DaVinci Resolve 21 AI Slate ID and Slate Finder

The costly mistake here is treating Slate Finder and Slate ID as one automatic button. In the current Resolve Studio 21, Finder only drops a duration marker over the frames where it sees a readable board.

Then you select that analyzed clip, click Slate ID in Metadata, choose which recognized fields to keep and click Save. The current Resolve 21 Reference Manual documents those as two separate operations, and that split matters. The software can shorten your logging pass, but it can't tell you whether a production-specific value deserves your trust.

The steps below follow Blackmagic's Resolve 21.1 Reference Manual, which is the September 2026 edition. The April beta guide and plenty of older tutorials show an incomplete sequence, so go by the current control names and the order laid out here.

Slate Finder vs Slate ID: What Each Tool Does

Slate Finder is the navigation step. Slate ID is the step that reads the board and writes metadata. A Finder marker doesn't mean Scene, Take, Camera, Date or any other field has been saved. And a plausible Slate ID result is still only a proposal until you enable that row and click Save.

There's one version trap worth calling out. Blackmagic's April New Features Guide showed a yellow duration marker and still carried a beta warning. The final Reference Manual says the marker color is selectable and shows it in blue. So any instructions worth following say "duration marker," not "the yellow marker."

Both tools are Studio-only in Resolve 21. Resolve Free still gives you the Metadata Editor, list view, Smart Bins and manual metadata entry; it just doesn't run the Slate Finder and Slate ID analysis. The Resolve 21 AI tools guide maps the same Free-versus-Studio line across the rest of the current AI feature set.

Prepare the Media Pool Before You Analyze

Don't send a whole shooting day through Finder on the first go. Run a representative trial on ten clips, which is a sample you can review, not a performance benchmark. Mix in different cameras, board layouts, interiors, exteriors, head slates and tail slates so the trial shows you the production's main failure patterns before you scale up.

• Preserve the camera, sound-roll and script-supervisor metadata before you run any bulk operation.
• Group camera originals by shooting day and camera so the review set stays easy to follow.
• Confirm source timecode and the project frame rate before you start a separate audio-sync workflow.
• Leave out audio-only files, graphics and rolls that never show a board.
• Write down the house style: whether 12B means a scene variant, a camera identifier, an angle or some other field.
• Choose a marker color that isn't already carrying another meaning on this production.

If your bins and ingest still aren't settled, finish the DaVinci Resolve beginner workflow first. Slate analysis belongs after the media has a stable home and before editorial starts leaning on the metadata.

Install the Slate AI Model

1. Confirm that you're running DaVinci Resolve Studio 21.
2. Open DaVinci Resolve > Extras Download Manager.
3. Download the AI model that goes with Slate Finder and Slate ID.
4. Let the download and installation finish, then go back to the Media page.
5. In a shared facility, write down the exact Resolve build and check the Extra on every ingest workstation before production starts.

The model download is an official prerequisite. The manual doesn't say a missing model hides the command, so don't judge installation state from the menu alone. If the operation fails, check the installed build and the Extra itself.

Run Slate Finder and Choose the Marker Color

1. On the Media page, select the camera clips that show a board.
2. Right-click one of the selected clips and choose AI Tools > Analyze for Slate.
3. Or open AI Clip Analysis at the top of the bin column, set the clip selection range, switch on Analyze for Slate and choose a marker color.
4. Start the analysis and wait for the Slate Finder progress box to finish.
5. Open each duration marker and confirm the board is visible and readable inside the marked interval.
6. Ignore any marker that points to a monitor image, a rehearsal board, a false start or the wrong slate for that take.

A Finder marker isn't metadata, and it isn't audio sync either. It only tells you where Resolve thinks a readable slate appears. The next step is recognizing the metadata and approving it clip by clip.

Run Slate ID and Save Only Verified Fields

The final manual documents Slate ID as a step after Finder, not as part of the same click. It also describes the approval on a single selected clip, so don't assume one approval safely writes an entire Finder batch.

