DaVinci

[Rick Turners]

Yeah, it has 3d tracking (similar to Lustre)
That alone is worth the price of the software.

Also, I overheard at NAB that the Linux version will not support ProRes?

 

[Paul Leeming]

I'm not really interested in any software these days that isn't cross platform. We use both Windows and OSX (primarily Windows 7 on PCs though) and with both being Intel based these days, it just seems lazy for companies not to output binaries for both.

Yeah, I see they have a Linux option, but at $50K it isn't really comparable to the $1K OSX version though!

The market is apparently still wide open for a cheap, cross-platform, colour grading/finishing app that can handle secondaries, tracking masks and R3Ds natively. Bonus points for forward-thinking S3D expandability in the future.

Anyone see one at NAB that matches my requirements?

Cheers,

Paul

 

[M Most]

I'm not really interested in any software these days that isn't cross platform. We use both Windows and OSX (primarily Windows 7 on PCs though) and with both being Intel based these days, it just seems lazy for companies not to output binaries for both....
The market is apparently still wide open for a cheap, cross-platform, colour grading/finishing app that can handle secondaries, tracking masks and R3Ds natively. Bonus points for forward-thinking S3D expandability in the future.

Anyone see one at NAB that matches my requirements?

Define "cheap." If you mean "essentially free", then no. If you mean reasonably priced, Iridas Speedgrade has been cross platform for a number of years.

 

[shashbugu]

the thread is evolving into a Davinci vs Apple Color symposium. lets wait and see what the software only version turns out be. Apple color's efx room has most of the functions the Resolve has. Now if Apple Some how fuses the API of Apple Shake into Color, Whew!!!!

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

Do you realize that people can make a living from what you refer to as "out of hand hobbyism"? Take a look at the amount of garbage features produced for the local film festivals... someone is making money in this process. Be it either camera manufacturers, rental houses, post houses or the film festivals themselves. The sub 50k features market is booming at this time. I would be happy to be an Heavy Iron elitist if I had the money to be one.. albeit I wouldn't put most of my money in the software. It's not so much begrudging but out and out warfare... these same elitist will use what they have against me. I will use whatever nimbleness I have against them. Nothing personal just business.

Regarding RED users wishing film would die... how many film snobs expressed the same thing about RED? Do you know how many film snobs I meet that hate the RED and recently even DSLR shooters that hate the RED. It's all warfare to win new clients... everyone is defending their ground and highlighting their advantages.

BTW.. personally I've contacted Kodak about their film stocks... so that way I can have control of both terrains.

This is a great thread. The democratization of filmmaking is continually evolving and its interesting to read all these opinions.

Andrae, while these are interesting points you bring up here, you may find it ironic that your argument was the main impetus for one half of our business model. We left the middle market alone.

FIRST. We have Heavy Iron for high end clients who, frankly, demand it...
and we enjoy some market exclusivity and good timing. (Major post hoses shuttered lat month just as we are opening) and because we an in-house content division and wanted to control costs on post.

SECOND
Totally agree with you here that everyone and their grandma is shooting a film these days... I liken it to to the GOLD RUSH days of the late 1800's.

The ones who made millions? The people selling/renting picks, shovels and mining tools to all the prospectors. :thumbsup:

Hence we offer $40KFCP suites with scopes and proper monitors and RAID 6 and licensed software and plug ins and control surfaces all specifically targeted at the UNDER $100K feature film crowd... @ super affordable rates.
We charge as little as as $100/day on a monthly rental and $200/day weekly ... and the best part for indies, is they dont have to use our editors.

You are on the right path imho, Andrae, a small shop like yours, with killer gear, can easily capture the gold rushers in your market.

But please dont equate Quantel or Heavy Iron with the old guard. Quantel alone had a record year in 2009 thanks to 3D and Broadcasting... and again the Pablo 4K with NEO is so much more than a coloring system. It has a DaVinci quality coloring system, plus compositing, and dust busting and real time wore removal with its paintbox tool, and again, its real strength is in deliverables and render free finishing on commercial spots. Just recently we had to create multiple SD and HD versions of a spot and its SO easy and the clients absolutely flip out that they can get everything they need not only in one facility, but that they can get it all from ONE workstation.

