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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Is SCRATCH the best option for a colorist in Australia?

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Paul Cook

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Just wondering what the dominant high end realtime DI platform for post and coloring is in Australia? ie what do most of the post houses (especially those dealing with RED) use for coloring?

With the new Scratch 6 being announced at $18kish and with all the new features seems to me to be the platform of choice no?

My main reason for asking is Im looking to train myself up with a view to working either full time or freelance but dont want to do so on a platform very few in Australia actually use.

Cheers

Paul
 
Thanks I might do that - I took a look at fxphd but all I could find was a course for intro to Resolve, which aint no good given Im on a PC. But hey if mac / resolve is the way I must go then so be it.
 
Paul Cook said:
Just wondering what the dominant high end realtime DI platform for post and coloring is in Australia? ie what do most of the post houses (especially those dealing with RED) use for coloring?

With the new Scratch 6 being announced at $18kish and with all the new features seems to me to be the platform of choice no?

My main reason for asking is Im looking to train myself up with a view to working either full time or freelance but dont want to do so on a platform very few in Australia actually use.

Cheers

Paul
Click to expand...

The major post houses use a variety of platforms. You'll see Baselight, Lustre, Resolve, Film Master, and Pablo used in somewhat equal measure, although in Los Angeles you'd also still see quite a few DaVinci 2K's in use, and not that many Pablos or Film Masters. Scratch is not generally used as a grading system in the big facilities, it is used as a conforming, playback, and data management system. It is used as a grading platform primarily by independent, small facilities, at least in L.A.

There is no one dominant system in this market, regardless of how some might try to convince you that there is.
 
Thanks for the info guys - I do like the look of Resolve...just wish they had a PC version. Lustre looks scary/amazing but seems to be only available as part of Flame 2012 now?
 
Paul Cook said:
Thanks for the info guys - I do like the look of Resolve...just wish they had a PC version. Lustre looks scary/amazing but seems to be only available as part of Flame 2012 now?
Click to expand...

Nope, Lustre is available as a stand alone app for purchase. There is no Flame on a PC, so that wouldn't fly. If you're looking for best PC grading app, look no farther, then FilmMaster or if you're looking for more economical version-Fuse. Fuse now can be used with MC panel. Awesome software, but nowhere near the price of Resolve on a Mac or on PC side-Scratch.
 
I've never been able to find so much as a screenshot for Filmmaster. Even on their website all you get is a word heavy pdf so I guess they MUST be the top dog - they dont even need to try ;-) I found a very good write up by a colorist who has used both and came to the conclusion that neither is necessarily better, its more the type of job as to which one they would choose to work with. Which all sounds fine until you look at the massive price difference and the WAY resolve is being marketed (resolve lite will be FREE in June) then its $995 for the full mac version and then big bickies for the control then the linux upgrade.

One thing about Resolve I dont fully understand is the GPU acceleration - I thought this was a CUDA / Nvidia stronghold - everything else that is GPU accelerated in the pro graphics market is solely Nvidia...yet you can only get mac pros with ATI cards?
 
Hi, the DaVinci Resolve has and will continue to be offered as a CUDA based grading solution and our addition of support for the ATI/AMD graphics cards using OpenCL will allow the Resolve Lite and full Resolve to work on the latest MacBook Pro and iMac. For performance applications the Cuda GPUs are recommended. A number of factors need to be considered before purchasing a professional grading system and clearly the DaVinci Resolve now has the price, quality and performance advantage. It is uses by a number of Hollywood giants and they continue to purchase more showing their support for the direction we are heading. Low cost does not equate to low quality or a poor feature set and I believe our showing of 8.0 at NAB demonstrated our commitment to making Resolve the leading grading system for the whole market.
For less than $50K you can have a MacPro Resolve with panels and dual GPUs processing a dozen nodes of HD in real time. Its worth a closer look if if its on a Mac and your preference is PC.
Peter
 
Paul Cook said:
I've never been able to find so much as a screenshot for Filmmaster. Even on their website all you get is a word heavy pdf so I guess they MUST be the top dog - they dont even need to try ;-) I found a very good write up by a colorist who has used both and came to the conclusion that neither is necessarily better, its more the type of job as to which one they would choose to work with. Which all sounds fine until you look at the massive price difference and the WAY resolve is being marketed (resolve lite will be FREE in June) then its $995 for the full mac version and then big bickies for the control then the linux upgrade.

One thing about Resolve I dont fully understand is the GPU acceleration - I thought this was a CUDA / Nvidia stronghold - everything else that is GPU accelerated in the pro graphics market is solely Nvidia...yet you can only get mac pros with ATI cards?
Click to expand...

I have all three grading solutions. Take a guess which one I'm using?:-) It's not even close for me. But, said that, Resolve 8 is a step in the right direction and Digital Vision, that now had changed it's name to Image Systems and had lost it's chief software designer-Bruno Manger, seems totally lost it's momentum. They had absolutely nothing new at NAB this year, nothing... So, in a year, who knows what software will be leading the market...
 
Peter - Just to clarify when I wrote about the price difference and the way Resolve is being marketed - I was giving Resolve a big pat on the back. I think its brilliant offering a free version to get bums on seats then offer a powerhouse of features for a very affordable $995 more with additional upgraded options as required. I think the only main thing that Resolve lacks is noise reduction, as I understand that is something offered in a seperate package? (I coul be wrong)

Jake its a tad troubling that when you've got a slew of hungry competitors offering amazing software at such affordable price points...to offer nothing new is a very bad move. At least you're covered no matter what happens :-)

Mark I think you hit the nail on the head. Time to jump on the mac/resolve train!

