DaVinci Resolve Kit

A Linux toolkit for DaVinci Resolve: GUI, transcoding, export presets, media inspection, diagnostics, font fixes, backups, and watch-folder automation.

DaVinci Resolve Free on Linux cannot import the most common phone/camera formats directly: H.264/H.265 video and AAC audio. This project wraps the working Linux workflow in a desktop GUI and companion CLI tools.

Features

• GUI for common Resolve Linux workflows
• Import transcoding to DNxHR .mov or AV1 .mkv
• Audio conversion to WAV, FLAC, ALAC, or MP3
• Delivery exports to H.264, H.265, AV1, WebM, ProRes, and archive formats
• GPU-accelerated encoding with NVENC (NVIDIA), AMF (AMD), QSV (Intel), and VAAPI (AMD/Intel) when available
• Media compatibility inspection powered by ffprobe
• Watch folder automation for automatic transcodes
• Resolve launch fix for library mismatches, Wayland/X11 quirks, and GPU offload on hybrid laptops
• Font path fix for Fusion/Text tools
• Backup/restore for Resolve settings, LUTs, scripts, macros, and fonts
• System diagnostics with severity-classified checks for GPU, OpenCL, codecs, library mismatches, disk space, and toolkit status

Screenshots

Transcode tab — Inspector tab for codec checks, Export tab for delivery

See also: Inspector tab, Export tab

Requirements

Required:

• Linux
• DaVinci Resolve installed at /opt/resolve
• bash
• ffmpeg and ffprobe
• python3
• PyQt6 or PySide6 for the GUI

Optional:

• parallel for parallel processing
• inotify-tools / inotifywait for watch folders
• GPU users: working driver and OpenCL runtime (opencl-nvidia on Arch, rocm-opencl for AMD, intel-compute-runtime for Intel)
• clinfo for OpenCL diagnostics

Example packages:

# Arch / EndeavourOS
sudo pacman -S ffmpeg python python-pyqt6 parallel inotify-tools clinfo

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install ffmpeg python3 python3-pyqt6 parallel inotify-tools clinfo

# Fedora
sudo dnf install ffmpeg python3 python3-qt6 parallel inotify-tools clinfo

Install

One-line installer

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DarshanS26/davinci-kit/main/bootstrap.sh | bash

This clones the repo, symlinks all tools to ~/.local/bin, and installs a desktop entry.

Manual git install

git clone https://github.com/DarshanS26/davinci-kit.git
cd davinci-kit
./install.sh

Make sure ~/.local/bin is on your PATH:

echo $PATH | grep -q "$HOME/.local/bin" || echo 'Add ~/.local/bin to PATH'

Arch / EndeavourOS (AUR)

yay -S davinci-kit

Update

davinci-kit-update

Uninstall

./install.sh --remove

Quick Start

Launch the GUI from your applications menu (look for DaVinci Resolve Kit) or run:

davinci-kit

The GUI has four tabs:

1. Transcode — Drop your camera/phone footage, pick a codec (AV1 or DNxHR) and quality, click Start. The output is ready to import into Resolve.

2. Export — Drop your Resolve render, pick a delivery format, click Convert. The output is a web-ready MP4/WebM/etc.

3. Audio — Drop audio files, pick an output format (WAV, FLAC, ALAC, MP3), click Convert.

4. Inspector — Drop any media file to see its codec, resolution, streams, and whether Resolve can import it. If not, it tells you exactly what to do.

Typical workflow

Camera/phone footage
    ↓
Drop into Transcode tab → get Resolve-ready files
    ↓
Edit in DaVinci Resolve
    ↓
Export DNxHR/ProRes from Resolve
    ↓
Drop into Export tab → get final MP4/WebM for delivery

Why Transcoding Is Needed

DaVinci Resolve Free on Linux has different codec support than the Windows/macOS builds.

Codec	Resolve Free on Linux
H.264 video	Not supported
H.265/HEVC video	Not supported
AAC audio	Not supported on Linux, including Studio
DNxHR / DNxHD	Supported
ProRes	Supported
PCM / WAV	Supported
FLAC / ALAC	Supported
AV1 video	Supported for import on current Resolve versions, with compatible audio

Use the Inspector tab to check any file before importing — it tells you if Resolve can handle it and what to convert if not.

