Its a comparison like David and Goliath. DaVinci Resolve is the Goliath of the most professional video editing programs for professionals due to its financial possibilities and associated development services in this comparison. It is undoubtedly a great video editing software, but… here I describe my experience.
I wanted to try the latest version 16. I edited a video for a friend yesterday, but on Windows and not on Linux. The DaVinci Resolve Linux version is in my opinion very limited by the codecs, the Windows version offers more possibilities.
The positive impression is that it has become faster. Before, I couldnt even edit a dozen videos in the timeline because it was jerky all the time. There seems to be a better hardware acceleration. The usability that means the GUI is great. The color correction capabilities are world class. Unfortunately BMD limits the possibilities of the plugins very much, in the free version. A simple lens correction I can do with Cinelerra via FFmpeg Plugin is not free of charge in DVR. Also some other simpler plugins are only available in the studio version. Also this beta version doesnt seem to be very stable yet. I had two crashes during relatively simple video editing actions. However, yesterday one thing annoyed me extremely, thats the keyframe functionality in DVR.
I express it so carefully, its for the trash can.
The keyframe functionality of DVR compared to Cinelerra-GG is a pity. Its far too cumbersome. I almost clicked myself to death. In Cinelerra its a dream to work with it. I can easily copy keyframes directly. In DVR, the keyframes are all clip-bound, so you have to copy them back and forth all the time. After working with it for almost a whole day yesterday, Im happy to have Cinelerras keyframe system again.
It is relatively simple and easy to use. Also the timeline behaviour of Cinelerra pleases me personally better, the shortcuts in Cinelerra are very well thought out.
My conclusion after almost 10 hours of work with DVR 16, for the creation of highly professional videos, probably you cant avoid the video editing software like DaVinci Resolve, for these purposes DVR is excellent and compare with Adobe PP in the long run the cheaper alternative. For semi-professional videos, i.e. small to medium sized projects, Cinelerra is perfectly sufficient, I would even say it is very good. Cinelerra has some advantages over the Goliath DVR, the keyframe system is better in my opinion, it has significantly more codecs on Linux, it is small and very stable. The learning curve in Cinelerra is easier than in DVR. DVR really kills you with its functionality. Cinelerra-GG is certainly not perfect and has some weaknesses, but on the whole it is a very good software and we dont have to hide with it. Its just my personal experience and impression and serves as an experience exchange with other users.