DaVinci Resolve Studio: Apple App Store vs Dongle version.
DaVinci Resolve 12 Studio has been released on the Apple App store for purchase at R6,999 ($499.99). This release gives a larger creative market access to Davinci Resolve Studio.
While this is good news for many, Blackmagic have announced that there are quite a few differences between this version and the purchased dongle version of the software due to that fact that the applications on the App Store have to be “Sandboxed” (meaning the app has to be in a container for download, which limits the environment that the code can be executed in). Therefore there are some limitations and differences between the full dongle version and the version available through the App Store.
These limitations include:
- Some OpenFX plugins might not be supported if they do not fulfil the Mac App Store sandboxing guidelines – popular plugins like Genarts and Neat Video work already
- CUDA based processing is unavailable due to sandboxing limitations. As a result, all processing is done on OpenCL irrespective of the type of GPUs. CUDA drivers are not installed along with the AppStore installation
- No support for DaVinci Resolve Control Surface or Avid Artist Color on DaVinci Resolve for App Store
- No option to show all mounted hard drives – Users need to explicitly provide Resolve access to folders and drives in “Preferences” in order to be able to access them
- PostgreSQL server is not installed along with the AppStore installation
- No Capture Logs application is available for the App Store installations
- DaVinci Resolve for App Store does not currently support the ability to add additional VST Effects Plugin folders.
- When the app is bought from the App Store there is no dongle and no upgrade path to a dongle, also there is currently no commitment to upgrade to future releases.
So what is the advantage of the dongle? The dongle license is more flexible for users as it can be hot-swapped between machines and is not required to be tied to any account. For organisations it is illegal to run multiple versions of the same app from the App Store on different machines. Also, if there are any issues with a download Apple will only provide support for the machine it was originally downloaded for. With the dongle there is a clear upgrade path to newer versions of Resolve.
At Creatav, we’re proud to be authorised resellers of Blackmagic Design products in South Africa.