How To Change Timeline Resolution
In DaVinci Resolve

Click the gear icon in the bottom-right corner of the interface. This works from any page — Edit, Cut, Color, Fairlight, or Deliver.

The Project Settings window opens directly on the Master Settings tab. Scroll to the Timeline Format section near the top.

Click the Timeline Resolution dropdown. Choose a standard preset — 1920x1080 HD, 3840x2160 UHD, 1080x1920 Vertical, 1080x1080 Square — or select Custom at the bottom of the list to type exact pixel dimensions.

Click Save in the bottom-right of the window. Resolve instantly recalculates every clip's position, scale, and keyframes to fit the new frame — this is what "resolution-independent" means in practice.

Open the Media Pool (top-left of the interface) and find the timeline you want to modify. A project can contain multiple timelines, each with its own independent settings.

Right-click the timeline thumbnail and choose Timelines → Timeline Settings from the context menu.

By default, every timeline inherits the project's resolution and the Format dropdown is greyed out. Uncheck the box labeled "Use Project Settings" to unlock the controls for this timeline only.

Under the Format tab, choose a preset resolution or enter custom values, then click Apply. This timeline now overrides the project default — every other timeline stays unaffected.

Before: Footage fills the frame edge-to-edge at full sharpness — your source was shot at or above 1080p, so there's no scaling happening.

After: If your source footage is also 4K, nothing changes visually — you just get more resolution to crop into. If your source is only 1080p, Resolve scales it up to fill the larger 4K frame, which softens fine detail since it's generating pixels that don't exist in the original.

Safe when source is native 4K · Softens footage when upscaling from 1080p

Before: A wide horizontal frame (1920×1080) with your subject framed for landscape viewing — typically centered with headroom on both sides.

After: The same footage now sits inside a tall 1080×1920 frame. Unless you manually reposition or scale each clip, you'll see black bars (pillarboxing) on top and bottom, or your subject will be cropped out of frame if scaled up to fill the width. Most editors scale up and recenter on the subject, accepting some side cropping.

Requires reframing — rarely looks right without manual adjustment per clip

Before: Standard widescreen 1920×1080 frame with action spread across the full width.

After: Inside a 1080×1080 square, the sides of the original frame get cut off if scaled to fill height, or you'll see black bars left and right if the full width is preserved. Talking-head and centered-subject footage tends to survive this conversion best; wide establishing shots usually don't.

Best for centered subjects · Worst for wide shots with edge-to-edge action

Before: Full 3840×2160 frame, often used for flexibility to crop and reframe in post without losing quality.

After: Footage scales down cleanly to 1920×1080 with no quality loss — downscaling is essentially free since you're discarding detail rather than inventing it. This is the safest resolution change you can make and the one most likely to actually improve playback performance on lower-end systems.

Always safe — no quality penalty, often improves edit performance

This is almost always the "Use Project Settings" checkbox. If you're inside Timeline Settings for a specific timeline, the Format controls stay locked until that box is unchecked. Project Settings itself is rarely locked — if it is, check that you have edit permissions on the project.

Click Custom at the bottom of the resolution dropdown list. This opens fields for exact width and height in pixels — useful for non-standard sizes like 2560×1440 or unusual social media crops that aren't in the default presets.

This happens when footage is being scaled up from a lower native resolution to fill a larger timeline — for example, 1080p source footage on a 4K timeline. Check Project Settings → Image Scaling and confirm it's set to "Scale entire image to fit," or set the timeline resolution to match your footage's native resolution if quality matters more than frame size.

Once a timeline has clips on it, DaVinci Resolve locks the frame rate to prevent sync issues — but resolution can still typically be changed freely. To change frame rate, create a new timeline with the desired frame rate via File → New Timeline, then copy your existing timeline's content into it.

Timeline resolution and export resolution are separate settings. On the Deliver page, check the Render Settings panel — confirm it's set to Match Timeline Settings, or manually select your desired output resolution if it needs to differ from the timeline.

Fusion titles and most native Resolve generators are resolution-independent and reposition automatically. However, imported graphics, PNGs, and some third-party title templates use fixed pixel coordinates and won't move with a resolution change — they'll appear off-center or cropped. Check each graphic clip's Transform controls in the Inspector and manually reposition if needed, or rebuild text using Fusion's native Text+ tool going forward.

On collaborative projects using Resolve's database sharing, Project Settings are shared across all users, but individual Timeline Settings overrides are local to whoever set them until the project is saved and reloaded by other users. If a teammate isn't seeing your resolution change, confirm they've reloaded the project (right-click the project in the Project Manager → Reload), and check whether the change was made at the project level or as a per-timeline override.

This is a performance issue, not a settings error — higher timeline resolutions demand more from your GPU and storage, especially with multiple layers or effects. Lower the Playback Resolution via the dropdown at the bottom-right of the viewer (this only affects preview quality, not your final export), or enable proxy media via Playback → Use Optimized Media If Available to keep editing smooth without changing your timeline's actual resolution.