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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 released and available

jimhare said:
Hey Bruce, I want to get Resolve and still use the Red Rocket, though if you follow BM's configuration advice there aren't enough slots.
Can you let us know what card configuration you use and if there are drawbacks?
Click to expand...

1. GTX 285
2. GT 120
3. RedRocket
4. Blackmagic card

We have an 8tb internal software RAID-0 as scratch storage. Everything is backed up elsewhere, of course.

We were going to get an extender and a RAID card... But then we found that you can grade stuff quite successfully off of a FW800 drive! We get two streams of Alexa ProRes off an external drive. DNxHD, R3D files work too.

Look, I love RAIDs. Have a nice 8-bay RAID-6 system. I own eighteen 3TB drives, have lots of data spread across various other RAID-5 setups. I am not some kind of crazy RAID-0 advocating risk-taker.

It just turned out that for what we were doing, it hasn't made sense yet to spend the cash on the PCI extender for that system.

Maybe it will in the future - but probably would make more sense to put the cash allocated towards the PCI extender towards a new Mac Pro with Thunderbolt etc that gets rid of the PCI slot issues.

jimhare said:
I have an ATI 5770, would that work? If I add a Quadro 4000/4800 would it drive my HDMI monitor with Resolve? I don't have HD-SDI monitoring and would rather not get a Decklink if it's not required.
It's been a bit difficult to get straight answers about altering the config and what will and will not work. I definitely want to keep using the Rocket and am monitoring HDMI only. Any advice?
Click to expand...

My advice is to wait till July/Aug when the next Mac Pros are released if you can. Thunderbolt should sort out the slot issues - Thunderbolt Blackmagic card plus Thunderbolt RAID card should do the trick. Also very likely you will get general-purpose Thunderbolt PCI extenders. Your GUI card could work fine across Thunderbolt, for example. Soon there should be lots of way to play the game...

If you MUST to set up a system with an existing Mac Pro, your options are:

1. Get a PCIe extender so you can have all of the cards attached (best but most expensive option)
or
2. Forego the RedRocket - DaVinci's CPU-based R3D decoding is good - it uses ALL of the cores and is super fast. If you're okay with 1/2 res for realtime preview, you could sell the RedRocket and spend the cash on a 12-core souped-up Mac Pro instead. Then you also have a slot free for traditional RAID.
or
3. Forego the RAID - use internal soft raid as a scratch. Use FW800 drives. This works oddly well. But not for everyone of course.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Steve Sherrick said:
It's certainly capable of grading, but not sure how often it's used that way. I always thought it was more of a conform/DI tool, with very good R3D support. Am I incorrect with that assessment?
Click to expand...

Yes, FCP, AE, PPro, RCX, heck even the iMovie or for this matter any other modern editing or compositing software can do simple primary and secondary color correction. Unlike majority of professional color grading SOFTWARE solutions, Clipster is a hardware based device, that happens to have a few basic color correction tools. Therefore, Clipster is NOT primarily a grading solution any more, than the ones I already had mentioned. Any one of the real software based color grading solutions, like Baselight, FilmMaster, Scratch, Lustre and, yes, Resolve, would run circles around Clipster, in case of Resolve on a Mac, for a fraction of the price of Clipster. Comparing Clipster to any of those devices shows total lack of understanding of the tools used for color grading.
 
Thanks for the detailed response Bruce, much appreciated!

Bruce Allen said:
1. GTX 285
2. GT 120
3. RedRocket
4. Blackmagic card

We have an 8tb internal software RAID-0 as scratch storage. Everything is backed up elsewhere, of course.

We were going to get an extender and a RAID card... But then we found that you can grade stuff quite successfully off of a FW800 drive! We get two streams of Alexa ProRes off an external drive. DNxHD, R3D files work too.

Look, I love RAIDs. Have a nice 8-bay RAID-6 system. I own eighteen 3TB drives, have lots of data spread across various other RAID-5 setups. I am not some kind of crazy RAID-0 advocating risk-taker.

It just turned out that for what we were doing, it hasn't made sense yet to spend the cash on the PCI extender for that system.

Maybe it will in the future - but probably would make more sense to put the cash allocated towards the PCI extender towards a new Mac Pro with Thunderbolt etc that gets rid of the PCI slot issues.



My advice is to wait till July/Aug when the next Mac Pros are released if you can. Thunderbolt should sort out the slot issues - Thunderbolt Blackmagic card plus Thunderbolt RAID card should do the trick. Also very likely you will get general-purpose Thunderbolt PCI extenders. Your GUI card could work fine across Thunderbolt, for example. Soon there should be lots of way to play the game...

