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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 :)

DaVinci Resolve 8.0 details

Peter Chamberlain

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(NAB 2011 Booth SL220--April 11, 2011) Blackmagic Design today announced DaVinci Resolve 8, a major new update to the world's most advanced color correction tool. DaVinci Resolve 8 includes new extremely powerful features and will be available to all DaVinci Resolve users free of charge!

DaVinci Resolve 8 will be demonstrated on the Blackmagic Design NAB 2011 booth at #SL220.

DaVinci Resolve is the world's most advanced color correction tool and is used on more Hollywood feature films, commercials and television shows than any other system. This new update adds multiple features that our customers have requested, combined with innovative new image processing technology developed by Blackmagic Design.

New features in DaVinci Resolve 8 include multi layer timeline support with editing, and XML import and export with Apple Final Cut Pro™. The new DaVinci Resolve 8 now includes OpenCL processing to allow use on Apple iMac and MacBook Pro computers. New advanced processing tools have been added for real time noise reduction, curve grading, advanced multi point stabilization as well as automatic stereoscopic 3D image alignment. DaVinci Resolve 8 also supports the Avid™ Artist Color™ control panel and also offers ALE export to relink graded DNxHD files back into Avid editors. For Epic users DaVinci Resolve also supports HDRx.

Customers will love the new XML import and export combined with the multi layer timeline in DaVinci Resolve 8, because it lets complex sequences from Final Cut Pro to be imported, color graded and then exported directly back into Final Cut Pro, with all the new graded shots, and the layer structure, intact. If the Final Cut Pro edit is changed, DaVinci Resolve 8 will automatically relink all the clips so the grades are preserved. Editing can also be performed inside DaVinci Resolve 8, and clips adjusted and relocated.

Advanced OpenCL image processing has been incorporated into DaVinci Resolve 8, and this allows a broader range of GPUs to be used for real time processing up to 1080 HD resolutions. OpenCL based processing, while not as powerful as CUDA™ processing also used on DaVinci Resolve, does allow a much wider range of computers that can be used for color grading. Now Apple iMac™ and MacBook Pro™ series computers can be used for real time grading, allowing customers to use the computer hardware they already have. DaVinci Resolve 8 running on a MacBook Pro is a perfect on set color grading tool.

Often digital cameras when shooting in low light conditions will suffer from electrical noise in blacks, and film originated shots often include film grain and electronic noise from the film scanner. DaVinci Resolve 8 includes a new high quality CUDA noise reducer which eliminates noise and helps make images perfectly clean. Unlike any other solution, the DaVinci Resolve 8 noise reduction is incorporated into the color correctors, so it can be used in any corrector node and limited to inside or outside windows or by color qualifiers, so noise reduction can be used creatively by the colorist.

For handling shots that suffer from movement of the camera, DaVinci Resolve 8 includes a new multi point advanced stabilizer, which fixes unstable shots. The stabilizer is intelligent, and uses dozens of stabilization points to totally lock every part of the image. This results in incredibly stable images, even from poor quality sources such as unstable hand held cameras.

For colorists who are new to DaVinci Resolve, there is now a new Curve Grading feature that works exactly the same way as low end editing software grading, which greatly helps new users get up and running quickly with an interface they are familiar with. DaVinci Resolve 8 Curve Grading takes this interface much further because colorists can customize the curves and they get greater control with hue vs hue, hue vs sat, hue vs lum and lum vs sat controls. For fastest grading speed, curves can be adjusted from the mouse as well as the control panel.

For colorists working on stereoscopic 3D work, DaVinci Resolve 8 includes a powerful new automatic image alignment tool that automatically aligns images between cameras to produce an a perfect 3D image. 3D materiel is shot using two cameras combined with optics, and this causes problems with alignment because it's impossible to perfectly align down to the pixel level two cameras mechanically. Until now, users had to accept some misalignment, however this is very fatiguing for viewers of 3D materiel, and has led to negative reviews of some 3D feature films. When working in higher resolutions such as 4K the problem is worse, because the mechanical tolerances are even tighter.

