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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 :)

Any interest in a dirt-cheap Color control surface?

Could you just have a port with a standard keyboard interface (PS2 or USB) and map to a standard keyboard? Or just a number pad keyboard? That would eliminate the need for including buttons on the motherboard and the panel. I have no idea what I'm talking about, it just occurs to me you could probably do this.

There just doesn't seem to be a lot of point to plugging in an extra keyboard. Why not use the keyboard that's already plugged into the computer? Maybe I'm misinterpreting the question.

As far as using the Kensington trackballs, or a Shuttle pro and "Integrating" them, that's not really an option, due to pesky trademark and patent laws. :p It would appear corporate lawyers frown on using their products in your own product. Which is a shame, since that kensington trackball with a scroll wheel would have been *perfect*

Pricing difference between the bare-bones and buttons models wouldn't be too significant. $100-200. Our max price is $500 (For the basic model) so we're not going to add too much whizbangery regardless.
 
So it's been a while, and I return with news regarding our product development.

Unfortunately, it's not *good* news. It turns out that the Color control-surface APIs are private and locked down tighter than a... Hrm. Can't find an appropriate metaphor that's not, well, inappropriate. Anyways.

So, we are not going to be able to support Color at the moment. We're still going ahead with product development, though, since we've gotten better responses from the makers of other color correction software. Maybe once we release a product if enough people send emails to Apple requesting support, they'll open the APIs up to us. We'll see...
 
sounds like a case of excessive douche-baggery. One would think open API's benefits the mothership since they don't seem keen on developing their own hardware.
 
I wouldn't go that far. Remember that Apple bought Color as a completed product, so it's not like they built it from the ground up. The guys at Apple were very apologetic, but apparently the controller APIs are very much undocumented, so they have to pull people off other projects if they want to support a new controller.
 
Yeah it's not an issue of open it's an issue of you want to make a controller Apple have to invest the money/resources to help you do it. And that's way different as a startup that looks to undercut long-established 3rd party developers out there like JL Cooper, etc who've invested their own development efforts and considerable time already. So give Apple a little credit from the douche-baggery cracks. There's a lot more to it than 'here's the API go nuts guys...'

Noah
 
$250 should be the max price amount.
This product should come with an Sdk. There are many other user bases beyond beyond color. think aperture, lightroom, Photoshop, Ae, Scratch, speedgrade, lustre. You just sell the hard ware and provide the sdk many users will write the code. If you limit it to just Color you will have a limited user base. nut idf you leave it open to programmers just like a kensignton space mouse or track ball, it can be adapted for many uses. there is a huge worldwide market, at $250 think millions of adobe, apple, autodesk, redgiant boris and other creative color users.
 
We're definitely not planning on limiting ourselves to Color. If we were, I'd be saying something along the lines of "Sorry, Apple said we can't play, so we're done." Which I most definitely did not. We've been looking at multiple hosts from the get-go.

As far as those hosts go, we are kind of limited to products that support 3-way color correction. Some of the products you listed support it, some don't.

We would love to release a 3-way trackball controller for $250. Unfortunately, that's just not possible. Parts cost money, and we need to make a profit. If it were possible we'd do it.
 
Question on the same line,

Is it any easier to get access to the Ethernet control connection API's for color? I don't think there's a set bunch of API's for color, right? Each control box had to be coded for and added separately inside the color code itself, IIRC.

I remember installing a JL Cooper back in the Final Touch days and it was a bit of a pain, and need a separate NIC. Back then you could call up Silicon Color, how would one go about it now?

I have a few ideas along these lines I'm interested in at least looking at as well.
 
Question on the same line,

Is it any easier to get access to the Ethernet control connection API's for color? I don't think there's a set bunch of API's for color, right? Each control box had to be coded for and added separately inside the color code itself, IIRC.

I remember installing a JL Cooper back in the Final Touch days and it was a bit of a pain, and need a separate NIC. Back then you could call up Silicon Color, how would one go about it now?

I have a few ideas along these lines I'm interested in at least looking at as well.

Let me save you some trouble and pretend to be Apple for a second: "No"

There apparently are no APIs for Color. Everything is undocumented. Doesn't matter if you're looking at the USB interface or the Ethernet interface. I actually didn't specifically mention one when I asked.
 
I think if you want to grab the biggest chunk of the market you have to go lowest cost, and to me that would mean probably just the three track balls.

I currently grade using keyboard and mouse in Color and what I find is that I'm lacking speed when doing precision things, but I am happy with just doing keyboard, mouse clicks to switch between rooms, copy and paste grades etc. In fact with one hand on option shift, i can reach between 1 and 5 pretty easily on the keyboard for pasting grades and copying grades. Switching between rooms, switching over to mouse or using the keyboard really isn't a big deal. Same with putting in a key frame, jumping to the next shot etc.

As long as the surface can be placed conveniently between my keyboard and my mouse (i.e so I can land on the trackballs from muscle memory with my dominant hand and then easily go back to either mouse or keyboard.) then that'd probably be 'good enough' to warrant as a low cost solution.

So even if Color isn't 'currently' viable, such a solution for Final Cut, Colorista etc could find a lot of use.
 
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