Interesting news from Blackmagic...

[John Brawley]

I said absolutely nothing about DaVinci prior to the BM sale. What I said was "prior to BM adding additional modules." Blackmagic released Resolve at the hugely reduced price long before it added things like Fusion and Fairlight. It was that price drop that triggered its market success, not the additional modules that were added later. You went off about DaVinci Systems. I never mentioned that entity because that's not what I was referring to. I was simply pointing out that your depiction of those things as "failed products" was not an accurate characterization. And I stand by that.

My memory was that yes they reduced the price, but the fact that they made it Mac OS and software only was what really made it “popular”, all a long time before they added the other functionality.

I used the first Mac versions of Resolve and it was a terrible platform for a user to learn on. They’ve certainly come a really long way under BMDs watch.

JB

 

[Mike P.]

Hey John, do you still have the ear of BM? (you DPed/Tested and gave them feedback with early cameras, right?).

Any chance you can ask if they'll make an RF version? Honestly, it would make the P6k that much more lucrative/futureproof and it's the only thing preventing me from picking up a Pocket 6k.

 

[John Brawley]

Any chance you can ask if they'll make an RF version? Honestly, it would make the P6k that much more lucrative/futureproof and it's the only thing preventing me from picking up a Pocket 6k.

I think EF is easy because it's out of patent. I know that that all the comms still had to be reverse engineered, Canon weren't helpful about opening up EF.

RF I'm not so sure, but it does seem like RED have worked something out so maybe there's a way forward now with Canon.

JB

 

[Jae Solina]

Hence my original statement about Resolve being a collection of second rate products.
As far as Resolve hasn't done anything significant to VFX, not yet. Once companies realize they don't need to spend $9,240 for Nuke or $4205 for Flame per seat, while everyone in the company can work on the same project at the same time, all for $299 per seat, things will change. It just takes time.
Hence my second point about BM being persistent.[/QUOTE

Out of topic. Just watched your reel. Great stuff Mr. blackstone. Beautiful image. When will you have a master class for color lol

 

[Mike P.]

I think EF is easy because it's out of patent. I know that that all the comms still had to be reverse engineered, Canon weren't helpful about opening up EF.

Ooooouuuh... that makes sense.

In that case, tell them to make a Blackmagic Universal Mount (BMUM) so they can swap mounts as new ones become available (or when metabones makes an BMUM-to-EF speedbooster, or BMUMvND-to-EF, etc.)

Sell it as a "put BMUM in every one of your cameras (like BRAW) and then let 3rd parties worry about the legalities and details of the different mounts! #winwin."

 

[Marc Wielage]

As usual a ridiculous statement. How can software or hardware can go bankrupt?

Re-read what I said: daVinci Systems was doing fine; their parent corporation (JDS/Acterna) went bankrupt. Huge difference.

You're not the only one privy to the internal DaVinci discussions.

I never said I was. I've actually pieced together the same story from four or five different people in a position to know. I was merely adding to the discussion, pointing out that it wasn't as simple as you describe. daVinci Systems as a company was making money -- Resolve was selling in small quantities, but I wouldn't quite call it a failure in 2002-2009.

I will reiterate my point once more, Resolve was too late to the market and it was terribly overpriced to be a viable choice at the time and it is precisely why DaVinci- a company, not the product, went bankrupt.

Again, daVinci Systems did not go bankrupt. Their corporate owners went bankrupt. Go read the 2009 Grant Petty interview -- it's illuminating on many levels.

BTW, there were established systems that bombed even bigger. Look at what happened to Pandora Pogle, which was very successful in the late 1990s and early 2000s. You and Lou Levinson were using one over at Post-Logic during that period, as I recall. It was doomed just like the 2K for the sheer fact that it couldn't easily be upgraded to higher-res. In recent years, Quantel Pablo has fizzled out (though there are people still trying to use them). It's fair to say the repercussions from BMD's Resolve price-cut caused a lot of problems. Even at Baselight -- a system you and I both like quite a bit -- they wound up having to drop prices and cut U.S. staff in order to survive. I'm glad they have survived, and though I consider myself primarily a Resolve user, there are still a lot of things I greatly admire about Baselight.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I said absolutely nothing about DaVinci prior to the BM sale. What I said was "prior to BM adding additional modules." Blackmagic released Resolve at the hugely reduced price long before it added things like Fusion and Fairlight. It was that price drop that triggered its market success, not the additional modules that were added later. You went off about DaVinci Systems. I never mentioned that entity because that's not what I was referring to. I was simply pointing out that your depiction of those things as "failed products" was not an accurate characterization. And I stand by that.