With the new DaVinci Resolve 8 automatic stereoscopic 3D image alignment, hundreds of individual image points are analyzed and the image is perfectly aligned between eyes. This produces an incredibly sharp and vibrant 3D image. Alignment is fast, only takes seconds per shot and it's completely automatic so no settings are required by the colorist. This new 3D alignment uses advanced image processing developed by the Blackmagic Design advanced algorithm team, and will revolutionize 3D post production.

"Colorists today face many image enhancement and workflow challenges that are not purely color correction issues. DaVinci Resolve 8 provides the tools colorists need to solve these problems quickly and the advanced grading features to create any visual feeling from the enhanced image", said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design, "It's also important for the workflow between DaVinci Resolve and edit system to be as smooth as possible so colorists can focus on the images they are working with and not waste time."

About DaVinci Resolve
Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve is the world's highest performance color correction solution for Mac OS X and Linux computers. DaVinci Resolve supports more real time color correction than any other system because it's not limited by the performance of the computer it's running on. DaVinci Resolve eliminates this performance barrier because its based on a cluster of high performance GPU cards, so all processing is always real time. DaVinci Resolve has the power of a true real time performance solution so handles complex color grades even when using dozens of primaries, secondaries, Power Windows™, multi point tracking, blurs, and more. DaVinci Resolve provides incredible performance in a low cost solution can then easily upgrade by adding extra GPU's for supercomputer power to handle 4K resolutions, stereoscopic 3D and real time grading direct from raw camera files such as ARRI raw and RED raw R3D files including 5K Epic can be handled with ease.

Availability and Price
DaVinci Resolve 8 will be available in June starting at US$995 from Blackmagic Design resellers worldwide. All Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve customers will be able to download this update free of charge.

About Blackmagic Design
Blackmagic Design creates the world's highest quality video editing products, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and film restoration software for the feature film, post-production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design's DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability, while the company's DaVinci Emmy™ award winning color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including stereoscopic 3D and 4K workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. For more information, please check http://www.blackmagic-design.com.


come say hello, SL220, and catch the demos every 15 mins, or on the 15 systems spread across NAB.
Peter
 
Hey Peter, thanks for posting here.

When I wanted to learn about Resolve I scoured the net for any real demos or tutorial video and only found news release type clips from NAB 2010 talking about the new price.

For those of us who can't be there at NAB is there a chance you can have someone film one of the demonstrations and upload it to vimeo, or youtube?
 
That Xml roundtrip just does it for me, very sexy. I do hope it takes Adobe's FCP/XML flavor. A few products don't ingest it directly, you have to go through FCP.
 
Hi Peter,
thanks for posting. Great news, and one of the best demo videos I´ve seen so far to get a overview.

Marc
 
That Xml roundtrip just does it for me, very sexy. I do hope it takes Adobe's FCP/XML flavor. A few products don't ingest it directly, you have to go through FCP.

I hope it doesn't get completely broken by the new FCP X. Saw the presentation last night. Very cool but no mention of XML I/O
 
I hope it doesn't get completely broken by the new FCP X. Saw the presentation last night. Very cool but no mention of XML I/O

Wouldn't really have expected one in a presentation about flashy new stuff. I am very curious what implications all the new timeline features have for the structure of FCP XML files, though. Is that all just happening at the view level, or does the "no rigid tracks" thing mean they've radically changed the way FCP represents sequences internally?
 
I really think this version of Resolve is really what I have been waiting for. It adresses a few concerns I had with the first one. I'm certainly glad the upgrade is free.
 
Saw it briefly as I cruised through the BMD booth. It looks like an awesome upgrade and I can't wait. The new timeline is great. So is having support for OpenCL now as that will help increase our GPU selection and not lock us into only nVidia.
 
I'd love to know the hardware requirements for the new Resolve....

It's shown running on a 15 inch MacBook Pro, so I'd say any recent MacBook Pro, iMac or Mac Pro should be fine. The graphics card will probably be limiting factor for most people, as well as storage for the MacBooks and iMac.
 