Thanks for all the input guys!
 
Paul Cook said:
Peter - Just to clarify when I wrote about the price difference and the way Resolve is being marketed - I was giving Resolve a big pat on the back. I think its brilliant offering a free version to get bums on seats then offer a powerhouse of features for a very affordable $995 more with additional upgraded options as required. I think the only main thing that Resolve lacks is noise reduction, as I understand that is something offered in a seperate package? (I coul be wrong)

Jake its a tad troubling that when you've got a slew of hungry competitors offering amazing software at such affordable price points...to offer nothing new is a very bad move. At least you're covered no matter what happens :-)

Mark I think you hit the nail on the head. Time to jump on the mac/resolve train!

Thanks for all the input guys!
Click to expand...
The NR is included in Resolve 8 package. It's strictly CUDa based, so if you want it, it's nVidia only. This NR is a brand new technology, developed from the ground up on Resolve platform and, to my knowledge, is the only device, that does it in real time. It has nothing to do with Revival, which is a standalone product, mainly used for restoration projects.
As far as slew goes, one doesn't constitute a slew. A year from now, when or if Scratch fails to get any traction on a Mac platform, the choice from the "slew of hungry competitors" will be Resolve or free Resolve... I hope, that I'm wrong. Otherwise, Mac platform will be very lonely place for high end color grading...
 
Hey Jake, little off topic from thread, but did Resolve 8 have any basic compositing abilities now that you can have multi layered timelines? You recommended cinegrain for grain emulation and it would be great to be able to incorporate that right into resolve. I didn't go to NAB so there are still many questions that need to be answered...

the NR is a greeaaat feature though.
 
I have a strong feeling Lustre will be coming to the Mac later this year or 2012, honestly not that i really care. Then you'll have sppedgrade nx, iridas upcoming Lumetri, fcp-x, scratch, storm, Smoke, , redcine-x, resolve, and Stu's twitter pledge to take on the baselight plug. If only I was a colorist. i cant wait wait for Epic-x.
 
Tom.Wong said:
Hey Jake, little off topic from thread, but did Resolve 8 have any basic compositing abilities now that you can have multi layered timelines? You recommended cinegrain for grain emulation and it would be great to be able to incorporate that right into resolve. I didn't go to NAB so there are still many questions that need to be answered...

the NR is a greeaaat feature though.
Click to expand...

Actually I may jumped the gun in recommending using Cinegrade. I don't think there are transfer modes available on Resolve 8 yet. I hope I'm wrong on that. May be Peter or Rohit can clarify... To my knowledge, I don't think you can composite yet, unless again I'm mistaken, but you can pull the green screen key:-)
BTW Tom. Did't you grade the F3 S-Log test? It looked good, except blacks were a bit too crashed for my taste, as I saw all the details in the original material. How did you like the material?
 
Wow - the NR feature sounds amazing. So let me get this straight...for the best power you need an nvidia card but you cant buy a mac pro with anything other than an ati card...? Is it just a matter of putting in an Nvidia card yourself? Will any card work? Drivers etc?
 
Paul Cook said:
Wow - the NR feature sounds amazing. So let me get this straight...for the best power you need an nvidia card but you cant buy a mac pro with anything other than an ati card...? Is it just a matter of putting in an Nvidia card yourself? Will any card work? Drivers etc?
Click to expand...

Yes, you put in the nvidia cards yourself. you'll need to video cards, one just for GUI, the other for cuda acceleration for resolve.

Right now on the Mac it's gtx 285 and quadro 4000 as your options.
you can get a authorized cubix pci e expander too if you want to do multi gpu acceleration.
drivers can be a little finicky. you have to install the nvidia drivers before you put in the card. mac os updates can sometimes kill the driver and u have to pull out the card, reinstall the drivers, and put the card back in. so gotta be careful with OS updates.



so hopefully, resolve 8.1 or whatever will have either basic compositing or packaged grain emulations. I'll take either or! that's one of the most requested things from clients right now, and I have to keep deferring them to third party methods of doing it. Really wish I could just dial in the grain I want inside of the system.
 
Thanks Tom, makes sense now. In another development a budy of mine just informed me that I actually have the perfect PC to convert into a hackintosh, right down to the gtx 285 nvidia card...so given Im a bit of a tinkerer I might just buy the latest Mac osx, see how everything handles and if it all looks good - plonk down the $995 for Resolve 8 when its released and be way infront of what it would have cost to buy a new mac. I know its not the most elegant / proffessional of solutions but it will do for a start, I woner if anyone else here has tried converting a PC into a mac?
 
Paul Cook said:
Thanks Tom, makes sense now. In another development a budy of mine just informed me that I actually have the perfect PC to convert into a hackintosh, right down to the gtx 285 nvidia card...so given Im a bit of a tinkerer I might just buy the latest Mac osx, see how everything handles and if it all looks good - plonk down the $995 for Resolve 8 when its released and be way infront of what it would have cost to buy a new mac. I know its not the most elegant / proffessional of solutions but it will do for a start, I woner if anyone else here has tried converting a PC into a mac?
Click to expand...

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread...LVE-and-***HACKINTOSH***&highlight=hackintosh
 
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