1. Select one clip that's already been analyzed with Slate Finder.
2. Open Metadata and click the Slate ID icon at the top of the Metadata bar.
3. Wait for the separate Slate ID progress box.
4. In Slate Information, compare every AI Recognized value with the photographed board and the production record.
5. Untick any field that's wrong, ambiguous or mapped to the wrong production concept.
6. Click Save to write only the enabled rows to clip metadata.
7. Fix rejected or incorrect values afterward in the Metadata Editor, because the Slate Information values can't be edited in that window.

Review the Slate Information Window

Which rows come back depends on the board and on what the model can read. Blackmagic names Scene, Take, Shoot Day and other information, and the final manual's examples also show Date and Camera. Don't turn that list into a promise that every board layout will fill every field.

I'd use three plain review states, so every handoff shows which values the AI recognized and which ones a person approved:

• Verified: the photographed board and the production record both support the value and its destination field.
• Needs review: a character is unclear, or the show's field convention is ambiguous.
• Manual: the board is unreadable, missing, or laid out so that typing it in yourself is faster and safer.

Clip colors, flags, keywords or a custom metadata field will all keep those states visible. Which one you use matters less than keeping AI-recognized values apart from human-approved ones. Blackmagic's Media page overview shows how metadata and bins fit into the wider ingest workflow.

Slate ID Does Not Sync Production Audio

Slate Finder marks a visual interval and Slate ID writes the fields you selected. Audio synchronization is a separate Resolve workflow built on matching timecode, waveform comparison, In and Out points, markers or manual alignment. A correct Scene and Take value can't fix bad timecode, mismatched sample rates or drift.

Critical metadata warning: the Reference Manual says Auto Sync Audio makes the video clip inherit metadata such as scene and take from the audio file when Retain Video Metadata is off, and off is the default.

If the Slate ID values on the video clip need to survive, turn on Retain Video Metadata, or make sure the sound metadata really is the authority you want, before you sync.

After syncing, spot-check the clap at the head and a later section for drift, then sort the Media Pool again. A sync that worked doesn't prove the metadata source you wanted won the merge.

Where Slate ID Commonly Needs Manual Help

• Glare: a reflection wipes out thin marker strokes or part of a digit.
• Motion blur: the board is there, but no single frame is sharp enough to read reliably.
• Tail slates: the board may be upside down, on screen only briefly or close to the end of the clip.
• Multiple boards: a rehearsal board, a monitor image, a false start or a second slate can produce the wrong interval.
• Handwriting: 1/7, 3/8, 5/6, B/8 and O/0 are still predictable recognition traps.
• House conventions: the same letter can mean a scene variant, a camera, an angle or a shot, depending on the production.
• Digital boards: LED refresh and shutter timing can leave a field incomplete in any single frame.

Community evidence is mixed, and that's exactly why the trial matters. In an April 2026 Resolve slate-detection discussion, one professional dailies operator said a keyboard-driven manual workflow beat the beta model on an M3 Ultra.

That's one operator's result from the beta period, not a universal benchmark for the shipping build. Measure your own error rate and review time.

A Safer Batch Workflow for a Shooting Day

1. Export the existing metadata first with File > Export Metadata From > Media Pool or Selected Clips. Save it as CSV, or as ALE when you need Avid compatibility.
2. Group the day by camera, board style or any other boundary that keeps the review manageable.
3. Run Slate Finder on ten representative clips and inspect every duration marker.
4. For each useful result, run Slate ID, reject the doubtful rows and Save only the verified fields.
5. Note the error pattern: a missed board, a false board, a wrong character or a wrong destination field.
6. If the trial saves time, widen Finder analysis in controlled batches, but keep Slate ID approval accountable clip by clip.
7. Sort by Scene, Take, Camera, Date and Shoot Day to expose blanks, duplicates, impossible sequences and inconsistent punctuation.
8. Before Auto Sync Audio, decide whether the video or the sound metadata is authoritative and set Retain Video Metadata to match.
9. Export the cleaned metadata again and make a DRP project checkpoint before you rename clips or hand the project off.

