01
A clip-effect plugin in Resolve.
Free · VDO OFX
NDI from your
timeline.
A free OpenFX plugin for DaVinci Resolve. Drop it on a clip; your timeline emits colour-tagged NDI alongside the render. Stream the cut live to Sessions, or to any NDI-compatible workflow on the network. No capture card, no second machine, no middleware. Free with any VDO account.
02
NDI out alongside the render.
03
Colour-tagged. Rec.709 / P3 / Rec.2020.
04
Free with any VDO account.
01 · What it is
A bridge,
not a tool.
VDO OFX is a small OpenFX plugin that lives inside DaVinci Resolve. You drop it on a clip the same way you’d drop any other effect — on the timeline, on a compound clip, on the entire programme — and from that moment the timeline you’re looking at also exists on the network as a clean NDI feed. Anyone who can see it can carry it.
We built it because Sessions deserved a frictionless way in. The cut and the grade you’ve already shaped in Resolve should be the cut and grade your client sees — without exporting, without screen-share, without a second machine rendering the same frames a second time.
- 01Pass-through by default — signal in, signal out, untouched.
- 02Carries the working colour space and transfer function.
- 03Audio rides along on discrete channels.
- 04Pairs with any NDI consumer — Sessions, NDI Studio Monitor, your existing rig.
02 · How it works
Four steps.
From timeline to room.
- 01Sign in to your VDO account and download the OFX bundle for your platform. Drop it in the OFX folder Resolve already watches; restart Resolve and the plugin appears in the effects library.
- 02Drag VDO OFX onto a clip, a compound clip, or the entire programme on the timeline. That’s the only setup step.
- 03As Resolve renders the timeline for playback, the plugin publishes the same frames as a colour-tagged NDI source on the network — named after your project so you can find it in any NDI directory.
- 04Pick that NDI source up in VDO Sessions, in NDI Studio Monitor, or in any other consumer on the network. The cut you’re looking at in Resolve is the cut your client opens in a browser.
03 · Why it’s free
We charge for sessions,
not for plugins.
We want VDO Sessions to be the default review tool for the colour suite and the cutting room. The fastest way to do that is to ship the bridge from Resolve for free — and to make sure it doesn’t get in the way of any other NDI workflow you already trust. So we did.
— No licence dance.
Sign in once. Done.
Sign in to your VDO account, grab the build, drop it in the Resolve plugins folder. There’s no per-seat licence, no machine activation, no hardware dongle. The same account you use for Sessions unlocks the plugin on every machine you install it on.
— No middleware.
Resolve to network, direct.
The plugin runs inside Resolve. There’s no helper app in the menu bar, no service to keep alive, nothing that needs a second machine to host it. If Resolve is rendering, the NDI feed is on the network.
— No transcoding.
The frame Resolve makes.
NDI carries the colour space and transfer the timeline is in. We don’t flatten to Rec.709 on the way out. The receiver reads the tags and conforms — SDR, HLG or PQ — or hands it on untouched to the next NDI consumer.
— Plays nicely with NDI.
Sessions or anything else.
The plugin emits standard NDI. Sessions reads it. NDI Studio Monitor reads it. Your existing OBS rig, your TriCaster, your facility’s router — if it speaks NDI, it speaks VDO OFX. We’re a citizen of that ecosystem, not a fork of it.
04 · Specs & compatibility
Specs, plainly.
Resolve & OS
- DaVinci Resolve 18 and 19 (Studio & free)
- macOS 12 or later — Apple Silicon & Intel
- Linux — Rocky / Alma / Ubuntu LTS (preview)
- Windows: not supported
- OFX 1.4 host API
- Drops in Resolve’s standard OFX folder
Colour pipeline
- Pass-through by default — signal unchanged
- Rec.709, P3 D65, Rec.2020 primaries
- SDR, HLG and PQ transfer functions
- Carries colour tags through to NDI metadata
- 10-bit at the timeline’s working precision
- No LUT bake-in, no internal conversion
Transport & audio
- Standard NDI on the LAN
- Discoverable name = Resolve project name
- Audio: discrete channels, lossless
- Frame rate: matches the timeline
- Pairs with VDO Sessions (Colour and Editorial)
- Pairs with any NDI consumer on the network
— A note on networks.NDI is designed for the LAN; it is not a wide-area protocol on its own. If you need to send the cut across cities, the companion is Sessions — it picks the NDI feed up locally and carries it over the VDO pipeline to whoever you invited. The plugin and the platform are the same shape on purpose.
05 · Quick answers
Things people ask
about a free plugin.
The questions every colourist and editor asks the first time we mention shipping a Resolve plugin for free. Plain answers, in the order they tend to arrive.
- Is it really free?Yes. There’s no per-seat fee, no time-limit, no upgrade tier. Any VDO account — including the free tier — can download and run the plugin. We charge for Sessions, not for the bridge from Resolve.
- What versions of Resolve does it support?DaVinci Resolve 18 and 19, on Studio and on the free edition. The plugin uses the OFX 1.4 host API that both editions ship with.
- Can I use it without VDO Sessions?Yes. The plugin emits standard NDI. Anything that consumes NDI on your network can pick it up — NDI Studio Monitor, OBS, vMix, TriCaster, a hardware NDI receiver. Sessions is the easiest way to put the feed in front of a remote client, but it’s not a requirement.
- How is NDI different from screen-share?Screen-share captures whatever your monitor happens to be showing — menus, scopes, the OS chrome — and ships it through the OS’s capture stack. NDI is a clean broadcast feed of the timeline itself, with discrete audio channels and colour metadata, at the frame rate Resolve is rendering. It’s the difference between pointing a camera at the suite and a tap off the SDI bus.
- Does it work with HDR?Yes. The plugin carries the working transfer function through to NDI metadata, so HLG and PQ timelines come out of the plugin tagged correctly. Sessions and well-behaved NDI receivers read those tags and conform; the rest pass them on. There’s no conversion happening inside the plugin itself.
- How do I install it?Sign in to your VDO account, open the Downloads page, grab the OFX bundle for your platform, and drop it into the standard OFX plugins folder Resolve already watches. Restart Resolve once and the plugin shows up in the effects library. Sparkle handles updates after that.
Sign in to download.
Free with any VDO account · macOS · Linux preview · OFX 1.4