You drop a 60fps clip into a 24fps timeline, slow it to 50% for a bit of DaVinci Resolve slow motion, and the result stutters worse than the original. The menu was never the hard part. Knowing how to change clip speed in DaVinci Resolve means picking the right tool of four, then picking a percentage that stops Resolve inventing frames it should never have needed to invent.
Quick answer: Right-click the clip and choose Change Clip Speed for one constant speed. To build a speed ramp, press Command-R on Mac or Ctrl-R on Windows, add speed points and adjust each segment. If slow motion looks choppy, open Inspector > Retime and Scaling and test Frame Blend, Optical Flow or Speed Warp.
Verification scope: menu paths, shortcuts and option names below were checked against the official DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual and New Features Guide, and against the release notes through 21.0.3. Where Blackmagic's own documentation contradicts itself, that is stated rather than smoothed over.
DaVinci Resolve Change Clip Speed Dialog: Fixed Speed in One Box
Right-click a clip in the Edit page timeline and choose Change Clip Speed, or select it and use Clip > Change Clip Speed. The dialog describes the same change three ways: a percentage, a frame rate, or a duration in HH:MM:SS:FF.
Most tutorials tell you to type a percentage. Type a duration instead when the cut is locked to music, because you can enter the exact length the gap needs and let Resolve solve for the speed. It's the fastest way to change video duration without guessing.
The checkboxes matter more than the number you type:
- Ripple Sequence pushes or pulls every clip after this one to accommodate the new duration.
- Reverse Speed sets the current speed to a negative value, which is how you reverse a clip.
- Freeze Frame converts the whole clip to the frame under the playhead. Shift-R does the same without opening the dialog.
- Pitch Correction keeps attached audio sounding natural as its duration changes.
- Maintain Timing / Stretch Keyframes decides whether Composite, Transform and Cropping keyframes inside the clip stay locked in place or get compressed and stretched by the same percentage as the clip.
If Ripple Sequence is off, the timeline won't open or close space automatically, so previously trimmed frames can reappear at the tail while the clip keeps its original slot. When that happens, check Ripple Sequence before changing the speed value again.
Retime Controls: Speed Points, Ramps and Freeze Frames
Select a clip and press Command-R on Mac or Ctrl-R on Windows, or right-click and choose Retime Clip. A control track appears along the top of the clip with a speed pop-up at the bottom.
Read the arrows before touching anything. Yellow triangles spaced far apart mean slow motion, blue triangles bunched close mean you have sped up a clip, and blue arrows facing left mean reverse. That readout tells you what a shot is doing faster than opening the Inspector.
Park the playhead, open the speed pop-up and choose Add Speed Point. You need at least two of them to create a speed effect. From there:
- Dragging the top handle of the second speed point right slows that segment and left speeds it up, changing the clip length either way.
- Dragging the bottom handle widens the range of the clip playing at that speed, reallocating frames from before and after the segment.
Most tutorials say drag the top handle. The bottom handle is the one you want when clip duration is already locked, because it moves frames around inside the existing length instead of stretching it.
The same pop-up holds Freeze Frame, which drops two speed points and holds the frame between them, a Rewind submenu, and a Speed Ramp submenu that builds five segments starting at 10% and stepping through 30, 50, 70 and 90.
Resolve eases the transition between speed segments on its own. That automatic easing is why hand-placed speed points usually beat a hand-drawn curve.
Retime Curve: Shaping a Ramp You Already Built
Right-click the clip and choose Retime Curve. Two curves are available. The Retime Speed curve shows a flat line at 100% where you drag segments up to speed a section up and down to slow it down. The Retime Frame curve shows a diagonal mapping source frames to timeline frames, where shallow segments run slow, steep segments run fast, and an inverted segment plays backward.
Control points on either curve correspond one to one with the speed points in the Retime controls, so adjusting one updates the other live.
Most articles present the curve as the way to build a speed ramp. It works better as the way to repair one. Place speed points first, watch it back, and open the curve only when a transition lands hard.
DaVinci Resolve 21 added bezier easing to the Retime parameters in the Keyframe Editor, matching the easing tools every other parameter already had, per the official DaVinci Resolve 21 New Features Guide. Easing into a freeze frame stopped needing a workaround.
Point releases have kept moving this specific area, so check your build before trusting a ramp you built in an older one. Resolve 21.0.2 improved the display of the retime speed curve. Resolve 21.0.3, the current release on Blackmagic's support page, added new ease modes for retime speed and frame curves, configurable keyframe ease actions, and a legacy speed mode retime curve option for anyone who preferred the previous behavior. Back up the project before updating. After the update, confirm the numeric percentage in the Retime controls rather than reading it off the curve, and render a short test before copying a ramp across a sequence.
Clip Speed and Audio: Pitch, Muting and Linked Tracks
The DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual states that linear speed effects, meaning Change Clip Speed, the Retime controls and Fit to Fill (Shift-F11), retime a clip's audio along with its video, without pitch correction on Windows and Linux and with pitch correction on macOS.
