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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 :)

IRIDAS vs. COLOR

OlaHaldor said:
Hi, I've been working with Apple Color since the day it hit the shelves, and I'm pretty much confident with the tools and over time I've refined my workflow and most of the time I can produce something the clients will like in a very short amount of time.

However, one thing that's bugging me is how slow it can be sometimes. Playback from timeline is choppy and stuttering, about 12-20fps. There's nearly no difference if it's Prores SD PAL or RED RAW 4K.

My setup is a early 2008 Mac Pro (2 x 4 core cpu @ 2.66 GHz) 6GB RAM and I've got a RAID1 on eSATA, Decklink HD Extreme -> HD-SDI -> Panasonic LH1700w . As a freelancer, I can't really afford the most high-tech rocket science kind of technology, but I'm very happy with my setup.

So I'm thinking - is the application the bottleneck here?


I've been looking over at IRIDAS, since they're (as far as I know) the only Mac option out there. But which one would I chose?

SpeedGrade OnSet? Fairly cheap, works with RAW, but will it do the job like Color does, and how is the performance compared to Color? Primary in/out, secondaries, shaders alà Color FX room, custom masks?


Then there's SpeedGrade XR, very interesting piece of software, and I've checked the pricing - boy do I gotta get a load of jobs to get that baby even remotely close to home.



Where would you look? Better hardware? New software? Anything would help.
Click to expand...

We had Final Touch now Color from day one. It needs the best graphics card you can get with in reason to run real time. So far as I recall this is what is happening. It has to pass HD QT files from the PCIE bus to the GPU and back to the video HBA to view. If you view just on a monitor connected to the GPU then it can work faster as its only inputing QT processing and then displaying. So you need at least PCIE (PCI is right on the edge for HD)and a fast GPU to do this. The newer better ATI cards should be fine, some while ago I think we had an X1900 working real time also. Perhaps it goes with out saying the cards need to be in the right slots of bandwidth is reduced.
 
Chiming in again. I totally forgot about this thread, among a lot of things happening since I first wrote here.


I ordered the software version of Da Vinci when I heard the news about it during NAB, and I'll probably have a copy asap in July when it launches.


Then the question is - what control panel do I need. It's obvious I want the top of the line Da Vinci control panel.. Who wouldn't ?
 
OlaHaldor said:
Chiming in again. I totally forgot about this thread, among a lot of things happening since I first wrote here.


I ordered the software version of Da Vinci when I heard the news about it during NAB, and I'll probably have a copy asap in July when it launches.


Then the question is - what control panel do I need. It's obvious I want the top of the line Da Vinci control panel.. Who wouldn't ?
Click to expand...

Right now your only choice, beside the DaVinci $29,995 panel is the Tangent Wave. The driver for Wave was internally developed by BM itself, as they didn't want to let anyone know about their plans. But they made it very clear, that the panel protocol will be widely available to any manufacturer, so it will be up to them to write the driver for Resolve. Personally, I believe, majority of them will support Resolve in very short order.
Incidentally, the old 2k panel will work just fine with the Linux Resolve, alas, not on the Mac Resolve...
 
Yeah, I came across this video and was mindblown when I saw what could be done with a simple setup - a Mac Pro with a GTX 285 GPU.

He also mentions they have contact and wish to help out JL Cooper and Euphonix as well.



I tested the Euphonix, and it felt really good. I haven't had the pleasure of testing other panels, but by looking at photos of the other alternatives, the Euphonix panel looks better, and is slightly smaller - thus easy to put aside when I need to do 3D or DVD programming etc..
 
IIRC, Speedgrade does not have curves controls. Some people hate to use curves and like hue offset wheels more, others like to have curves. If you like curves, you might want to double check to see if IRIDAS has em.
 
jake blackstone said:
Actually, to run the resolve on the Mac you'll need two of GTX 285s
Click to expand...

I had not read this. Where did you get that info?

On the video Ola linked to, the guy says he is using a Mac Pro with "a $500 graphics card." He also shows it can run on a MacBook Pro. This would imply that while it might benefit from two GTX285s, it does not require them.
 
Nick Shaw said:
I had not read this. Where did you get that info?

On the video Ola linked to, the guy says he is using a Mac Pro with "a $500 graphics card." He also shows it can run on a MacBook Pro. This would imply that while it might benefit from two GTX285s, it does not require them.
Click to expand...

