Today I want to show you how to easily edit and export high quality videos for YouTube Shorts using DaVinci Resolve. And to save you time, I have created a free DaVinci project template you can download, which will get you editing Shorts very quickly without having to dial everything in manually.
This video is also sponsored by my friends at Musicbed, and I will tell you more about them in a little while.
DaVinci Project Setup
Create a new project, and before you do anything else go up to File, then Project Settings.
For your timeline resolution, change it from 3840 by 2160 to 1080 by 1920.
Matt from the future here, sorry to interject in the tutorial. In the middle of recording this, DaVinci released version 18.1 and changed how you do vertical video in Resolve. If you have updated to 18.1 or later, you are going to see a checkbox that says Use Vertical Resolution. So if your timeline resolution is showing 1920 by 1080, or 3840 by 2160, just tick that box and it automatically flips it to 1080 by 1920 for you. Which is great. Otherwise there are no differences whenever you are creating your timeline.
Next to that you have your timeline frame rate. By default most cameras these days are filming at 23.976 frames per second, and that is what I recommend you use. If you want to export at something different you can pick it from this dropdown, but I would just leave it at 23.976. Then click Save down at the bottom.
Scaling Clips
Import your footage. In this case I have a clip I filmed at a wedding recently. Drag it down to the timeline and, wait a second, no, everything is cropped and it has got huge bars on the top and bottom.
Yes. This is what happens whenever you drop a horizontal clip onto a vertical timeline. Resolve scales the video down so the whole frame fits, and you get massive black bars.
To fix it for one clip, go to the Inspector in the top right corner and drag the Zoom value to the right, which zooms in on your image, then use the X Position to reframe things.
But if you have a lot of horizontal clips to work with, there is a better way. Undo those changes, then over on the left right click on your timeline, select Timelines, Timeline Settings, and untick the Use Project Settings box.
Next to Mismatched Resolution, click the dropdown and select Scale full frame with crop. Then go up to the Output tab, because we are not done yet, make sure Use Project Settings is unticked there too, and change Mismatched Resolution to Scale full frame with crop there as well. Press OK.
And voila. Now every image on your timeline is rescaled to fill the screen.
From there, all you have to do with a clip selected is go back to the Inspector and drag the X Position to reframe each shot.
Export Settings
Let’s say you are done editing and you need to render. Click the rocket ship at the bottom to go to the export page. Give your file a name, pick a location so you can actually find it afterwards, hit Save, and make sure Render is set to Single clip.
Under the Video tab, set Format to QuickTime and Codec to H.264. Encoder will be set to whatever graphics card your computer has, and you can leave that on the default. It should be fine.
Down at Resolution is where things get important. Just like with the timeline settings earlier, make sure this is 1080 by 1920, and that the frame rate matches your timeline.
Matt from the future again. If you have updated to DaVinci Resolve 18.1 or later, you are also going to see a Use Vertical Resolution checkbox here. Make sure that is ticked if you are exporting a YouTube Short, because that is what makes your video vertical.
If you’re not using this one, I went through How To Edit & Export High Quality YouTube Shorts In Adobe Premiere Pro 2022 as well.
Then under Quality, this is the most important part. I would restrict this to 40,000 kilobits per second, which is high, but keep in mind that YouTube is going to compress your video down anyway, and starting from a high bitrate like this helps you avoid artifacts.
And if your version gives you the option, change Rate Control from VBR High Quality to Constant Bitrate, which helps Resolve throw more data at the file. If that option is not available to you, I would not stress about it. Your quality should still be great.
The last thing to do is click Add to Render Queue at the bottom, then over on the right click Render All, and it will render out your Short.
Copy Your Video To Your Phone
To upload, you can use something like Dropbox, or AirDrop if you are on a Mac, and then use the Dropbox app or AirDrop to save the video to your phone. Then all you have to do is open the YouTube app, upload your Short there, and hit post.
Remember, you can still download that free template file, which will get you editing Shorts in Resolve even faster.
And if you edit in Adobe Premiere Pro instead, I made a version of this tutorial for Premiere too.
Thanks To Musicbed
Musicbed is my favorite place to find music for my projects, and with over a thousand artists and over 40,000 songs I can always find the right one. Their search tools make it easy, with filters that let you search by BPM and key, not to mention playlists put together by your favorite filmmakers. I personally love the funk and folk pop playlists and spend a pretty good amount of time in there whenever I am looking for inspiration.
My secret weapon though is their complimentary song search service, where they will help you find the exact song you need for your video. That can save you so much time.
You can hear the difference their music makes by signing up for a free account, and whenever you are ready to subscribe, use the coupon code MATTMUSICBED, all caps, all one word, at checkout to get one month free with an annual subscription. Thanks again to Musicbed for sponsoring this video.
Thanks so much for reading, and have a great day!