Yes, absolutely. Alert the media: Mr. Most and I are in complete agreement. I don't have hard numbers on how many Resolves existed worldwide before 2009, but I would bet it was under 100 (maybe under 50). I think there were 10 times that many hardware daVinci 2K's out there, and those made a lot of money for the company for years and years.

There are things that Blackmagic does that I'm not happy about, particularly making Resolve an "all-in-one" software product designed for editors and colorists and VFX people and sound people. I'd rather see these split out as separate products and strengthen each one of those individually, but they clearly want to compete with Adobe. On that level, I understand their philosophy. My fear is that we're getting things in Resolve like The Boring Detector instead of adding meat & potatoes color features to keep it on a par with Baselight. I feel that they're focused on the wrong thing, but they could understandably say, "you're not seeing our whole market." Still, I empathize with new users who are daunted by a 2,976-page manual, particularly when they mainly want to use a piece of the program.

 

[Todd S]

...and though I consider myself primarily a Resolve user, there are still a lot of things I greatly admire about Baselight.

Marc. Jake, Savannah, M, John, et al.:

Since this convo is beginning to touch on some competitive Post products, can anyone point me to an accurate,rich online discussion somewhere that discusses Resolve vs Baselight vs Nucoda? And if one doesn't exist would anyone be willing to join one here on RU?

~Thx

 

[Marc Wielage]

Since this convo is beginning to touch on some competitive Post products, can anyone point me to an accurate,rich online discussion somewhere that discusses Resolve vs Baselight vs Nucoda? And if one doesn't exist would anyone be willing to join one here on RU?

To my knowledge, the only article out there that compares and contrasts different color correction systems was the one written by Mike Most back in 2010:

http://mikemost.com/?p=204
http://mikemost.com/?p=208

The problem with trying to write a new one is that every colorist is going to bring their own set of biases and inclinations to their evaluation, so it's impossible to get a 100% objective look at them. I've often said that Resolve vs. Baselight vs. Nucoda vs. Lustre is kind of like a "Lexus vs. Mercedes vs. BMW vs. Lamborghini" comparison: they all make great cars, they're all good at what they do, there are pros and cons (particularly in terms of cost and features), and each has some advantages over the others. [And there are always new competitors, like Mistika, who can point out with some credibility that they have some good qualities as well.]

Even the post houses I know that have both Baselight and Resolve seem to find different projects work out best under some circumstances than others. In terms of absolute results for color, I'd lean towards Baselight; but for time/budget-sensitive projects (like episodic TV), I'd go for Resolve every time. It's very much a personal choice, and as @Jake Blackstone has said, in the right hands almost any program can do anything. (Note that the big houses tend to throw a lot of people at large projects, so if you have four or five background people running Lustre or Baselight or whatever it is 24/7, they can make it work just in terms of sheer man-hours and results.]

All of the major players -- Baselight, daVinci Resolve, Digital Vision Nucoda, Lustre, Mistika, etc. -- will arrange loaners for 10-15 days for facilities to try them out and see if they're compatible with your specific needs and workflow. Not one of these is bad at all. The key sales advantage of Resolve is that even a non-technical producer will say, "oh, you're using daVinci -- I've heard of that." The negative side is, every yahoo and his brother has Resolve running in their garage, and so the problem becomes convincing the client that your Resovle is better than their Resolve. Anybody will tell you: it's the colorist that makes the difference, not the software.

 

[Phil Holland]

I'm with you there Marc. I moved my old studio to Baselight some years ago after what I can only describe as a painful deep dive into the general color engines when we moved from the home brewed, although very good, cool. I personally at the moment use Resolve, Adobe, and Baselight these days in that order based on each project. If I was the king of Narnia, I would have pushed Adobe to truly build on Speedgrade and the underlaying Lumetri Color Engine, but alas I do not sport a lion's mane. I suspect they will be required to adapt though at this point because Resolve is gaining steam at an unstoppable pace as of now. I do like thus far the Lumetri integration in Premiere Pro, but dammit there's so much they aren't doing or doing right. Though they were gaining steam for a minute. NLE-wise they still hold the market. Color though, well, not really.