What Quantel allows us, is to rarely ever have to tell a client... "No, I cant do that".

 

[M Most]

Yeah, it has 3d tracking (similar to Lustre)
That alone is worth the price of the software.

Also, I overheard at NAB that the Linux version will not support ProRes?

It can't, because Apple has never released a ProRes decoder or encoder for Linux. In fact, they have never done anything on Linux besides Shake, a product they inherited when they bought Nothing Real. The only Quicktime support on Linux comes via open source efforts (ffmpeg in particular). Filmlight has done a very clever system to use a Mac as a high speed networked device to fill this gap, but nothing is available from Blackmagic to accomplish this, at least not to my knowledge.

BTW, for those who don't understand why open systems rather than proprietary formats controlled by one company are important in industry wide applications (see the thread on Red's Red Ray player), this is a very good example.

 

[Andrae Palmer]

SECOND
Totally agree with you here that everyone and their grandma is shooting a film these days... I liken it to to the GOLD RUSH days of the late 1800's.

The ones who made millions? The people selling/renting picks, shovels and mining tools to all the prospectors. :thumbsup:

HaHa... it's so funny you use that analogy... I swear I use it quite frequently. Regarding "Old Guard"... O' I just dump anything in that category that I can't afford. Perhaps I should call it "The Establishment".

 

[Chris Kenny]

It can't, because Apple has never released a ProRes decoder or encoder for Linux.

As announced a couple of days ago, Clipster 3.3 (running on Windows) can now output ProRes. Apple has also licensed ProRes to a lot of device makers, of course. It doesn't seem too crazy to think they might license it to BlackMagic for the Linux version of Resolve. It would make it easier for people to use Apple's tools, and it's not like Apple is trying to directly compete with $50K+ color grading systems.

 

[jake blackstone]

It can't, because Apple has never released a ProRes decoder or encoder for Linux. In fact, they have never done anything on Linux besides Shake, a product they inherited when they bought Nothing Real. The only Quicktime support on Linux comes via open source efforts (ffmpeg in particular). Filmlight has done a very clever system to use a Mac as a high speed networked device to fill this gap, but nothing is available from Blackmagic to accomplish this, at least not to my knowledge.

BTW, for those who don't understand why open systems rather than proprietary formats controlled by one company are important in industry wide applications (see the thread on Red's Red Ray player), this is a very good example.

Actually, with Linux version you get a free OSX version of Resolve as well, that you're free to install on any mac tower laying around. This way you can simply switch your KVM to the mac, open the same project (ok it requires some networking and same drives access) and just render Prores version of the project on mac station. Not that difficult...

 

[jake blackstone]

As announced a couple of days ago, Clipster 3.3 (running on Windows) can now output ProRes. Apple has also licensed ProRes to a lot of device makers, of course. It doesn't seem too crazy to think they might license it to BlackMagic for the Linux version of Resolve. It would make it easier for people to use Apple's tools, and it's not like Apple is trying to directly compete with $50K+ color grading systems.

Apple has only licensed Prores to companies, that do not compete with their own offerings. Example, Apple doesn't make cameras, so ARRI was able to license prores for Alexa. It's quite simple. Prores will not be available for any color grading, editing and compositing systems running on non mac hardware.

 

[M Most]

As announced a couple of days ago, Clipster 3.3 (running on Windows) can now output ProRes. Apple has also licensed ProRes to a lot of device makers, of course. It doesn't seem too crazy to think they might license it to BlackMagic for the Linux version of Resolve. It would make it easier for people to use Apple's tools, and it's not like Apple is trying to directly compete with $50K+ color grading systems.

The question was about now, not some unpredictable future. As of now, what I said is true. There is no ProRes on Linux, in fact, there is no actual Apple built Quicktime on Linux. Anyone buying a Linux device with the expectation that this will change is going on pure conjecture.