If you MUST to set up a system with an existing Mac Pro, your options are:

1. Get a PCIe extender so you can have all of the cards attached (best but most expensive option)
or
2. Forego the RedRocket - DaVinci's CPU-based R3D decoding is good - it uses ALL of the cores and is super fast. If you're okay with 1/2 res for realtime preview, you could sell the RedRocket and spend the cash on a 12-core souped-up Mac Pro instead. Then you also have a slot free for traditional RAID.
or
3. Forego the RAID - use internal soft raid as a scratch. Use FW800 drives. This works oddly well. But not for everyone of course.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Click to expand...
 
jake blackstone said:
Yes, FCP, AE, PPro, RCX, heck even the iMovie or for this matter any other modern editing or compositing software can do simple primary and secondary color correction. Unlike majority of professional color grading SOFTWARE solutions, Clipster is a hardware based device, that happens to have a few basic color correction tools. Therefore, Clipster is NOT primarily a grading solution any more, than the ones I already had mentioned. Any one of the real software based color grading solutions, like Baselight, FilmMaster, Scratch, Lustre and, yes, Resolve, would run circles around Clipster, in case of Resolve on a Mac, for a fraction of the price of Clipster. Comparing Clipster to any of those devices shows total lack of understanding of the tools used for color grading.
Click to expand...
That's what I thought. I have never used it, so I thought maybe they had added additional features that I wasn't aware of. I wasn't able to attend NAB this year, so who knows what could have slipped by me. But sounds like it's still basically the same tool I have always understood it to be.
 
jimhare said:
Thanks for the detailed response Bruce, much appreciated!
Click to expand...
Same here, thanks Bruce. One question, big time diff between the GT 120 and Quadro 4000? Is there speed specs like in Barefeats? Its going to be a long summer waiting to see the TB options :(
 
Peter Chamberlain said:
Eric, please download the Mac config guide. It will describe the proven options and show how to connect both cards.
Thanks, Peter
Click to expand...

Er, yes. Sorry, Peter!

Eric Santiago said:
Same here, thanks Bruce. One question, big time diff between the GT 120 and Quadro 4000? Is there speed specs like in Barefeats? Its going to be a long summer waiting to see the TB options :(
Click to expand...

Well, get Resolve first so you have something to play with while you wait :)

GT120 is for GUI only. You mean 285 vs 4000? I haven't tested. 285 was fast enough for us - and cheap - so we haven't really bothered. The 4000 is more modern but is a more efficient single-slot design. Quieter, less power-hungry but in terms of performance, similar I think... Of course I can't recommend anyone using a flashed 285 bought off eBay. But that's what my company did and it works well. In fact, we got 2, so we have a backup in case anything goes wrong!

BTW, did anyone notice the fun you can have with HDRx yet?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Marc Wielage said:
I'd love to read this Config guide myself, but it seems that the website wants a serial number first. You might want to ask them to fix this.

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/support/detail/?sid=3948&pid=4448&os=mac&leg=0

BTW, I think you guys are going to pick up a huge amount of former Apple Color users.
Click to expand...

Marc - You can download Config Guide without Serial Number first, Just click " Download Now " button below .
I have attached Screenshot for your reference.
attachment.php
 

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Last edited:
Wondering with the mac/resolve setup decked out, how does it handle grading at 2k,
or is the mac route really meant for HD work.
 
jimhare said:
Absolutely. Grading doesn't always mean preparing calibrated materials for broadcast/feature film. For me it's more about matching cameras to each other, secondaries, stabilization, 3D, giving an overall look etc.

At the moment I bring an EDL back into RCX and work my original R3Ds. I have my Wave, Red Rocket, Sony HDMI monitor that I'm happy with, and output my work without incident.

My goal is to replace RCX with DaVinci to achieve more control. Not looking to set up a calibrated grading suite for broadcast/features.

If I get to that in the future then great, but for the moment it's just a nicety on the side, not a primary function. If the answer is "can't do it" then I'll stick with RCX. If the answer is "do it like this but expect this" then that's great.
Click to expand...

I understand completely, as that pretty well sums up the extent of my grading as well. I guess my mindset is just that lesser tools were fine for that kind of work, and DaVinci seems like overkill. I'm still getting used to the idea that it is so affordable now that there is no reason to settle for the lesser tools. Oh happy day;-)
 
Scott Crawley said:
I understand completely, as that pretty well sums up the extent of my grading as well. I guess my mindset is just that lesser tools were fine for that kind of work, and DaVinci seems like overkill. I'm still getting used to the idea that it is so affordable now that there is no reason to settle for the lesser tools. Oh happy day;-)
Click to expand...
Its funny we were talking about that last week during budget meetings. When my manager come up to me and ask why most apps are under 1k (recent) and meanwhile our Avid support is 2k per seat Im a loss for words lately.
 
version 7?

version 7?

Just contacted Canadian re-seller on purchasing Resolve 8.
According to them, I have to buy version 7 first then download version 8.
Is this true?
The paperwork I have to go thru to travel this path is not a easy one (due to corp standards).
 
Yea, the support part of the equation is the sticky bit, isn't it? When you need it... you need it. Is there training that your company could send you to and reduce that cost?
 
Scott Crawley said:
Yea, the support part of the equation is the sticky bit, isn't it? When you need it... you need it. Is there training that your company could send you to and reduce that cost?
Click to expand...
Pfft to date the Avid support hasnt been much help. We still have one (caseID) thats over a year old. Im too busy to deal with it and when it does come up (errors), I just shut the computer off and start again :P
 
Hi Marc, go to the link you provided, then click on the Config Guide download button. The page you go to will have a "Register and Download" and a "Download Now" button. Just use the "Download Now" button, and you won't need to enter any other information.

Dwaine
 
Does anyone know if the 'free' version will support the Avid Artist Color (formerly MC Color) control surface?
 
Paul Lee said:
Does anyone know if the 'free' version will support the Avid Artist Color (formerly MC Color) control surface?
Click to expand...

The only difference between Lite and Full version is the max number of nodes (2), single GPU for processing and no remote grading.
 
That's cool, thanks Jake. We want to evaluate, even though I'm pretty sure we're going to love it.
 
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