Switching From Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve: What Happens to Client Review
What really changes for your clients when you move from Premiere to Resolve: the loop that replaces the panel, the history you keep, the one hour timecode trap, and how I check the first Resolve cut.
Moving a client's ongoing series from Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve halfway through was a call I let one of our editors make in my editing agency, and I treated it as a purely editing decision, which is exactly where I went wrong. He was switching from Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve for the color page, he rebuilt the timeline from scratch over a weekend, and on Monday I sent the client a brand new review link, right, because in my head new software meant a clean slate.
The client opened it and asked where all their notes had gone. Three rounds of comments were sitting on the old link, a lower third they had approved had quietly not survived the move because it was built in Essential Graphics, and my editor spent a morning hunting for notes in the wrong places, because his fresh Resolve timeline started at 01:00:00:00 while the client's comments counted from zero. So we burned a full extra round and one really really awkward call re-agreeing on things the client had already signed off, and when I traced it back, Resolve had done nothing wrong at all, right, the whole cost came from how badly I had handled the review side of the move.
Every guide I read back then covered shortcuts and where the blade tool lives, and none of them mentioned the client who is mid project and does not care which software you use, so that client is who this post is about.
Why editors are switching from Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve
The reasons I hear from my own editors are pretty consistent, and to be very honest most of them are good ones. Resolve started life as a color grading system, which you can see in the history of DaVinci Resolve, so the color page is the first pull, then Fairlight for audio and Fusion for compositing inside one application. Then there is the money, because Blackmagic sells DaVinci Resolve in two versions, a free one and a Studio license you buy once, while Premiere is something you keep renting.
The learning curve is shorter than people fear, right, and the free DaVinci Resolve training from Blackmagic got my own editors comfortable on the Edit page within a couple of weeks of evenings. The one setting I make every editor change on day one is the keyboard, because Resolve ships a Premiere Pro preset under Keyboard Customization, so J, K and L and most trim habits come across untouched. Most of what you read about DaVinci Resolve for Premiere users stops there, and I'm pretty sure the muscle memory is the part you stop worrying about first, right. What sneaks up on you is everything that touched the old timeline from outside, the review tool, the client links, the file naming and so on. My Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve workflow post walks the full move hop by hop, and this one stays with the client facing half.
What you give up: comments inside the Premiere timeline
If your team used the PlayPause Premiere Pro panel, client comments sat right inside Premiere, a click on a comment jumped the playhead to that frame, and you uploaded a cut straight from the timeline. Our page on PlayPause for Premiere Pro shows that setup, and it is the one piece of the old way that stays behind.
PlayPause has no native integration inside DaVinci Resolve, so the honest workflow is to export the cut, upload it, review it, and then use the frame-accurate notes back in the editor yourself. In practice that is the difference between clicking a comment and reading a timecode off your second monitor.
comments sit inside Premiere, a click jumps the playhead to the frame, and a cut uploads straight from the timeline
render on the Deliver page, upload onto the same card, and read frame accurate notes in a browser beside your timeline
The catch here is that most people overestimate what they are losing. The client never saw your panel, right, the client saw a link, pressed play, clicked the moment that felt off and typed a note, and that is identical whether the file came out of Premiere or Resolve. You see what I mean here, the switch only stretches the distance between a comment and your timeline, while the conversation with the client carries on as before, which is why our page on PlayPause for DaVinci Resolve is built around the review loop.
The export, upload and review loop for Resolve editors
My Resolve client review workflow is basically four moves. On the Deliver page I render a single clip review copy, H.264, 1080p, at the timeline's own frame rate, with the bitrate restricted to around 10,000 Kb/s, and I name the file with its version, something like brandfilm_MV4.mp4. A 90 second film at that rate is about 900 megabits, roughly 110 MB, which goes up in a minute or two on an ordinary office connection, and the rest of my numbers are in my post on Resolve export settings for review links.
Then I drag that file onto the existing card in PlayPause, not into a new project, so it stacks as the next version on the same card as MV1 through MV3, and version stacks are there on Creator and up. The client opens the link in a browser with no account and no install, clicks the exact moment, leaves a comment that sticks to that frame, and draws on it when a circle says more than a sentence. Every comment also lands in our Slack channel, right, so I know a round has started without refreshing anything, and when a project is sensitive the link gets a password and I revoke it once the round closes.
Keeping client review history when you change editing software
Client review history lives in PlayPause, on the card, attached to each version, and your Premiere project file never held a single one of those comments. So changing your editing software touches that history about as much as changing your keyboard would, and every comment on MV1 to MV3 stays where it was, with every drawing and threaded reply, right, while the original files stay untouched because the browser plays a streaming copy.
The only way to lose that history is the way I lost it, by treating the Resolve cut as a new thing with a fresh project or a fresh link. Keep uploading onto the same card and the first Resolve cut simply becomes MV4 of the same film, so when the client asks whether you fixed the thing from round two, the answer is two clicks away. The same holds when a project changes hands between editors rather than apps, which I covered in my post on handing off a Premiere project.
Your editing software is the part of the job you can swap over a weekend, and the client's memory of what they already approved is the part you cannot.
Whenever we move from Premiere to Resolve on a live series, and since our workspace runs on the Agency plan, I also write the switch into the folder Playbook for that series, the page inside PlayPause where we keep the creative direction for that client. Any editor who opens it reads "edited in Resolve from MV4, timeline starts at 00:00:00:00, review preset named Client Review 1080" before touching anything, and that short note is what stops the next person from repeating my mistake.