 

[jake blackstone]

The question was about now, not some unpredictable future. As of now, what I said is true. There is no ProRes on Linux, in fact, there is no actual Apple built Quicktime on Linux. Anyone buying a Linux device with the expectation that this will change is going on pure conjecture.

That is why BM gives you OSX version for just that purpose. No need to pray to Apple gods to release the linux QT version... And while you're at it, you can use the mac resolve station for conform, masking, tracking etc. That is pretty good junior grading station. And for a full monty, I would even consider installing a $1500 Revival as well.

 

[lionel2p]

This is a great thread. The democratization of filmmaking is continually evolving and its interesting to read all these opinions.

Andrae, while these are interesting points you bring up here, you may find it ironic that your argument was the main impetus for one half of our business model. We left the middle market alone.

FIRST. We have Heavy Iron for high end clients who, frankly, demand it...
and we enjoy some market exclusivity and good timing. (Major post hoses shuttered lat month just as we are opening) and because we an in-house content division and wanted to control costs on post.

SECOND
Totally agree with you here that everyone and their grandma is shooting a film these days... I liken it to to the GOLD RUSH days of the late 1800's.

The ones who made millions? The people selling/renting picks, shovels and mining tools to all the prospectors. :thumbsup:

Hence we offer $40KFCP suites with scopes and proper monitors and RAID 6 and licensed software and plug ins and control surfaces all specifically targeted at the UNDER $100K feature film crowd... @ super affordable rates.
We charge as little as as $100/day on a monthly rental and $200/day weekly ... and the best part for indies, is they dont have to use our editors.

You are on the right path imho, Andrae, a small shop like yours, with killer gear, can easily capture the gold rushers in your market.

But please dont equate Quantel or Heavy Iron with the old guard. Quantel alone had a record year in 2009 thanks to 3D and Broadcasting... and again the Pablo 4K with NEO is so much more than a coloring system. It has a DaVinci quality coloring system, plus compositing, and dust busting and real time wore removal with its paintbox tool, and again, its real strength is in deliverables and render free finishing on commercial spots. Just recently we had to create multiple SD and HD versions of a spot and its SO easy and the clients absolutely flip out that they can get everything they need not only in one facility, but that they can get it all from ONE workstation.

What Quantel allows us, is to rarely ever have to tell a client... "No, I cant do that".

I really know the power of Pablo and I understand your point. I decided to go Smoke Advanced according to my worklow about two years ago. My investment was about 130K$. A new gamer can afford now about the same system for 30 K$ and will have his money back quicker than me !!!

A Smoke system can do very efficient work for deliverables (HD, SD) and many, many other things : compositing, editing, audio, titling and now stereo : a real swiss knife. (Prores is supported on mac, not on linux, thank you Autodesk for the care you have for your high-end system customers. A free mac license for your recent owners is a minimum for the decision you made !!!)

To come back to Davinci, Smoke mac+Resolve and you own a terrific system for 20K$ (licenses). And you can have two separate stations wich is also a huge difference : when your Pablo is grading, you're not conforming or making deliverables or compositing.

I'm an Indie post-house owner, so I'm really concerned by the future of my company. This announce is a big change to my point of view. Sure, the people working on those toys are the heart of the work, but I have a good idea of what is going to happen in a few months. I'm not scared, I know the potential of my guys, but it's going to be harder to keep good prices and have the people correctly paid.

 

[shashbugu]

the funny thing about the Davinci Resolve is even if its given away for free lots of peeps will download it and not use it. They would rather use color, who cares how powerful a product is if the user interface and feature are difficult to use. $900 dollars is pretty steep for a product that will take about 10k of education just to operate.

