I am going to return my copy of DaVinci to B&H as it is now worthless

[Joel Kaye]

Now, having said all that, I happen to really like Resolve, and I happen to think that the Blackmagic guys have done a great job with it. And I'm likely to keep using it for a number of things going forward. But personally, I really wish the free thing would be taken off the table and allow us to have some fair competition, and allow Blackmagic to make enough money to continue to fund R&D on the software.

Do you have any idea what BlackMagic's strategy is here? Are they worried about Adobe and Iridas? Do they think free software will sell more conversion cards? I can't figure it out. It's really interesting nonetheless.

Is this fundamentally different than Apple Color's drop for free into FCP because Resolve is so much better?

 

[Dermot Shane]

I really wish the free thing would be taken off the table and allow us to have some fair competition, and allow Blackmagic to make enough money to continue to fund R&D on the software.

+1 to that.. i don't care about the 1K, it's tiny investment in the context of the entire room... keeping R&D going is more important to me... and yea i'm not making anything like what i was 10 years ago, but also have a fraction of the headaches & stress that i had a decade ago.. downsizeing was a good choice for me.. both in biz and in real life

d

 

[M Most]

Do you have any idea what BlackMagic's strategy is here? Are they worried about Adobe and Iridas? Do they think free software will sell more conversion cards?

I honestly don't have a clue. There's probably only one person on the planet who really knows the reasoning behind these moves, and that's Grant Petty. I for one would be curious to hear his rationale, if he's willing to talk about it.

 

[jake blackstone]

Come to think of it.. the biggest loser may well be Baselight...

They threw their development resources into making a plug-in for FCP.. only to see the platform they developed for be trashed just before releasing their software.

Makes sense from a dev viewpoint to port Davinci to w7 i guess after that...

Completely disagree.
Baselight, along with other high end manufacturers is doing great. Resolve has zero impact on their business model. FilmLight, Image Systems, Quantel and Autodesk isn't participating into the sprint to the bottom. FilmLight didn't waste their R&D. Baselight plugin will be released for NUKE soon, which is much more important, than FCP and they are talking to other manufacturers. So, no need to feel bad for FilmLight...
I would more feel bad for Assimilate, as free the Resolve just about nailed the final nail into their coffin and Adobe with their purchase of Speedgrade.

 

[Scott Crawley]

I really wish the free thing would be taken off the table and allow us to have some fair competition...

I respect your experience and really appreciate your point of view on things so please explain to me how making the tool available to just about everyone to learn and use makes the competition less fair? It seems to me that it does the opposite.

Do you have any idea what BlackMagic's strategy is here? Are they worried about Adobe and Iridas? Do they think free software will sell more conversion cards? I can't figure it out. It's really interesting nonetheless.

I think it's about expanding the user base, right? Making the tool accessible to students and other would-be colorists creates new customers and binds them to you through reciprocity. The idea being that they will feel a desire to return the favor, or express gratitude through loyalty when the inevitable upgrade is purchased.

 

[jake blackstone]

Well again that's how the the world spins... The film camera equipment development cycle has been extremely slow until red showed up. Example for how long where the Arri 435 in use? Compare that to the post side of things where you buy an Inferno one year for about 500K USD and then the year after the same company want to sell you a "Flame" that is about 20 times faster for about 200K USD... then a few years after that they announce that the "MAC smoke is out for about 15k USD" and it out preforms the fastest flame for a fraction of the cost... So welcome to the software world.

I think free and low cost is good. The more the better, since I believe in my talent and I work for my money, if it was all about investing then rich people would even more than today run the film industry. Today there are many talented people that has success since talent and great effort makes up for having less money.

Your example would apply, if Smac was selling for a $1000 and the HD version was free
Although, come to think of it, now students can get a copy for 36 months for free too...

 

[Chris Puerstl]

I have a blackmagic multibridge eclipse and it is well worth the money, Davinci free version was put out with massive amounts of limitations not only the GPU but in the amounts of nodes you can have. If you were looking at grading software and using a mac Apples colour is great for what it does and has many pro features but only 8 secondaries. Maybe in what you are looking for 8 secondaries or 2 nodes if more then enough. When you get a job that requires 9 or more secondaries in a short or feature then you would wish that you didn't get ride of davinci, for 1000 dollars it is a great software and has amazing features. We have not tried it out yet but have heard good things about it we went with Assimilate Scratch top end version but there entry level is 5k. So 1000 dollars is not a bad deal at all for a pro software.