If camera media goes offline in the middle of this, stop and sort out storage with the Media Offline guide. Reanalyzing relinked duplicates can leave you with a nastier metadata problem than the missing media ever was. For the difference between Project Libraries, DRP files, archives and recovery files, see the Resolve project storage guide.

Troubleshooting Slate Finder and Slate ID

Analyze for Slate is missing

Confirm you're on Resolve Studio 21, install the matching model through Extras Download Manager and check the exact build in the About dialog. Where About sits in the menus depends on the platform. Then compare your build with the current Blackmagic support downloads and release notes.

The model download fails

Check network access and free disk space, quit Resolve cleanly, reopen it and retry the official Extra. Don't install model files from an unofficial mirror.

A June 2026 Extras Download Manager failure thread documents one Windows download failure and a separate extraction and rename error, so it doesn't point to one universal cause or file path. If the failure keeps coming back, use Help > Create Diagnostics Log on Desktop and send the exact build, OS and failing Extra to Blackmagic support or the official forum.

No slate is detected

Open the clip and confirm that a board is visible and readable for longer than one blurred frame. Try that single clip through Analyze for Slate. If the only board is distant, blocked or unreadable even to you, log it by hand instead of running the same analysis again.

Slate Finder marks the wrong board

Check the duration marker in your chosen color for a rehearsal board, a monitor image, a false start or a tail slate. A marker helps you navigate; it doesn't give you permission to write metadata. Carry on only with the board the production approved.

Slate ID reads a value incorrectly

Untick that row in Slate Information and Save only the fields you trust. The recognized values can't be edited in the Slate Information window, so type the corrected value afterward in the Metadata Editor.

Final Verification Before Editorial

• Sort list view by the fields your production actually uses and scan for blanks, duplicates and broken sequences.
• Open at least one clip from every scene and camera group and compare the saved metadata with the photographed board.
• Confirm that rejected Slate Information rows didn't overwrite trusted camera or sound-report values.
• If you synced audio, confirm the intended metadata source survived, then spot-check head sync and drift later in the clip.
• Open the exported CSV or ALE and check that the fields you expect are populated before handoff.

The split of work that holds up is simple: Finder narrows the search, Slate ID proposes fields, and the editor or assistant editor decides what becomes project metadata. That beats blind manual scrubbing without pretending the model is the production record.

For the bigger ingest-to-delivery sequence around these tools, follow the task-first DaVinci Resolve tutorial roadmap.

DaVinci Resolve AI Slate ID FAQ

Is Slate Finder available in DaVinci Resolve Free?

No. The current Resolve 21 Reference Manual marks Slate Finder and Slate ID as Studio-only. In Resolve Free you can still enter and organize clip metadata by hand.

What does AI Slate Finder detect?

It finds the stretch where a readable clapperboard appears and adds a duration marker there. You pick the marker color in AI Clip Analysis, so it isn't always yellow.

What does AI Slate ID read?

Once Slate Finder has analyzed the clip, Slate ID can recognize fields such as Scene, Take, Shoot Day, Date, Camera and other information written on the board. What you get back depends on what it can recognize.

Where is Analyze for Slate in Resolve 21?

On the Media page, select the clips, right-click one of them and choose AI Tools > Analyze for Slate. You can also switch on Analyze for Slate in AI Clip Analysis at the top of the bin column.

How do I save Slate ID metadata?

Select a clip that Slate Finder has already analyzed, click the Slate ID icon in the Metadata pane, wait for Slate Information, enable only the fields you trust and click Save. Fix rejected values later in the Metadata Editor.

Does Slate ID synchronize production audio?

No. Finding the slate, reading its metadata and syncing the audio are separate operations. Sync with timecode, waveforms, markers or by hand, and check Retain Video Metadata before you run Auto Sync Audio.

Can Slate ID replace a script supervisor or dailies operator?

No. It can cut down the searching and transcription on readable boards, but production conventions, continuity, ambiguous handwriting and the final metadata sign-off still need human judgment.

Jason Miller I run DaVinci Resolve Club, an independent publication. My guides explain editing, color, Fairlight, Fusion and delivery, with clear Free vs Studio limits.