Interesting news from Blackmagic...

[Hrvoje Simic]

Now yes, argubly its then a bit unetical to use them for anything else than previewing for stuff thats going out to film.

And counterproductive to propagate the illusion of accomplishment to the inexperienced, devalue a creative domain through oversimplification and motivate misconceptions, growing through wishful thinking, void of experience and cultivated perception of value.

But maybe PM or make an evil Björn thread or such and reply there so we can we let this thread be about BM stuff now?

No need, you showed consideration and regret.
Likelihood of catharsis has increased.




Btw "Evil Björn" sounds like a catchy title for a Lollywood blockbuster. Name sounds exotic for the western block and evil/hell/blackmagic is now trendy for the herd.

 

[Misha Engel]

Obviously, product positioned and priced at top of the market is likely to have some unique features and advantages over the one pushed for mass market. I have a whole list of what could be improved in Resolve.

BMD tends to listen to constructive criticism (just look at the rate they improve their products) and they have a forum with actively participating BMD employees.
They even released resolve 16.1 beta, with the release of resolve 16(stable), they want users to participate in the development of their products.

A nice example is the release of 5.7k and 2.8k BRAW which will give you a PERFECT debayer to 4k and 2k DCI, these kind of things come directly from the input they get on the forum.

 

[Dermot Shane]

And Im not sure of this, please correct me if Im wrong. Those are not Autodesk, luster or flame luts. Those are kodak luts. Kodak gave those out with their filmstocks back in the cineon / kodak genesis days. Basically its preview luts kodak made to show how thier stocks would look when printed back on a positive. And I think those then where ”for all man kind” kind of thing as way back then I doubt kodak thought anyone would use them as anything else than preview luts for monitors. So they made sure to spread them out as their primary goal was not to sell luts but filmrolls.

i still have my Kodak Display Manager kit on a shelf, probe/software everything... i'll take a look, but i'm pretty sure they claimed IP on it, and limited it's distb to zero, and it's use to a single owner.. gimme a min on that one as i have not ran it since i mothballed my IBM z-Pro/Cyborg2k and don't have any machine other than that running Nt4.0 anymore.... don't want to pull the machine from storage, drop it into a rack/power up just to see Kodak's read me...

but yea, like you i was under the impression that the LUTs in Flame circia late 90's, and KDM are the same

 

[Björn Benckert]

I mean the luts are named ”Kodak” and ”fuji” and mimic their filmstocks ”colors science” respectivly going from log. If somebody else than kodak and fuji made them I think it would be questionable even just with the naming convention.

In other parts of the autodesk toolsets they refer to filmstocks but they dont put the word KODAK just the stock id number. For example there is presets for digitally created grain that mimic kodak stocks but they only named them with 4 digits. I guess thats done in respect of kodak.

Same thing you can not really make a digital camera with a bunch of presets and name the presets Arri Alexa, Red Monstro etc. with out having some sort of agreement with those companies. And as Autodesk was giving flamelicenses away for free at the time I assume they had the right to do what they pleased with those Kodak luts. If not, I think Stephane would have told me not to share them here.

But yes, I can admit it feels a bit shitty to take Kodaks sauce / stuff and put it in a red digital camera to make it look good. I can very much understand kodak would note approve as thats not the purpose those luts where created for, far from it.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

I mean the luts are named ”Kodak” and ”fuji” and mimic their filmstocks ”colors science” respectivly going from log.

Going from what log from which camera to which output, mimicing to what exent, which parameters and at what cost ?

 

[Björn Benckert]

There where all kinds of these luts on the kodak webpage back then. Going log2lin or rec709 etc but normally we scanned 4k 16bit cineon log files in kodak genesis and used the luts to have somwhat proper viewing representation for how it would look when shoting out on the lab stock. we used Conga and a Oxbery printer for that. I dont remember the id stock numbers for what we used, dont have that kind of number memory this was like back in 1999-2004.

So to use them somewhat proper today I guess you would need ipp2 to cineon log and then apply them and look in rec709.

And yes not always the best of options to do such conversions and they are also low res. So I guess at high cost / image deteriate a bit.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Those are not Autodesk, luster or flame luts. Those are kodak luts. Kodak gave those out with their filmstocks back in the cineon / kodak genesis days. Basically its preview luts kodak made to show how thier stocks would look when printed back on a positive. And I think those then where ”for all man kind” kind of thing as way back then I doubt kodak thought anyone would use them as anything else than preview luts for monitors. So they made sure to spread them out as their primary goal was not to sell luts but filmrolls.