 

[Dermot Shane]

Completely disagree.
Baselight, along with other high end manufacturers is doing great. Resolve has zero impact on their business model. FilmLight, Image Systems, Quantel and Autodesk isn't participating into the sprint to the bottom. FilmLight didn't waste their R&D. Baselight plugin will be released for NUKE soon. which is much more important, than FCP and they are talking to other manufacturers. So, no need to feel bad for FilmLight...
I would more feel bad for Assimilate, as free the Resolve just nailed the final nail into their coffin and Adobe with their purchase of Speedgrade.

yea, all good points... Assimilate has lost the edge it gained as an early adopter, and who knows what the deal was in the Colorfront/Autodesk suit that they lost, and how it impacts their priceing and marketing...

I'm glad the Baselight / Foundry thing is going ahead, i don't see it as a big deal tho, we just send 3D luts of grades into Nuke along with links to the r3d's & debayer info.. Nuke is far too slow for gradeing & Baselight plug there is kinda answering a question no one's asking here... but they will likely sell a small truck load of them, just not to me ;-)

A Baselight plug in Media Composer6 would be far more interesting, and i think that might really signal a need for change to existing biz models when combined with Resolve & SpeedGrade in PP... yea.. (oh and i share your opnion of SpeedGrade, not a first choice - unless you have a pile SiV's like i had.. then it's your only choice).

Guess we'll see this time next year where it's all at..

 

[Joel Kaye]

when the inevitable upgrade is purchased. .

Inevitable? That's pretty optimistic - lol.

There are shareware guys offering little apps for free for 14 days and you can buy it for $29 after that. I understand THAT. But what's BlackMagic selling? This thing isn't even $99 after two weeks. Ya know?

If the app's output was 480P limited for free I think he'd get what he wants... everyone using and figuring it out. The only thing I can come up with is they want to be acquired by Adobe. Or they want to put someone else out of business (assimilate?) and will raise the price after that.

 

[jake blackstone]

I have a blackmagic multibridge eclipse and it is well worth the money, Davinci free version was put out with massive amounts of limitations not only the GPU but in the amounts of nodes you can have. If you were looking at grading software and using a mac Apples colour is great for what it does and has many pro features but only 8 secondaries. Maybe in what you are looking for 8 secondaries or 2 nodes if more then enough. When you get a job that requires 9 or more secondaries in a short or feature then you would wish that you didn't get ride of davinci, for 1000 dollars it is a great software and has amazing features. We have not tried it out yet but have heard good things about it we went with Assimilate Scratch top end version but there entry level is 5k. So 1000 dollars is not a bad deal at all for a pro software.

I re-read your post twice and I'm still n ot sure on your point. Are you under an impression, that Resolve Lite is still limited in the number of nodes? It is not and it is perfectly capable of doing everything Scratch can do, up to HD, for free at that

 

[Scott Crawley]

Inevitable? That's pretty optimistic - lol.

There are shareware guys offering little apps for free for 14 days and you can buy it for $29 after that. I understand THAT. But what's BlackMagic selling? This thing isn't even $99 after two weeks. Ya know?

If the app's output was 480P limited for free I think he'd get what he wants... everyone using and figuring it out. The only thing I can come up with is they want to be acquired by Adobe. Or they want to put someone else out of business (assimilate?) and will raise the price after that.

Well, inevitable for those moving forward... I see the humor though. I think it had to be more than 480P to actually get anyone interested because of the other inexpensive options available. You raise some interesting possibilities. Your analysis seems shrewd.

I re-read your post twice and I'm still n ot sure on your point. Are you under an impression, that Resolve Lite is still limited in the number of nodes? It is not and it is perfectly capable of doing everything Scratch can do, up to HD, for free at that

Wow, I didn't know the node limit was gone. I guess BM is betting the DaVinci farm on the notion that 4k is the future, eh?

 

[jake blackstone]

yea, all good points... Assimilate has lost the edge it gained as an early adopter, and who knows what the deal was in the Colorfront/Autodesk suit that they lost, and how it impacts their priceing and marketing...

