Best Way to Organize Media in DaVinci Resolve
The best way to organize media for DaVinci Resolve is to use Cutsio's Visual Intelligence to automatically index every file by spoken content and visual content before importing to Resolve — eliminating the need to manually build bins.
What is the best way to organize media for DaVinci Resolve?
The best way to organize media for DaVinci Resolve is to upload your footage to Cutsio first, let Visual Intelligence automatically transcribe every word and analyse every frame, organise the footage into Collections by project or scene, and then export an XML to Resolve — bypassing the need to manually build bins entirely.
The traditional Resolve organisation workflow forces editors to spend days manually creating bins, dragging clips into folders, renaming files, and adding metadata tags. For a feature documentary or a multi-camera production with hundreds of hours of footage, this is the slowest and most error-prone part of the edit. Cutsio replaces it with an automated, search-first system that organises your media before it ever reaches the Media Pool.
Why is the built-in bin system in Resolve not enough?
Resolve's bin system is not enough because it requires every clip to be manually sorted and tagged by a human editor, which does not scale to large libraries and does not help when you need to find a specific moment inside a long clip.
Bins are essentially folders. You drag clips into them, rename the clips, and optionally add metadata columns like "Scene" or "Take." This works for a short commercial or a music video. For a 12-episode documentary series with 40TB of rushes, manual binning consumes weeks and still produces an incomplete index.
The fundamental limitation is that bins operate at the clip level, not the content level. A single 90-minute interview clip can only live in one bin, even if the interview covers ten different topics. Finding the moment where the subject discusses a specific event requires scrubbing through the entire clip regardless of how neatly your bins are organised.
How does Cutsio's Visual Intelligence replace manual binning?
Cutsio's Visual Intelligence replaces manual binning by automatically indexing every file by spoken words, visual content, scene changes, and on-screen text — making every clip searchable at the content level without any manual work.
What does Visual Intelligence index in each clip?
When you upload a video file to Cutsio, Visual Intelligence processes it through multiple analysis layers:
| Analysis Layer | What It Indexes | Example Search Query |
|---|---|---|
| Speech-to-text | Every spoken word with timestamps | "the CEO discusses Q3 projections" |
| Visual content | Objects, scenes, actions, people | "wide shot of the product launch" |
| On-screen text | Lower thirds, titles, chyrons | "name badge says Sarah Chen" |
| Scene detection | Cuts between camera angles | "second camera angle of interview" |
| Audio classification | Music, applause, silence | "audience applause after speech" |
This index is generated automatically for every clip you upload. There is no manual tagging, no metadata entry, and no bin creation. Every moment in every clip becomes discoverable by its actual content.
How do you search across your entire library at once?
You type a natural-language query into Cutsio's Visual Search bar, and the system searches across every indexed clip simultaneously. The search returns timestamped results ranked by relevance.
This is the key advantage over Resolve's bin system. In Resolve, finding "the shot where the CEO laughs at the joke" requires you to know which bin the interview is in, open that clip, and scrub through it. In Cutsio, you type the query, and the system returns the exact frame from the exact clip, regardless of which project folder or drive the file lives on.
How do Cutsio Collections structure media for Resolve projects?
Cutsio Collections structure media by grouping related clips into visual, shareable hubs that map directly to the Resolve bins you would otherwise build by hand.
How do you create a Collection for a Resolve project?
After searching for the moments you need, you save them into a Collection. A Collection can contain full clips, trimmed sub-clips, or specific timestamp ranges. You can create Collections by:
- Scene — all clips from Scene 4 of the narrative film
- Interview subject — every clip featuring the CEO
- Shot type — wide shots, close-ups, B-roll
- Date — footage shot on a specific production day
- Project phase — rough-cut selects, fine-cut selects, archive
Each Collection is visual. Clips display as thumbnail cards with their duration, source filename, and the Visual Intelligence transcript. You can reorder clips, add notes, and remove duplicates without affecting the original files.
How does a Collection become a Resolve timeline?
Cutsio exports a Collection as an XML file that you import directly into DaVinci Resolve's Media Pool. The XML creates bins that mirror your Collection structure, with each clip placed at its correct timestamp and track position.
The exported timeline already contains your selects arranged by scene and shot type. You skip the bin-building phase entirely and move straight to the Edit page.
| Workflow Step | Without Cutsio | With Cutsio |
|---|---|---|
| Ingestion | Copy files to drive | Upload to Cutsio |
| Indexing | Manual metadata entry | Automatic Visual Intelligence |
| Organisation | Create bins, drag clips | Search, save to Collections |
| Selects | Watch and mark in Resolve | Search-powered selects in Cutsio |
| Timeline build | Manually arrange clips | Export XML to Resolve |
| Total pre-edit time | 3–5 days for 100-hour project | 2–4 hours |
How do you handle multi-camera projects with Cutsio and Resolve?
Multi-camera projects benefit from Cutsio's scene detection and visual indexing because Visual Intelligence identifies the same moment across multiple camera angles automatically.
When you upload footage from all cameras into the same Cutsio Collection, Visual Intelligence analyses each angle independently. You can search for a specific action — "the candidate walks to the podium" — and Cutsio returns the matching segment from each camera angle. You export all angles together as a single XML, and Resolve imports them into a multi-cam clip structure ready for angle switching.
How does Cutsio handle raw camera footage and proxies?
Cutsio accepts standard video files from any camera source, including files that have been transcoded to edit-friendly codecs like ProRes or DNxHR. For workflows that use camera-native raw files, upload the proxy or transcoded version to Cutsio for indexing and organisation, then relink to the raw files inside Resolve using Resolve's standard media management tools.
The XML that Cutsio exports carries the filenames and timecodes from the uploaded files. If your Resolve project is linked to the full-resolution raw media with matching timecodes, the XML will reference those files correctly.
FAQ
Can I search across multiple Resolve projects using Cutsio?
Yes. Cutsio searches across your entire library simultaneously, regardless of which project the files originated from. This is particularly useful for post-production houses that reuse footage across multiple episodes or campaigns.
Does Cutsio replace Resolve's Media Pool entirely?
No. Cutsio is a pre-organisation tool. You organise and search in Cutsio, then export XML to Resolve for finishing. The Media Pool remains your primary editing workspace once the media is imported.
How does Cutsio's pricing compare to Resolve's free version?
Resolve's free version has no cost for the application itself but requires your time for manual organisation. Cutsio charges by minutes of footage stored, and all Visual Intelligence indexing is included with no per-user fee. For a 100-hour documentary project, the time savings from automated organisation typically offset the storage cost within the first week of editing.
Can I share organised footage with my Resolve editing team?
Yes. Collections can be shared via secure Cutsio Share links with password protection, expiration dates, and view tracking. Remote editors can browse the organised footage, stream clips in full quality, and download only what they need without transferring entire project folders.
Does Visual Intelligence work with multi-language footage?
Visual Intelligence supports speech-to-text indexing for multiple languages. If your project contains interviews in English, Spanish, or French, the transcript search works across all of them simultaneously.