The info is from BM, formerly DaVinci tech support and also I was told about it by the lead developer of the Resolve at NAB. Newest Macbook Pro does have two graphics cards, although I'm not sure, if both can be used at the same time. Resolve is set up to run not unlike the Baselight HD, where separate slave computer used to run just the colorist display. Same in Resolve. One GPU is used to run the display and scopes and second strictly for render. Perhaps Resolve could be used with just one card, something akin to Baselight 1, but then you wouldn't be able to get all the real time performance, that Resolve is truly capable of. Not sure if different GPUs can be used.
Said that, at NAB I was told, that there also no HDMI or DVI video output, only SDI from BM Decklink. No video spanning. I think, GTX 285 can provide the HDMI output at 12 bit, which wouldn't be a too bad of a solution for many colorists using plasmas or LCD. This also would free up a slot, that could be used for something else, like a RedRocket or perhaps a third GPU?
 
would getting a 4800 quadro solve the need for a dual gpu setup? and decklink for your sdi out? I plan to be running a color setup for a awhile, as ATI offers better acceleration for Color, but when I do make the upgrade to resolve it would be nice to know that I won't have to do such a major overhaul and sacrifice extra slots in my mac to get good results... aren't the gtx 285's huge? won't they cover up a slot to begin with?
 
Tom.Wong said:
would getting a 4800 quadro solve the need for a dual gpu setup? and decklink for your sdi out? I plan to be running a color setup for a awhile, as ATI offers better acceleration for Color, but when I do make the upgrade to resolve it would be nice to know that I won't have to do such a major overhaul and sacrifice extra slots in my mac to get good results... aren't the gtx 285's huge? won't they cover up a slot to begin with?
Click to expand...
Graphic card with SDI output doesn't exist on the Mac, as Mac OS doesn't support it.
 
Where is DaVinci Resolve in this discussion? Does everyone think it's not going to ship?

David
 
David Battistella said:
Where is DaVinci Resolve in this discussion? Does everyone think it's not going to ship?

David
Click to expand...

I don't want to answer for BM, but I will:-)
Davinci is just finding their footing in the independent filmmaker arena. They were always strictly professional high end grading market, so now they will have to adjust and that takes some time...
As far as shipping Resolve, according to what I have been told at NAB by BM, it will be shipped on the date (don't remember the exact date, but I think it's July, 1st or 31st) no matter what.
 
Hi All, we will ship as promoted at NAB. Formal system specs will be released before then, but for now I can confirm we use the current MacPro, GT120 for GUI and the GTX285 or the FX4800 for image processing, DeckLink HD Extreme 3D for video/audio I/O. That leaves one slot for FC or raid storage I/O card. Resolve is optimized for use with BMD panels but we will support others, Tangent Wave as shown at NAB is just the first. The Mac version is from the same code base as the Linux so we have 8 years experience and a few hundred Hollywood films under our belt. Any differences between systems are hardware/licensing/SDK related and not of our intention or restriction. The latest build r3d is supported in both platforms in realtime with rez and debayer established by hardware limits. And yes, as shown at NAB, the Mac version is really powerful with HD 4:4:4. Linux is simply wonderful for 2K, 4K or 3D.
Peter
 
Peter Chamberlain said:
Hi All, we will ship as promoted at NAB. Formal system specs will be released before then, but for now I can confirm we use the current MacPro, GT120 for GUI and the GTX285 or the FX4800 for image processing, DeckLink HD Extreme 3D for video/audio I/O. That leaves one slot for FC or raid storage I/O card. Resolve is optimized for use with BMD panels but we will support others, Tangent Wave as shown at NAB is just the first. The Mac version is from the same code base as the Linux so we have 8 years experience and a few hundred Hollywood films under our belt. Any differences between systems are hardware/licensing/SDK related and not of our intention or restriction. The latest build r3d is supported in both platforms in realtime with rez and debayer established by hardware limits. And yes, as shown at NAB, the Mac version is really powerful with HD 4:4:4. Linux is simply wonderful for 2K, 4K or 3D.
Peter
Click to expand...
Hi Peter.
It's good to see BM finally represented on the Reduser.
Just a couple of questions regarding Resolve on a Mac development plans.
Are there any plans to support an expansion chassis on a Mac?
Are there plans to support a HDMI or DVI output only, so DeckLink HD Extreme 3D will be unnecessary? If yes, can the second GTX 285 for real time 3D grading or Red Rocket be used instead? If not, how 3D real time grading can be achieved with R3D material?
Any plans for XML import implementation?
How about the support for .RMD?
How about Cineform and OpenEXR support?
Any plans for multilayer grading support?
Any plans for OFX API implementation?
Any plans to incorporate elements of Revival into Resolve?
Are you planning to offer some kind of stabilization and optical flow type retiming capabilities in Resolve?
Also curious if Resolve supports grades versioning and does it support TIFF?
Will Resolve be capable of supporting ethernet interface panels, like Tangent CP-100 or Euphonix or is it just USB interface?
I'm sure others will chime in as well...
BTW, what is the shipping date, that was promised at NAB?
 