I'm glad the Baselight / Foundry thing is going ahead, i don't see it as a big deal tho, we just send 3D luts of grades into Nuke along with links to the r3d's & debayer info.. Nuke is far too slow for gradeing & Baselight plug there is kinda answering a question no one's asking here... but they will likely sell a small truck load of them, just not to me ;-)

A Baselight plug in Media Composer6 would be far more interesting, and i think that might really signal a need for change to existing biz models when combined with Resolve & SpeedGrade in PP... yea.. (oh and i share your opnion of SpeedGrade, not a first choice - unless you have a pile SiV's like i had.. then it's your only choice).

Guess we'll see this time next year where it's all at..

Baselight plugin inside Nuke is a HUGE deal. Forget all that funny LUT business. Open XML inside Nuke and voila, all your R3D would open, perfectly graded, looking exactly the same as in BL and FCP. Do all your magic in Nuke and export XML. Open it in BL and voila, all your grades still intact, just do the final grading pass. And the best part, no rendering and baking in color grades. It is all not just metadata. I think this is a future of the modern pipeline- everything is metadata and no rendering, until the very end.

 

[Dermot Shane]

Or they want to put someone else out of business (assimilate?) and will raise the price after that.

remember MC6 & Symp just got the surface, DS with unlimited nodes and tons of plugs in the CC interface gets the surface soon, and conforms anything from a Avid better than well.. anything...

And PP will likely show up with a surface and SpeedGrade... making it a question about using dedicated color tools when finishing tools have competitive color toolsets, and the new folks entering the market have grown up with intergrated toolsets, and a mindset to use them to the fullest.. the days of a one trick pony may be waneing, not gone, but the game is changeing

The real competition may not be other gradeing tools, it may be intergrated edit / finishing / color systems with far better color tools than in the past?

 

[jake blackstone]

remember MC6 & Symp just got the surface, DS with unlimited nodes and tons of plugs in the CC interface gets the surface soon, and conforms anything from a Avid better than well.. anything...

And PP will likely show up with a surface and SpeedGrade... making it a question about using dedicated color tools when finishing tools have competitive color toolsets, and the new folks entering the market have grown up with intergrated toolsets, and a mindset to use them to the fullest.. the days of a one trick pony may be waneing, not gone, but the game is changeing

The real competition may not be other gradeing tools, it may be intergrated edit / finishing / color systems with far better color tools than in the past?

Well, something we can agree on
I can't wait for Lustre to be included inside of Smoke. Once that happens, I would be have found Nirvana. CC and CW is a joke right now, but Lustre is awesome. There will be nothing, that you couldn't do inside Smoke at the highest level- editing, conforming, procedural compositing in 3D space, painting, audio editing, color grading and much, much more. And the best part... wait... a huge learning curve!!! Yes, no need to worry, that anyone can just pick up a free copy and immediately start using it and undercutting you on price, like... well you know...
BTW, grading on Avid platform is just marginally better, than FCP, with panel or not...

 

[Dermot Shane]

Baselight plugin inside Nuke is a HUGE deal. Forget all that funny LUT business. Open XML inside Nuke and voila, all your R3D would open, perfectly graded, looking exactly the same as in BL and FCP. Do all your magic in Nuke and export XML. Open it in BL and voila, all your grades still intact, just do the final grading pass. And the best part, no rendering and baking in color grades. It is all not just metadata. I think this is a future of the modern pipeline- everything is metadata and no rendering, until the very end.

the funny LUT biz is working for us now fortunatly, no bakeing in anything, the comp shot is automagily replaced in the timeline as it renders, no change in color.. unless the Nue artist did it on purpose.. the biggest headache we have is although they have DreamColor's on the Nuke workstaions to work on, the roomlights are up, down, sideways, sunlight, overcast cloudy days, streetlights at night.. whatever... and they just don't want to live in a darkish grey room.

Getting 3D luts into Nuke is dead easy & fast for us and we are Avid centric, so XML is kinda useless to us anyway.

d

 

[Dermot Shane]

BTW, grading on Avid platform is just marginally better, than FCP, with panel or not...