Variable speed is where the documentation argues with itself. One chapter states that audio accompanying variable speed effects will be muted. Another states that variable speed clips can play pitch-corrected or un-pitch-corrected audio, selected from an option in the Speed menu of the Retime controls. Both sentences sit in the same PDF.
If variable speed audio comes back silent, open the Speed menu in the Retime controls first and check the available audio or pitch correction option. Because the Resolve 21 manual carries conflicting descriptions, verify the behavior in the exact Resolve build and operating system you're running before treating silence as expected.
Two more things worth testing rather than assuming:
- Link Clips creates a selection relationship. It doesn't merge separate video and audio items into one media clip. Test separately linked audio before applying a retime, or compound the pair when both elements have to behave as one unit.
- Pitch correction quality falls off as the speed change grows. The manual says as much, without naming a threshold.
Rather than trusting a percentage someone quoted online, compare Pitch Correction on and off on your own clip for any large speed change. The greater the adjustment, the more likely processed dialogue is to sound smeared or artificial. Compounding the clips makes the elements move as one unit, which is useful for keeping a group in sync, though it isn't a guaranteed improvement in pitch correction quality.
For audio that needs retiming on its own, right-click the audio clip and choose Elastic Wave retiming.
Retime Process and Motion Estimation: Fixing Choppy Slow Motion
When a slowdown asks for more timeline frames than the source holds at its effective frame rate, Resolve has to repeat, blend or synthesize frames. Which of those it does is set project-wide under Project Settings > Master Settings > Frame Interpolation, and per clip in the Inspector under Retime and Scaling.
- Nearest duplicates frames for slow motion and drops them for fast motion. Cheapest to process, and the reason untouched slow motion looks stepped.
- Frame Blend dissolves adjacent duplicated frames together. The manual recommends it specifically when Optical Flow produces unwanted artifacts.
- Optical Flow generates new frames using motion estimation. Exceptionally clean on linear motion, and prone to tearing when two elements cross in different directions or the camera moves unpredictably.
Choosing Optical Flow unlocks the Motion Estimation menu: Standard Faster, Standard Better, Enhanced Faster, Enhanced Better, Speed Warp Faster, Speed Warp Better, and on macOS in Resolve 21, AI Speed Warp Metal, which Blackmagic describes as a Metal-optimized version that speeds up Neural Engine Speed Warp operations.
Speed Warp runs on the DaVinci Neural Engine and is available in Studio only. Free version users stop at Enhanced Better, which is a reasonable place to stop. Our breakdown of what the free version includes and the DaVinci Resolve free vs Studio comparison cover where that line falls elsewhere in the app.
Most guides treat Speed Warp as the answer to every stuttering shot. It isn't. Optical flow methods estimate motion, so a busy foreground crossing the frame can produce worse edge tearing than a simple Frame Blend, at a higher render cost. Test both on the actual shot instead of picking the highest setting on principle.
When a shot is still choppy at Speed Warp Better, stop changing settings and check the source. Optical Flow can't restore a consistent cadence to a variable frame rate recording, which is what phones and screen capture apps often produce. Transcode the file to a constant frame rate first, then relink or replace the source in Resolve and retime the clean version. If the stutter is in playback rather than the render, that is a different problem covered in our guide to slow playback and dropped frames.
Speed Percentages That Skip Interpolation Entirely
The cleanest slow motion in DaVinci Resolve involves no frame generation at all. When the source holds more frames per second than the timeline, one specific percentage makes every timeline frame a real source frame.
Speed percentage = timeline frame rate divided by source frame rate, times 100.
Use the actual rates shown in Clip Attributes and Timeline Settings rather than the rounded numbers on the camera body. 59.94fps into a 23.976fps timeline is also 40%. Footage that was previously conformed, variable frame rate files, and clips that already carry a retime can all change how this calculation behaves.
| Source | Timeline | Speed | What Resolve does | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60fps | 24fps | 40% | Every timeline frame is one source frame | Use this before touching Optical Flow |
| 120fps | 24fps | 20% | Every timeline frame is one source frame | Best quality slow motion available |
| 240fps | 24fps | 10% | Every timeline frame is one source frame | Extreme slow motion with no artifacts |
| 60fps | 30fps | 50% | Every timeline frame is one source frame | Standard choice for 30fps delivery |
| 120fps | 30fps | 25% | Every timeline frame is one source frame | Safe down to a quarter speed |
| 50fps | 25fps | 50% | Every timeline frame is one source frame | PAL equivalent of the 60 to 30 case |
| 24fps | 24fps | Anything below 100% | Frames must be repeated or generated | Frame Blend first, Optical Flow second |
Most tutorials say shoot 60fps and drop to 50% for slow motion. Work it through on a 24fps timeline and the advice falls apart. One second of 60fps footage holds 60 frames. At 50% it occupies 2 seconds, which is 48 timeline frames, so those 60 source frames don't divide evenly into the 48 slots available and Resolve either samples on an uneven cadence or blends. At 40% the same clip occupies 2.5 seconds, which is exactly 60 timeline frames, one per source frame. Going from 60fps to 24fps, the number is 40%.