 

[Tom.Wong]

the funny thing about the Davinci Resolve is even if its given away for free lots of peeps will download it and not use it. They would rather use color, who cares how powerful a product is if the user interface and feature are difficult to use. $900 dollars is pretty steep for a product that will take about 10k of education just to operate.

for that level of power i'll go the extra mile to learn it, seminars, whatever. I self taught myself color, and bought/downloaded a few tutorials here and there. To be able to learn better tracking systems, more effects, higher level secondaries, etc. It's worth every penny. The self education alone will make a person a better asset and worth more money.

It used to take a person years of apprenticing a Colorist to even touch the system. This gives people that were nowhere close to that the opportunity to prove themselves, and to find out whether they have what it takes much earlier in their life.

 

[shashbugu]

for that level of power I'll go the extra mile to learn it, seminars, whatever. I self taught myself color, and bought/downloaded a few tutorials here and there. To be able to learn better tracking systems, more effects, higher level secondaries, etc. It's worth every penny. The self education alone will make a person a better asset and worth more money.

It used to take a person years of apprenticing a Colorist to even touch the system. This gives people that were nowhere close to that the opportunity to prove themselves, and to find out whether they have what it takes much earlier in their life.

Well you will be surprised when you get the Demo. I am Assuming you have sat through a Color session with the Davinci Resolve. Its a whole system built around the recommendations of highly skilled colorists of old. Most of them Grew with the System. Every feature in the Davinci can be innovatively re-interfaced for ease of use. Check out Pablo, Lustre or even Scratch, they do a whole lot more than the Davinci does in very innovative and user friendly ways. The Davinci is popular mostly because of the industry recognized talent that use it on features.
In my opinion you cant even use it as a good conform tool or finishing tool, its just a color grading tool. a $900 pablo or scratch vs $900 davinci. Danvinchi would be absolete.

 

[Tom.Wong]

"a $900 pablo or scratch vs $900 davinci. Danvinchi would be absolete."

Who knows, maybe we will see something like that happen, either way I still think the tools are more powerful than Color has to offer (unless FCS 4 does something insane) We'll just have to see when it actually releases, yes?

 

[Loren White]

I agree,
Now that the same tool Company 3 uses is $1k (albiet, $30k for linux), it seems like its only a matter of time that the others follow.

It's an intriguing idea that I dont have to rent the "heavy iron" suites for every bit of work I do now, I can do the majority of it at a personal Resolve suite and then take it for finalization (if necessary) to a DI shop.

 

[Chris Kenny]

Apple has only licensed Prores to companies, that do not compete with their own offerings. Example, Apple doesn't make cameras, so ARRI was able to license prores for Alexa. It's quite simple. Prores will not be available for any color grading, editing and compositing systems running on non mac hardware.

Clipster is at least as much in competition with Apple offerings as a $50K+ Resolve system. (Which is to say, not very much at all.)

The question was about now, not some unpredictable future. As of now, what I said is true. There is no ProRes on Linux, in fact, there is no actual Apple built Quicktime on Linux. Anyone buying a Linux device with the expectation that this will change is going on pure conjecture.

Exporting ProRes hardly requires a full first-party QuickTime implementation, as demonstrated by the many embedded devices that handle the format. And I wasn't trying to imply that anyone should buy a Linux-based Resolve with the expectation that it would support ProRes, I was merely pointing out that Apple does not seem especially averse to that sort of thing.

 

[Andrae Palmer]

Blackmagic Design Revolutionizes Color Correction
http://www.studiodaily.com/main/news/Blackmagic-Design-Revolutionizes-Color-Correction_12156.html

In the company’s performance testing, the single GPU performance on Mac is similar to the single GPU Linux systems that cost $200,000 only 6 months ago.

OK I have to admit I do feel some of the pain of the people that bought in at 200k... OUCH!!!

Also, as a special treat, all existing DaVinci customers who have an older model DaVinci Resolve or DaVinci Splice will qualify to get this new version 7.0 software at no charge. In addition, anyone who has an older DaVinci 2K system can use the control surface they have, and upgrade to DaVinci Resolve by paying only for the Linux license. This should make a very affordable way for current DaVinci customers to upgrade to the latest technology.

LOL