At the risk of sounding rude but I truly do not mean to be, what part of digital negative eluded you from making the connection to being usable in Resolve? Don't worry, I've had some very plain-as-the-nose-on-my-face obvious things that eventually hit me like a ton of bricks for realizing how obvious it was after having it pointed out to me.

I've shot Canon RAW time lapse for quite some time, and always wanted to bring the RAW sequences directly into Resolve but they always looked at me like I had 3 heads when I'd talk to them directly about it. Eventually, they just suggest converting to DNGs and then go have fun. (I'm wondering if there was a tiff between Canon and BMD for licensing???) Also, before Blackmagic's RAW format, their cinema cameras recorded in DNG sequences.