Go to the Edit Page
- In the bottom right of your timeline, click on the settings wheel
- Under Master Settings and Timeline frame rate, click the drop-down arrow and select your desired frame rate
- Click Save
- Create a new timeline by using the keyboard shortcut Cmd + N (Mac) or Ctrl + N (PC)
- Make sure you have “Use Project Settings” selected so it uses the frame rate you selected.
- Now you can start bringing your media into your Media Pool.
How To Change Your Frame Rate Before Creating A Timeline
If you have brought your footage into your media pool already, you can still easily change the frame rate.
- Go to the Media Pool
- In the bottom right of your timeline, click on the settings wheel
- Under Master Settings and Timeline frame rate, click the drop-down arrow and select your desired frame rate
- Click Save
Pro Tip #1
If you bring your video clip into your media pool, do you get a popup that says, “Change Project Frame Rate? The selected clips have a different frame rate to the project. Would you like to change your timeline frame rate to match? You can’t undo this action.” Why does it say that? Even though you haven’t set up your timeline yet, DaVinci is letting you know that the settings of your footage won’t match its preset timeline frame rate.
You can either choose to change your timeline or not. If you are bringing in a clip of a different frame rate for the sole purpose of changing it, that is okay. Select “Don’t Change.”
I always recommend not changing the frame rate unless you know you absolutely have to. That way, if there is a mistake, you can still fix it before creating your timeline. But if it’s a simple mistake of not setting your timeline frame rate properly, you can click “Change,” and it will be fixed to match your video.
Pro Tip #2
If you find yourself reading that popup and not knowing why you are getting this error, check your video frame rate. Ie. Check the frame rate of what is in your media pool. How do we do that? In your media pool page, select your clip or video. On the right-hand side in the metadata, you will see what the frame rate of your clip is.
Frame Rate Setting Is Locked
If you decide to bring your media into DaVinci Resolve and set up a timeline without setting your project settings and timeline frame rate first, your option to reset your frame rate will be greyed out. This is super frustrating, believe me. But that is why I always recommend setting it first. But if you find yourself in this situation, there are a couple of ways to fix this.
If you haven’t done any editing, then you can delete your timeline, reset the frame rate by using the steps above, and start again. However, if you have done any editing, or let’s say you find yourself 4 hours in, thankfully, there is a way to fix it.
- Make sure you are on the Edit Page
- Click on Media Pool in the top left corner
- Select how you want your clips sorted. I like the Thumb or Metadata view so that you can see which timeline you currently have selected by the red check
- Right-click and select Timelines, Create New Timeline
keyboard shortcut Cmd + N (Mac) or Ctrl + N (PC)
- UNCHECK the “Use Project Settings.” If you don’t, you will be left with the same frame rate
- Under Format, you can then change the frame rate for your new timeline
- Your new timeline will open, but now we have no edit. From there, click and drag on your first Timeline and drag it down onto Timeline 2. You will now be playing Timeline 1 in Timeline 2. You will know you are still in Timeline 2 because of the red check
- It will all import as one clip, so to get your edits back, right-click and select Decompose in Place > Using Clips Only.
Pro Tip #3
The metadata when selecting a clip in the new timeline will still show your old frame rate, but that is because it’s showing the frame rate of the clip, not the timeline. So to double-check check you have done everything correctly, head over to the Deliver page and see what the project delivery frame rate is.
FAQs About Frame Rates In DaVinci Resolve
Can I override the project frame rate once it’s locked?
You can only override it when you export your video. If you head over to the deliver page, you will see that your frame rate isn’t locked. I would be extremely careful with this. It’s always better to do it right the first time.
Conclusion
There is a little bit more nuance when it comes to changing frame rates in DaVinci, but once you get the hang of it, it’s incredibly easy. If you always set your frame rate beforehand, you shouldn’t have any issues. Have you run into any of these issues before? Let us know in the comments! Thankfully DaVinci updates constantly and makes the interface and settings much easier to navigate. Happy editing and happy filmmaking!