HUGE diff between Avid's color tools & DS's.. like really huge.... other than the GUI looking much the same... not much in common... DS is much closer to Smoke, Pablo & Mystika than it is to Avid.

And for sure i agree with you.. the color tool in Symp/MC6 are not much better than FCP, hence the thought that a Baselight plugin could be a game changer

d

 

[jake blackstone]

the funny LUT biz is working for us now fortunatly, no bakeing in anything, the comp shot is automagily replaced in the timeline as it renders, no change in color.. unless the Nue artist did it on purpose.. the biggest headache we have is although they have DreamColor's on the Nuke workstaions to work on, the roomlights are up, down, sideways, sunlight, overcast cloudy days, streetlights at night.. whatever... and they just don't want to live in a darkish grey room.

Getting 3D luts into Nuke is dead easy & fast for us and we are Avid centric, so XML is kinda useless to us anyway.

d

You still missing the point of BL plugin.
With LUT, if you grade it on BL, you'll have to render it out, with all of the grading decisions baked it. It's done and you can't change it, well not very easily. Then LUT just allows you to see the graded material correctly in Nuke. With BL plugin, color grading decisions don't have to be committed until the very end-final render. It's all just metadata, just like R3D metadata. And Nuke operator, inside of Nuke, could adjust say, a window, that colorist made in B, if needed. Don't you still see the difference?
Anyway, it seems, we managed to highjack this thread far enough. Let's get back to the OP question...

 

[M Most]

I respect your experience and really appreciate your point of view on things so please explain to me how making the tool available to just about everyone to learn and use makes the competition less fair? It seems to me that it does the opposite.

If you minimize the profit potential of a particular market segment, it discourages competition because it removes any incentive for competitive companies to continue to do further development. With fewer products, there is less development and less innovation. Fair competition exists when the various players can compete on features and performance in order to grow a user base and make their efforts profitable. It is lessened when one of those competitors unilaterally decides that profit is unimportant.

I think it's about expanding the user base, right? Making the tool accessible to students and other would-be colorists creates new customers and binds them to you through reciprocity. The idea being that they will feel a desire to return the favor, or express gratitude through loyalty when the inevitable upgrade is purchased.

I would agree with that if the free version were limited enough to encourage that "inevitable" upgrade. With their recent moves, Blackmagic has removed that upgrade incentive for a good number of users who are basically either hobbyists or doing personal projects. And they've hurt the earning potential for those who are working as professionals.

 

[M Most]

You still missing the point of BL plugin...With BL plugin, color grading decisions don't have to be committed until the very end-final render. It's all just metadata, just like R3D metadata. And Nuke operator, inside of Nuke, could adjust say, a window, that colorist made in B, if needed.

Jake is correct. The plugin was always more about material exchange between different platforms than it was about base grading. Being able to round trip color information without the limits of LUTs or CDLs has always been the intent.

 

[Dermot Shane]

You still missing the point of BL plugin.
With LUT, if you grade it on BL, you'll have to render it out, with all of the grading decisions baked it. It's done and you can't change it, well not very easily. Then LUT just allows you to see the graded material correctly in Nuke. With BL plugin, color grading decisions don't have to be committed until the very end-final render. It's all just metadata, just like R3D metadata. And Nuke operator, inside of Nuke, could adjust say, a window, that colorist made in B, if needed. Don't you still see the difference?

I think i get it.. we do much the same today, and have been for a few years now, the caveat being that the Nukke artist can't re-grade / de-grade my work;
I time a shot,
i pull a 3D lut of the color transform
i drop it on the server in the r3d's folder
Nuke artist opens r3d, debayers as per the show, and drops the 3D lut into their viewer
Nuke artist renders approved shot to a indexed folder on my disk array, no LUT of course as it's only been in in their viewer
Link back to DPX and it's on my timeline with my grade, no rendering or bakeing in color in Nuke

I love the idea, but if i had a choice, i would love to have a Baselight plug in MC6 more.. that might make a biz case to buy a real Baselight for us.. the shear volume of Resolve's out there make a good case to spend coin on one, finishing the dreaded "i did this at home on my laptop and it doesn't look very good anywhere else" is one market, but not mine.. it's the Dit's using it for dalies, and DP's wanting to keep those grades as a starting point that drives my thoughts..


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