Peter Chamberlain said:
Hi All, we will ship as promoted at NAB. Formal system specs will be released before then, but for now I can confirm we use the current MacPro, GT120 for GUI and the GTX285 or the FX4800 for image processing, DeckLink HD Extreme 3D for video/audio I/O. That leaves one slot for FC or raid storage I/O card. Resolve is optimized for use with BMD panels but we will support others, Tangent Wave as shown at NAB is just the first. The Mac version is from the same code base as the Linux so we have 8 years experience and a few hundred Hollywood films under our belt. Any differences between systems are hardware/licensing/SDK related and not of our intention or restriction. The latest build r3d is supported in both platforms in realtime with rez and debayer established by hardware limits. And yes, as shown at NAB, the Mac version is really powerful with HD 4:4:4. Linux is simply wonderful for 2K, 4K or 3D.
Peter
Click to expand...

Welcome to the Reduser. We are all very excited about the release of Davinci Resolve on the Mac. In addition to Jakes questions
1. Will resolve Mac be scale-able for node based render farms?
2. will it have some of the conform tools that used to be in Splice?
3. will there be any new features apart from the new Interface?

Thanks
 
Thanks for your welcome and thanks for your questions. BMD policy is to discuss only formally announced or released features so while I cant report on the status of many of your questions I can say the feedback is very valuable as it helps us confirm the market requirements. We have a lot of projects under development and so I am confident you will soon see that BMD will continue to add features based on practical user needs.
Re the questions I can answer; we will support a number of third party panels for the Mac system and not only USB based. The Tangent Wave is just happens to be the first.
Resolve already permits multiple versions, multiple EDL's, and unlimited nodes. We have number of conform features inc ColorTrace which will save you hours of work moving grades from other jobs and other versions of projects.
Regarding new features released at NAB besides the GUI work - there were more than 20 shown and a few more added since then are also expected in the July shipment. A list of them is in the pipeline for formal release.
regards
Peter
 
Peter Chamberlain said:
Hi All, we will ship as promoted at NAB. Formal system specs will be released before then, but for now I can confirm we use the current MacPro, GT120 for GUI and the GTX285 or the FX4800 for image processing, DeckLink HD Extreme 3D for video/audio I/O.
Click to expand...

We have a Decklink Extreme 3. Will that work, or does it really have to be the Extreme 3D?

Any chance of Red Rocket support? Yes, there's only one free slot after the two graphics cards and the Decklink, but for a system optimized for working with R3D footage rather than DPX, a RedRocket card might be a better choice for that slot than a RAID controller, given that R3D can be played back fine over FW800 and one can get six SATA drives into a Mac Pro without a RAID controller if one is sufficiently determined.
 
OlaHaldor said:
I've been looking over at IRIDAS, since they're (as far as I know) the only Mac option out there. But which one would I chose?

SpeedGrade OnSet? Fairly cheap, works with RAW, but will it do the job like Color does, and how is the performance compared to Color? Primary in/out, secondaries, shaders alà Color FX room, custom masks?


Then there's SpeedGrade XR, very interesting piece of software, and I've checked the pricing - boy do I gotta get a load of jobs to get that baby even remotely close to home.



Where would you look? Better hardware? New software? Anything would help.
Click to expand...

Da Vinci (software only) $999, it'll probabably get you better results than colour, not sure about the speed though.
 
ronx said:
Da Vinci (software only) $999, it'll probabably get you better results than colour, not sure about the speed though.
Click to expand...

Are you joking or are you serious?
 
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