Prewatch for DaVinci Resolve
AI editing in DaVinci Resolve, from footage Claude has already watched.
Resolve Studio 21.1 lets Claude operate Resolve. Prewatch tells Claude what is in your footage: every shot, line of dialogue, scene and usable moment, with the seconds to cut on.
Drop in a folder
Prewatch watches it and indexes every clip: shots, transcripts, speakers, days and scenes.
On your MacClaude asks Prewatch and answers with the clips, the scenes and the seconds where things happen.
Your Claude chatClaude picks moments with in and out points from the shotlog, not by scrubbing video.
Your Claude chatThe timeline appears in Resolve
Through DaVinci Resolve Studio's own MCP server, in the project you have open.
On your MacTwo MCP servers, one conversation
Resolve does the editing. Prewatch knows the footage.
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is how Claude Desktop reaches tools on your Mac. With both servers connected, one chat can search your rushes and build the timeline.
Prewatch's MCP server
Answers Claude's questions about the footage from the Shotlog Prewatch wrote: an overview of the days and scenes, search across transcripts and descriptions, candidate moments with in and out points in source seconds and timecode, a clip's details, and the exact frame as an image so Claude can check a shot before it uses it. Answers are kept short and paginated, so they cost few tokens.
DaVinci Resolve Studio's MCP server
Built into DaVinci Resolve Studio 21.1, released in September 2026. Trade press reports that it lets assistants such as Claude organise media, change settings and batch render by conversation, and that it is a Studio feature. Claude uses it to import the clips Prewatch found and lay them on a timeline.
Sources: CineD, 9 September 2026; Digital Production, 8 September 2026.
What to ask
Talk to your rushes the way you would brief an assistant editor.
Claude reads the day's scenes and answers with the clips and the seconds where things happen.
Search runs over transcripts, with the speaker and the time of each line.
Camera motion and descriptions narrow it down; Claude checks the exact frames before it suggests them.
Claude picks moments with in and out points, then builds the timeline through Resolve's MCP server.
Quality flags are in the index, so problem clips stay out of the cut.
Clips are grouped by their own capture times into days and scenes.
Descriptions and moments need descriptions turned on with your Claude API key. Transcripts, speakers, motion, flags, days and scenes work without one.
Why it is cheaper for the model
An index built for agents, not a pile of frames.
An assistant that has to export and look at frames to understand footage is slow and expensive. Prewatch does that work once, on your Mac, and keeps a compact read layer for agents. On a 381-clip folder it cut what an agent reads to plan a cut by 68%, from 110,241 to 34,765 tokens, counted with Claude's tokenizer.
In October 2026 an agent used Prewatch's shotlogs to make nine rough edits of trip films in Resolve, with chapter timelines, markers and titles, without decoding the video itself.
Supported at launch
- DaVinci Resolve Studio 21.1 with its MCP server, in Claude Desktop
- Any footage folder macOS can decode, on a local drive, SSD or NAS
- Resolve's Proxy folder, DJI .LRF and GoPro .LRV proxies
Planned
- An FCPXML handoff for the free version of Resolve and for Final Cut Pro
Questions
Prewatch and Resolve
Does it work with the free version of DaVinci Resolve?
The chat-to-timeline workflow uses the MCP server built into DaVinci Resolve Studio 21.1, which trade press reports as a Studio feature. With the free version of Resolve you can still index footage and ask Claude about it. A file handoff (FCPXML) that free Resolve and Final Cut Pro can import is planned and not available yet.
What is the difference between Resolve's MCP server and Prewatch?
DaVinci Resolve Studio's MCP server lets an AI assistant operate Resolve: organise media, change settings, render. Prewatch gives the same assistant an index of what is inside every clip of your footage folder: shots, transcripts, speakers, scenes and moments with in-points. Used together in Claude Desktop, Claude finds the material with Prewatch and builds the timeline with Resolve.
Does Prewatch change my Resolve project?
No. Prewatch only reads your footage and writes its own Shotlog files. Changes to a Resolve project are made by Resolve's own MCP server, when you ask Claude for them in the chat.
Is my footage uploaded anywhere?
No video and no audio ever leaves your Mac. If you turn descriptions on and add your key, Prewatch sends still keyframes, one overview contact sheet and the transcript text of each clip to the Claude API. Locations are never sent with them. When you chat in Claude Desktop, Claude reads what Prewatch answers, as part of your conversation. Every step and where it runs.
Set it up in minutes.
Index a folder, connect Claude Desktop, enable Resolve's AI assistants. The guide walks through every step.