A jog wheel or shutter controller can be an indispensable tool for DaVinci Resolve professionals who want to boost their productivity when editing videos. But most jog wheels come as a separate device that requires some investment and a rather steep learning curve. The Rotary Mouse can work as an affordable jog wheel replacement that takes little effort to get used to.
To help your onboarding effort, we took the liberty of publishing this detailed tutorial on how to use DaVinci Resolve with this unique mouse. You can watch the YouTube tutorial below if you prefer a video presentation.
Scrub Timeline
The jog wheel is often used to move the timeline precisely and quickly. When using the Rotary Mouse, you can simply hold down the Ctrl (on Windows) or Command (on Mac OS) key, then place the mouse pointer on the timeline panel, and rotate the horizontal scroll wheel counterclockwise to move forward and clockwise to move backward. You can reverse the direction by toggling the “Natural Scrolling” setting on Mac OS, or use the X-Mouse Button Control software for Windows. You can navigate the timeline slowly by flicking the wheel vertically, or make full circular rotations to speed up.
Zoom In and Out of Timeline
Another neat trick for managing the timeline is zooming in and out using the built-in jog wheel. Hold the Alt or Option button and turn the rotary wheel to zoom. Clockwise to zoom in and anti-clockwise to zoom out.
Adjust Track Heights
If you have multiple tracks and want better visibility of the video thumbnails or audio waveforms, you can hold the Shift key and place the mouse cursor on a track, and then start spinning the wheel. The height of the track will increase or decrease depending on your rotational direction.
Drag Timeline
The Rotary Mouse does come with a middle button right at the center of the jog wheel. You can make good use of it for quick and short navigation of the timeline. Simply click and hold down the center of the wheel to press down the middle button and drag the mouse. Make sure your mouse pointer is on the specific timeline you wish to move.
Zoom In and Out of Source Monitor
Other than messing with the timeline, you can also use the wheel to zoom in or out of the source viewer. Just hover over the viewer and spin the wheel.
Conclusion
We hope the team at Blackmagic Design will provide more functionality for the scroll wheel in future versions of DaVinci Resolve. Until then, you can certainly make the best out of it with the Rotary Mouse.