I want them to punch back FYI, this is a boring boxing match. Hell, I want Baselight to enter the big ring more than anything too. They got the goods to slug it out in this arena. But don't know if they are interested in this particular market segment. Every year though, once or twice a year, I try.

 

[jake blackstone]

I said absolutely nothing about DaVinci prior to the BM sale. What I said was "prior to BM adding additional modules." Blackmagic released Resolve at the hugely reduced price long before it added things like Fusion and Fairlight. It was that price drop that triggered its market success, not the additional modules that were added later. You went off about DaVinci Systems. I never mentioned that entity because that's not what I was referring to. I was simply pointing out that your depiction of those things as "failed products" was not an accurate characterization. And I stand by that.

In the phrase you had used "DaVinci never managed to properly transition from hardware based to software based platform. They were late to the market and they were terribly overpriced." I never mentioned other modules. So, I too stand by my original statement you quoted and I also stand by my statement Resolve being a collection of second rate software. So, I guess we should agree to disagree...

 

[jake blackstone]

It's quite expensive to train people to use Fusion, when you have a company of hundreds of people, many of which are pulling 6 figure salaries. Building a Fusion pipeline from scratch is also very expensive. When your company has hundreds of employees billing roughly $1500 a day, the cost of a $4500 nuke license per artist and a few NukeX licenses is not much.

Fusion has a few fundamental image quality issues they need to address with the way some of their nodes work before people start switching. Their corner pinning tools are ridiculously bad and their camera projection is terrible too.

Hence my original statement of Resolve Studio being a collection of second rate software

 

[jake blackstone]

Out of topic. Just watched your reel. Great stuff Mr. blackstone. Beautiful image. When will you have a master class for color lol

Thank you, no plans for master class

 

[jake blackstone]

I'm with you there Marc. I moved my old studio to Baselight some years ago after what I can only describe as a painful deep dive into the general color engines when we moved from the home brewed, although very good, cool. I personally at the moment use Resolve, Adobe, and Baselight these days in that order based on each project. If I was the king of Narnia, I would have pushed Adobe to truly build on Speedgrade and the underlaying Lumetri Color Engine, but alas I do not sport a lion's mane. I suspect they will be required to adapt though at this point because Resolve is gaining steam at an unstoppable pace as of now. I do like thus far the Lumetri integration in Premiere Pro, but dammit there's so much they aren't doing or doing right. Though they were gaining steam for a minute. NLE-wise they still hold the market. Color though, well, not really.
I want them to punch back FYI, this is a boring boxing match. Hell, I want Baselight to enter the big ring more than anything too. They got the goods to slug it out in this arena. But don't know if they are interested in this particular market segment. Every year though, once or twice a year, I try.

Baselight is not interested in YouTube'r type of users. Their only desire is to serve creative professional types. So, instead of introducing the "Boring detector" they are hard at work on pushing the boundaries of color grading by introducing new concepts never seen before. New texture based tools are just one of the examples. All that is built on the best color foundation in the business...

 

[Todd S]

Thanks for the input, all.
I see that a definite preference is emerging for certain individuals that do a certain type of work (I hope that's non-specific enough).

Workflow is important to me, although I understand that speed and great results come with high fluency in a product.
I work in Resolve and am getting very accustomed to the all-in-the-box feature set, but I am def. not married to it.
Also some of the color errors, particularly in the Color Space Transform code, in Resolve is a bit of a bummer. And as my workflow moves progressively closer to "Dolby/HDR10+ Always", the color calculation thing is a bit worrisome. For 709/1886 I am totally cool with Resolve. But there is life after 709/1886.

When I can find some time, Baselight is the next product to demo/train-on. Anyone want to recommend a different direction?

 

[Phil Holland]

Baselight is not interested in YouTube'r type of users. Their only desire is to serve creative professional types. So, instead of introducing the "Boring detector" they are hard at work on pushing the boundaries of color grading by introducing new concepts never seen before. New texture based tools are just one of the examples. All that is built on the best color foundation in the business...