Frame-accurate note, everyone sees the exact same thing.
Comparing your last Premiere cut with your first Resolve cut
Anyone doing a Premiere Pro to Resolve migration learns on the first project that moving a timeline is never lossless. The transfer itself is quick, right: in Premiere you select the sequence and go File, Export, Final Cut Pro XML, then in Resolve you go File, Import, Timeline, pick that XML, and leave the options to set project settings and import source clips into the media pool ticked. The edits, clip positions and basic transforms come over, but titles built in Essential Graphics, Lumetri looks, a lot of effects and some speed changes arrive wrong or not at all. For instance, a re-rendered film can look identical at a glance and still be missing a lower third at 00:00:14, which is exactly what happened to me.
So before the client sees anything, I compare. Side-by-side version compare is on the Agency plan and up, and I put MV3, the last cut out of Premiere, next to MV4, the first cut out of Resolve, and scrub them together. Say it is a 90 second brand film where MV3 was approved apart from two small notes, then I am checking every title, the skin tones since the grade was rebuilt, any speed ramp, the music hits against the cuts, and whether those two notes were actually addressed. It is the same habit I use for showing a client what changed between two Premiere versions, only this time I run it for myself.
Anything I catch, I leave as my own comment on MV4 and fix in Resolve, and trust me on any level, I have never found nothing on a first transfer, right, there is always a title or a ramp to rebuild before the clean render goes out.
Bringing frame accurate client notes back into a Resolve timeline
This is the step that replaces the panel, and it only stays frame-accurate if two things line up. The first is timecode, because a timeline you create in Resolve starts at 01:00:00:00 by default while the review copy plays from zero, so a comment at 00:01:12 lives at 01:01:12:00 in that timeline. An XML from Premiere may carry the sequence's own 00:00:00:00 start, so I check which one I have and either set the start to 00:00:00:00 before the first render or tell the team to add the hour. The second is frame rate, so I always render at the timeline's own rate and one frame in the file stays one frame in the edit.
A timeline created in Resolve starts at 01:00:00:00 while the review copy plays from zero, so check the start timecode before the first render or add the hour to every note.
Then the actual transfer, with PlayPause open on the second monitor while I work down the comments in order. I type each timecode with the timeline focused and press Enter to jump there, drop a marker with M, press M again to open it and type the client's note in, and for a range comment like 00:00:32 to 00:00:40 I give the marker a duration so it spans the section. Client notes get one marker color and mine get another, and the Edit Index filtered to markers becomes my revision list, right, a to do list living inside Resolve. On Agency the clickable transcript helps when a client writes "the line where she talks about the launch" instead of a timestamp, and there is a longer version of all this in my guide to getting timestamped notes into Resolve.
A switching checklist for teams with clients mid project
My one firm rule is that I never switch in the middle of a round. I finish the round in Premiere, deliver that version and move to Resolve between versions, so every set of client notes refers to a cut from one piece of software, and I set the card's custom status to something like In Rebuild so nobody shares a half transferred cut by accident.
- Finish the current round in Premiere before moving
- Rebuild the titles and looks that did not transfer
- Check the Resolve timeline starts at 00:00:00:00
- Upload the first Resolve render onto the existing card
- Compare MV3 against MV4 before the client sees it
- Note the switch in the client Playbook
A solo editor can run this whole loop on Creator at $9 a month with version stacks and Slack, which our page for freelance video editors covers. A studio that wants compare, transcripts and Playbooks needs Agency at $19 a month for up to 50 members, and because both are flat per workspace, adding the colorist you switched to Resolve for does not change the bill.
If paying per person is part of why you are leaving Adobe, Frame.io bills per user, from $15 per user per month, and my Frame.io alternative for Resolve editors post goes deeper, right.
Frequently asked questions
Does PlayPause work inside DaVinci Resolve?
No, PlayPause has no integration that runs inside Resolve, so you render the cut on the Deliver page, upload it to PlayPause, collect the client's frame-accurate comments in the browser, and carry those notes into your timeline as markers. The native panel exists for Premiere Pro only, and I do not miss it much, right, because the extra step is just reading a timecode off my second screen.
Will my old Premiere comments still be there after I switch?
They will, as long as you keep uploading to the same card. Comments, drawings and replies are stored in PlayPause against each version, not in your Premiere project file, so MV1 to MV3 keep every note they had. Upload the first Resolve render onto that card and it becomes MV4, and the one way to lose track of the history is starting a new project for the Resolve cut.
Can I switch to Resolve in the middle of a client project?
You can, as long as you switch between versions and never mid round. Deliver the current round from Premiere, move the timeline across, rebuild whatever did not transfer, and compare the first Resolve render against the last Premiere one before the client sees anything, so every set of notes points at a cut from one piece of software.
Do my clients need to do anything differently?
Nothing at all, and at the end of the day that is the nicest part of this switch. The client still opens one link in a browser, with no account and no install, clicks the moment, and leaves a comment that sticks to that frame. They never see your editing software, so the only difference they might notice is a slightly nicer grade.
Set the review side up before your first Resolve render and not after it, does that make sense, right. Start the 7-day free trial on whichever plan fits from the PlayPause pricing page, upload your last Premiere cut as the current version, and let the first Resolve cut land on top of it, so the history never leaves the card.
So yeah. That's my way of saying it.
Saumyajit co-founded PlayPause after years watching review and approval quietly eat creative teams' deadlines. He writes about the workflow side of video, feedback, versioning, and getting to a clean sign-off.
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