Running on a new MBP and using their new Thunderbolt-based I/O system, you could conceivably work that way. It could be handy for doing quick color work on set or at a client location. Realistically, you're still going to want something with a lot more power under the hood and fast storage if you want to grade 1080p and up. With OpenCL support, we can now utilize ATI GPUs as well. With the GTX285 being hard to find and Quadro4000 cards being expensive for approximately the same performance, it really makes the OpenCL support attractive. One could put 2 x ATI 5870 cards in a CUBIX expander instead of two Quaadro4000 cards. That would be like getting the Cubix box for free, compared to what I just paid for my Quadros/Cubix combo. :/

Version 8 is going to rock. I'm still hoping for a Mac Pro later this year that gives us more slots....
 
Running on a new MBP and using their new Thunderbolt-based I/O system, you could conceivably work that way. It could be handy for doing quick color work on set or at a client location.

Definitely. That little port on the side of my laptop is just begging for a Thunderbolt storage solution to actually be released! Even just a little box with an Esata port or two...
 
I wonder how much bandwidth the card Resolve uses for processing really requires. If it's basically just an uncompressed video stream in each direction, Thunderbolt should have more than enough bandwidth for that, opening up the possibility of putting a high-end GPU in an external enclosure and getting some pretty serious performance out of Resolve on a laptop.
 
Running on a new MBP and using their new Thunderbolt-based I/O system, you could conceivably work that way. It could be handy for doing quick color work on set or at a client location. Realistically, you're still going to want something with a lot more power under the hood and fast storage if you want to grade 1080p and up. With OpenCL support, we can now utilize ATI GPUs as well. With the GTX285 being hard to find and Quadro4000 cards being expensive for approximately the same performance, it really makes the OpenCL support attractive. One could put 2 x ATI 5870 cards in a CUBIX expander instead of two Quaadro4000 cards. That would be like getting the Cubix box for free, compared to what I just paid for my Quadros/Cubix combo. :/

Version 8 is going to rock. I'm still hoping for a Mac Pro later this year that gives us more slots....

Not if you want to utilize the new noise reducer. It's CUDA only...
Nevertheless, the new update is very compelling. XML, FCP roundtrip, multilayered timeline, noise reduction and new HLS curves are huge. Artist series panel support is finally here too.
 
Definitely. That little port on the side of my laptop is just begging for a Thunderbolt storage solution to actually be released! Even just a little box with an Esata port or two...

Soon. I was hoping to see some more Thunderbolt hardware at the show from various storage companies, but that didn't happen. Someone told me that G-Tech was talking about Thunderbolt, but I forgot to stop by their booth on the show floor and then foolishly skipped them at the SuperMeet, so I don't know. The Promise RAID boxes look good and are probably 6~8 weeks or so away. They were running a demo from them at the show, but the speed meters were phony and the guys admitted they're only now just working and they still have a lot of tweaking and debugging to do. So not quite ready. Bytecc (not at the show) has Thunderbolt HDD enclosures in the works. Intel is releasing developer kits for Thunderbolt within the next 2~3 weeks to help jump-start some more development. Right now there hasn't been a massive rush to embrace TB because the only systems that have it are the new Macbook Pro. As we see the new iMac with TB and as PC's start to release with it, there will be a rush of TB devices to the market.

Not if you want to utilize the new noise reducer. It's CUDA only...
Nevertheless, the new update is very compelling. XML, FCP roundtrip, multilayered timeline, noise reduction and new HLS curves are huge. Artist series panel support is finally here too.

And little things like that will probably be released CUDA-first for a while. CUDA is still a more powerful library and most developers are more comfortable with it. I really didn't expect to see the transition to OpenCL with Resolve at this stage and it's a great surprise. We're finally seeing a shift to OpenCL now with various software vendors as it's finally becoming apparent that nVidia is never going to open up or license CUDA to others. Even in the Windows world -- ATI/AMD GPUs still command a significant portion of the market and software developers are restricting their own market share by not embracing OpenCL. Eventually it will replace CUDA, but it still has a ways to evolve before it's just as capable.

Anyway, can't wait for 8.0! They had me hooked with the timeline alone.
 
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