Yep, I do truly love what they have done and continue to develop. It's more of the general style of industry and where the products get used.

I know episodic work now being edited and graded via the NLE even, but the smaller houses within the 3-15 employee realm are very much a thing. With the big boy tools you need to have the income to support the ecosystem, I'm cool with that. On a personal level, it's a tough pill for me to swallow because I wear too many hats and though color is a very often thing for me, higher end 3D and Compositing tools are a real burden because I might only do VFX related things a few times a year and usually when I either want to contribute that way or something needs to get done in a pinch. Occasionally though, if another post house in involved I'll nab a seat and make it happen if the client wants me to do such things.

On a good day, it's a hierarchy structure and studios should outfit to the tools they want to use and ideally should be looking at those expenses for all of the software as part of the plan. On the weird day, you get weirdos like me who spend a fortune on software because I need the ability to do things when I need to do them. On the bad day, people "find ways" to use whatever. In the midst of all of this there are tools that suite pretty much every market and available at alarmingly reasonable price points that get used on $,$$$ through $$$,$$$,$$$ productions. Now that that is the playing field, I just want everybody to look at that closer.

There's TV shows being made for $50,000 an episode these days. Not ideal, but that's part of this world now.

 

[jake blackstone]

I know episodic work now being edited and graded via the NLE even, but the smaller houses within the 3-15 employee realm are very much a thing. With the big boy tools you need to have the income to support the ecosystem, I'm cool with that

There are many places now working on on episodic shows, that use Avid for editing as well as color grading utilizing Baselight Editions plugin. A $1K this plugin has most of the tools, that are used in standalone Baselight. And with the ability to embed BLGs into AAF, workflow is even easier, than before.

 

[Phil Holland]

There are many places now working on on episodic shows, that use Avid for editing as well as color grading utilizing Baselight Editions plugin. A $1K this plugin has most of the tools, that are used in standalone Baselight. And with the ability to embed BLGs into AAF, workflow is even easier, than before.

Yes, I like the plugin. I'd also love or it to work with other applications. Though for Nuke 'tis wonderful.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I want them to punch back FYI, this is a boring boxing match. Hell, I want Baselight to enter the big ring more than anything too. They got the goods to slug it out in this arena. But don't know if they are interested in this particular market segment. Every year though, once or twice a year, I try.

The people and support at Baselight are second to none, and Peter Postma and Sebastian Rasfeld are first-class in their knowledge of color science and the post business. They're also gentlemen and very nice people, which is a huge plus.

On the other hand: my favorite car (cost no object) is a Tesla, but I drive a Prius. Tesla tastes... Prius budgets. That's kind of the Baselight/Resolve comparison: we want what we want, but we use what we can pay for.

Baselight is not interested in YouTube'r type of users. Their only desire is to serve creative professional types. So, instead of introducing the "Boring detector" they are hard at work on pushing the boundaries of color grading by introducing new concepts never seen before. New texture based tools are just one of the examples. All that is built on the best color foundation in the business...

I'm in agreement with Jake here: I'm a little dismayed at some of the new features in Resolve designed to appeal to casual users. No question, the color features in Baselight are absolutely dynamite. Once I win De Lotto, I'll set up a facility with a half-dozen Baselight X's and go to town.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Workflow is important to me, although I understand that speed and great results come with high fluency in a product. I work in Resolve and am getting very accustomed to the all-in-the-box feature set, but I am def. not married to it.
Also some of the color errors, particularly in the Color Space Transform code, in Resolve is a bit of a bummer. And as my workflow moves progressively closer to "Dolby/HDR10+ Always", the color calculation thing is a bit worrisome. For 709/1886 I am totally cool with Resolve. But there is life after 709/1886.

What are you actually trying to deliver for? The biggest problem with an HDR or Dolby Vision workflow is the monitoring. Whether you go Nucoda or Resolve or Baselight, the display is what kills you. There's no reliable way to do it without spending at least $30,000-$40,000.

For us, we just do the entire project in Rec709, then if the client wants an HDR deliverable, we book time for a trim pass at a Dolby Vision facility and do that there. Even that is not cheap.