There was a point where Kodak started to go into the LUT business and had some proprietary hardware built (circa 2002-2004), the Kodak Look Manager, but after less than a year they bailed on that business and did start to give away the Print LUTs via their website. I think it was a private link, but there was no charge for them as I recall. There was also Kodak Wildfire hardware that allowed actually fine-tuning the LUTs in order to calibrate them with the lab making the prints. I'm not even sure if Kodak has them now or if they abandoned them, but I'm pretty sure all the hardware wound up in a landfill.

I can recall we were using the Kodak LUTs with Inferno to create D.I. trailers for several years at Complete Post, but I believe the lab (CFI) furnished us with the viewing LUTs. I'm not sure any of this stuff is protected by any patents any more.

There where all kinds of these luts on the kodak webpage back then. Going log2lin or rec709 etc but normally we scanned 4k 16bit cineon log files in kodak genesis and used the luts to have somwhat proper viewing representation for how it would look when shoting out on the lab stock. we used Conga and a Oxbery printer for that. I dont remember the id stock numbers for what we used, dont have that kind of number memory this was like back in 1999-2004.

Yes, the time range sounds about right. I can tell you we were struggling to to D.I.'s in 1999-2000s, and the lack of predictable LUTs was an absolute nightmare. Kodak's Cineon system got these before anybody else, but I think it only covered Kodak emulsions. Cineon kind of wasted away starting around 2002, after lawsuits from LA post houses caused Kodak to cease future development; the post houses were unhappy that Kodak's Cinesite department was using beta-test software before everybody else.

 

[Dermot Shane]

FYI:

i pulled the last Kodak Display Manager installer from 2004 off my server (that has all the LUT's bundled) and loaded KDM..

(kinda cool that it actualy installed on w10/1903....)

The EULA is absoultly clear that it's not to be disb / changed in any way / reverse engineered / decompiled / shared ect... it's to stay on the one machine that it's licenced to and all IP belongs to Kodak

i'd have to power up the zPro, unlicence the install there, contact kodak and send in the MAC addy of my new machine to get it licenced on the w10 machine, i kinda doubt there's a licence server running fifteen years later tho ;-)

end game is that as of 2004, it was clearly Kodak's IP

but I'm pretty sure all the hardware wound up in a landfill.

i have the CD, probe and documentation for KDM still in the orignal packageing ;-)

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

There where all kinds of these luts on the kodak webpage back then. Going log2lin or rec709 etc

None of which take into account image properties of an input material originating from a digital camera.

So to use them somewhat proper today I guess you would need ipp2 to cineon log and then apply them and look in rec709.

No, it doesn't work that way.
That's only a part and if taken as all-encompassing leads to misconceptions. Data-centric fantasy painted with oversimplification brush. This comment is not to be taken personally, notion is widespread.

How you present what is captured (gamma, gamut, luminance) and what is captured are completely different things. What you get to see it the outcome of both. Predetermined by the first - what gets captured and how. You are missing a node in the conceptualization tree due to the area of expertise.

Cameras differ in sensor and processing colour science & performance and regardless on which gamma and gamut the material is presented in, the outcome doesn't lead to the same results, and input-generalized LUTs put on top of that, shaping the image in very particular way lead to a) variations of outcomes and b) degradation of the image.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Read the last sentence of my post above.

But, yes I have no doctors hat in color processing. Far from it, even though I had a few with pretty big such hats on staff trough the years.
But Im not here to debate what is best possible way to develop a picture.

If shooting on 35mm and then printing it each frame out on paper and then take polaroid pictures of those papers and then scan the polaroids is giving you a cool look. Then go for it.

Yes, I done the above and clients where very happy. So there is not only one way to do things even if its not the ”right way” results could be pleasing.

But again, can we drop it and let this thread be a BM release thread?

 

[jamesmilner]

PL lenses are not expensive anymore. Also vintage lenses are wildly popular and don't usually come in EF mounts. Grant is missing a point. Put simply- PL IS the cine lens standard. BM is making cine cameras and so they claim. Why don't they use cine standards for lens mount? BM seems to be always behind in this regard.....hmmmm

 

[John Brawley]

Why don't they use cine standards for lens mount? BM seems to be always behind in this regard.....hmmmm

I’m sure they’ve sold many thousands of 6K cameras happily with their poor choice of EF mount.

I think they know exactly what they’re doing.

I wish they had PL mount and have no use at all for EF.

But business is business. I’m sure they’d sell 20:1 if they offered both PL and EF.

My hope is they drop a PL version. I know a few people are already working on chopping them.

JB