Team collaboration on DaVinci Resolve projects

DaVinci Resolve Studio has two ways to collaborate, and both have friction. The classic route is a shared PostgreSQL project server on a LAN: every editor, colourist and assistant connects to the same database, with bin and timeline locking. Standing that up for a remote team with a freelance colourist means VPNs, port forwarding and a database nobody on the team wants to administer.

The newer route is Blackmagic Cloud, which hosts the Resolve project in the cloud and bills per project per month. It solves the database, but it only syncs the project, not the media. Every collaborator still has to get the same 4 TB of rushes onto their own machine, by shipping a drive or uploading to yet another service.

Either way, the project database is the easy part. The hard part is that a distributed grade needs everyone looking at the same footage, and neither a PostgreSQL server nor Blackmagic Cloud moves the media for you.

Sanbila handles the part Resolve collaboration leaves out: the media. Every teammate opens the same Virtual Folder of proxies pointing at the same cloud originals, so nobody ships a drive and nobody copies 4 TB to join. Resolve itself runs locally on each machine, so there is no PostgreSQL server to stand up and no LAN to be on.

The handoff is by FCPXML: the editor exports the cut, the colourist imports it on their own machine, and Smart Relink conforms it against the cloud originals, pulling light proxies to work and streaming the full-resolution clips for the grade. Each member picks proxy or stream per clip on their own machine, so the colourist streams the originals while an assistant stays on proxies, with no conflict. In Resolve, each editor links those cloud-generated proxies natively with Link Proxy Media and turns on Prefer Proxies, so the timeline stays light until Smart Relink conforms back to the full-resolution originals for the grade.

Access is role-based, Owner, Editor and Viewer, so a freelance colourist gets exactly the access they need and nothing more. New uploads show up for everyone on the next project reload. Studio covers 3 seats per project and Enterprise 25, enough for editorial, colour, VFX and QC on one project. You can still pair it with a PostgreSQL server or Blackmagic Cloud for the project database; Sanbila is the shared media layer underneath.