The alternative is Clip Attributes. Right-click the clip in the Media Pool, open Clip Attributes, and set Video Frame Rate to your timeline rate. Resolve then treats the clip as native slow motion at 100%. The manual notes one caveat: changing Video Frame Rate leaves the clip's audio unaffected, so sync becomes your problem.
Clip Speed Changes That Break the Timeline
Rippling is the part that costs an hour. Whether the timeline moves depends on which tool you reached for:
- The Change Speed dialog ripples only when Ripple Sequence is ticked.
- The Retime controls ripple in Trim mode (T) and leave the timeline alone in Selection mode (A).
Most advice says tick Ripple Sequence so nothing overlaps. On a cut locked to music that drags every following clip off its beat. Leave it off, retime, then close the gap manually where you want it closed.
When a retime disturbs tracks you didn't select, turn off Sync Lock in the headers of the tracks you want excluded from the ripple. Sync Lock is on by default and is what carries other tracks along with a ripple operation. Position Lock is a separate finishing control that blocks horizontal moves and ripple operations altogether, so reach for it when the cut is locked and you want nothing shifting at all.
Moving a shot to an empty video track above, retiming it there and moving it back is a reasonable workflow when a timeline is dense. Nothing in the retime toolset warns you before it shifts the clips downstream, so undo early rather than trying to nudge things back into position.
Changing Speed on Multiple Clips
Select every clip you want changed and open Change Clip Speed. The dialog applies across the whole selection, and so does the Inspector's Speed Change group.
To copy an existing retime, including a full ramp with its speed points, build one clip, copy it, select the targets, right-click and choose Paste Attributes. Turn on Retime Effects and decide on Ripple Sequence in the same window. Remove Attributes reverses it and carries its own Ripple Sequence checkbox, which is also how you reset speed to 100% across a batch. The same Paste Attributes panel is worth knowing for other repetitive jobs, including the approaches covered in our guide to duplicating clips.
Check the Inspector on a handful of clips afterward. Mixed source frame rates inside one selection tend to need their Retime Process set individually.
Speed Methods Compared
| Method | Where it lives | Best for | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Change Clip Speed dialog | Right-click clip, or Clip menu | One fixed speed, a duration target, freeze frame, reverse clip | Default choice for anything that is not a ramp |
| Retime controls | Command-R or Ctrl-R on the Edit page | Speed points, speed ramp, mid-clip freezes, rewind presets | Use for every variable speed effect |
| Retime curve | Right-click clip, Retime Curve | Reshaping how one speed eases into the next | Open it only when a ramp lands hard |
| Inspector Speed Change | Video Inspector, Cut and Edit pages | Keyframeable speed, numeric entry, Cut page work | Best option when you are cutting on the Cut page |
The tool you pick decides whether the timeline moves. That, more than the percentage, is what separates a clean retime from a broken sequence.
Once the speed is right, the render settings are the next place quality gets thrown away. Our export settings guide covers what to send retimed footage out as.
Clip Speed FAQ
Can you change clip speed in the DaVinci Resolve Cut page?
Yes. The Speed Change controls in the Video Inspector work on both the Cut and Edit pages, giving you Direction, Speed %, Frames Per Second, Duration, Ripple Sequence and Pitch Correction. The Retime controls overlay with draggable speed points lives on the Edit page timeline.
How do you reset a clip to 100% speed in DaVinci Resolve?
Open the Retime controls with Command-R or Ctrl-R, click the pop-up next to the speed percentage at the bottom of the clip, and choose Reset to 100%. To strip retiming from several clips at once, use Remove Attributes and turn on the retime checkbox, then decide whether the timeline should ripple.
Does changing clip speed in DaVinci Resolve reduce video quality?
Speeding a clip up discards some source frames. Slowing it down requires generated or repeated frames only once you go beyond the clean ratio supported by the source and timeline frame rates. The image isn't recompressed, so the cost shows up as motion quality rather than resolution or color.
Can DaVinci Resolve change the speed of audio without the video?
Yes. Right-click an audio clip and choose Elastic Wave retiming, which gives you keyframe-based control over audio timing on its own. It handles stretching a music bed or tightening a dialogue take without touching any picture.
Related guides
- How to Duplicate a Clip in DaVinci Resolve: the other everyday timeline operation, Alt-drag to Paste Insert.
- How to Split a Video in DaVinci Resolve: cutting around your speed changes cleanly.
- DaVinci Resolve Slow Playback: when Optical Flow retimes make the timeline crawl.