DNxHR Quality Presets

Available in both the GUI Transcode tab and the davinci-kit-transcode CLI:

Preset	Use case
lb	Proxy/offline editing, smaller files
sq	Standard quality
hq	Default, good balance
hqx	12-bit high quality
444	Maximum quality, very large files

DNxHR is an intermediate editing format. Expect much larger files than H.264/H.265 sources.

AV1 Transcode

AV1 is an alternative to DNxHR that Resolve Free on Linux can import directly (with compatible audio). It uses the SVT-AV1 encoder.

	DNxHR	AV1
File size	Large (3-5 GB/min at HQ)	4-5x smaller than DNxHR
Decode speed	Fast (lightweight codec)	Slower (more CPU to decode)
Best for	Smooth timeline playback, heavy editing	Archiving, lightweight editing, saving disk space
Audio	PCM/ALAC in .mov	FLAC in .mkv

If you have limited disk space or are working with proxy-quality footage, AV1 is a good choice. For heavy color grading, Fusion compositing, or multi-layer timelines, DNxHR will give you smoother playback.

Notes for Linux Users

• Resolve needs a working GPU compute stack. Check with the Diagnostics button in the GUI or run clinfo -l.
• On hybrid GPU laptops, the launch fix automatically detects your GPU vendor and applies the right offload settings.
• If Resolve starts crashing after a rolling-release distro update, use the Tools → Fix & Launch Resolve option in the GUI.
• If user-installed fonts do not appear in Fusion/Text tools, use Tools → Fusion Fonts in the GUI.
• If the UI scale is wrong, see docs/DAVINCI-RESOLVE-LINUX-GUIDE.md for the DisplayScale/QT_SCALE_FACTOR details.
• The export tab detects available GPU encoders (NVENC, AMF, QSV, VAAPI) automatically from your ffmpeg build.

CLI Reference

All features are also available as command-line tools. These are useful for scripting, automation, or headless servers.

Command	Purpose
davinci-kit	Launch the desktop GUI
davinci-kit-transcode	Batch transcode media to DNxHR or AV1
davinci-kit-audio	Batch convert audio to WAV, FLAC, ALAC, or MP3
davinci-kit-export	Convert Resolve renders to delivery formats
davinci-kit-fix	Launch Resolve with compatibility fixes and GPU offload
davinci-kit-backup	Back up or restore Resolve settings
davinci-kit-fonts	Add user font directories to Resolve/Fusion
davinci-kit-watch	Auto-transcode files in a watched folder
davinci-kit-info	Print system diagnostics
davinci-kit-update	Update via git

Transcode footage:

davinci-kit-transcode ~/Videos/footage
davinci-kit-transcode -q lb ~/Videos/footage       # proxy quality
davinci-kit-transcode -c av1 ~/Videos/footage      # AV1 output
davinci-kit-transcode -q hqx -j 4 ~/Videos/raw     # 12-bit, 4 parallel jobs

Export for delivery:

davinci-kit-export export.mov                       # H.264 (CPU default)
davinci-kit-export -p h265 export.mov
davinci-kit-export -p nvenc export.mov              # NVIDIA GPU
davinci-kit-export -p youtube4k -r 4k export.mov

Convert audio:

davinci-kit-audio voice-note.m4a
davinci-kit-audio -f flac ~/Audio/session

Watch a folder:

davinci-kit-watch ~/Downloads
davinci-kit-watch -q lb -d ~/Videos/ingest

Diagnostics:

davinci-kit-info

Documentation

• docs/DAVINCI-RESOLVE-LINUX-GUIDE.md — practical Linux guide: codecs, OpenCL, launch fixes, fonts, backups, and troubleshooting.

Roadmap

• AppImage build for download without git
• Demo video
• More codec compatibility testing across distros
• Distro-specific troubleshooting notes

Credits

This project builds on public Linux Resolve knowledge from:

• Chris Titus Tech's resolve-linux
• ArchWiki DaVinci Resolve documentation
• jchai01's DaVinci Resolve Linux resources
• Alecaddd's FFmpeg/Resolve notes
• Blackmagic Design's supported codec documentation

License

MIT — see LICENSE.