SpeedGrade

[Mike Halper]

I''l agree with Johnny and Mark... the Speedgrade release is very disappointing and feels like a beta release thrown out at us as a final version. It's not easy to use, far from anything intuitive, and doesn't really seem to offer me anything that would make me use it instead of Resolve or Color. The only two ways to get a project into Speedgrade is a DPX render or EDL. So I have to spend hours upon hours rendering or export in an archaic format just to color correct? No simple Send to Speedgade option from Premiere like you can from FCP to Color (and back)? Seems poorly thought out. I would rather Adobe waited another year or 2 to release Speedgrade properly in CS7 or even a separate app with CS6.5

Companies need to start thinking about how their users will react to their new product releases. Apple lost A LOT of professional users with the FCPX debacle. Sure they're adding pro features, but they still already lost a lot of users that they wouldn't have if they had released an interim update to the old FCP and then the whole new rebuilt version in another year or 2 with all the pro features already in it. Or even if they had done a very early preview to get feedback or to show users what was coming so they don't switch to something else would have been good so people at least know something is coming. Adobe did a public beta for Photoshop CS6, and I think some kind of public beta would have been a great idea for Speedgrade to see what users thought about it and wanted in it, as well as to fix bugs early.

Currently I find Speedgrade unusable. I'm not going to render DPX files for color correction as I'd rather work with RAW. If I have to export an EDL or XML, then I'll just go to Resolve. It's more familiar, more accepted (I'll get hired to color correct because I have Resolve, but not because I have Speedgrade), and easier to use. And XML is more appealing to work with than the archaic EDL. And because of the lack of a simple roundtrip for color grading in the Adobe suite, I'm finding myself giving FCPX another shot with it's new pro-oriented features that have been added already and those that have been announced for later this year. And I suspect the mystery application (if there really is one) will be the successor to Color. I can't imagine Apple will have bought Final Touch, turned it into Color, and then just let it die like that, so I think a new color correction app is inevitable, especially if Apple is still committed to pros as they say they are.

 

[Lin]

SpeedGrade CS6 is a professional tool and as such has a learning curve associated with it. The EDL workflow with RED footage is pretty straightforward, so give it a try. For RED users, going the DPX route is indeed very time consuming. There are a number of good introductory videos on Adobe.tv, plus several from independent users. Vince Laforet has one up on his blog, done by John Carr: http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2012/05/17/adobe-speedgrade-tutorial

Enjoy,
Lin

 

[Sam Gordon]

Clearly there's still a long way to go with Speedgrade, and the workflow hasn't been optimised from Pp to Sg for Red users. However, currently it's by far the most cost-effective 4K grading system on the market, so I'm willing to give it some time. Can I also say how great it is to see Adobe guys on this forum responding directly to customers. My opinion of Adobe has been positively revised in the last year or so.

 

[jake blackstone]

Clearly there's still a long way to go with Speedgrade, and the workflow hasn't been optimised from Pp to Sg for Red users. However, currently it's by far the most cost-effective 4K grading system on the market, so I'm willing to give it some time. Can I also say how great it is to see Adobe guys on this forum responding directly to customers. My opinion of Adobe has been positively revised in the last year or so.

Did I miss something or SG software still only supports a single GPU? As such, even if it is capable of 4k, using SG can't possibly be very satisfying real time grading experience. I hope then you have money left to spend on very fast and very expensive RAID system, capable of playing multiple 4K DPXs and very expensive, 4K capable display. And am I the only one, who for forceable future doesn't really care for 4k finish? May be in 3-4 years? Meanwhile, probably 99% of Resolve users are satisfied with free Resolve Lite and HD finish.
As far as SG being "by far the most cost-effective 4K grading system on the market", I would question this too. Even paying $1k for Resolve, this is a one time charge. BM doesn't charge for upgrades for Resolve. That is vey unlike Adobe's upgrading model, where they charge a hefty upgrade price every time. Couple of upgrades and Resolve's $1k price doesn't look that bad.

 

[shashbugu]

SpeedGrade CS6 is a professional tool and as such has a learning curve associated with it. The EDL workflow with RED footage is pretty straightforward, so give it a try. For RED users, going the DPX route is indeed very time consuming. There are a number of good introductory videos on Adobe.tv, plus several from independent users. Vince Laforet has one up on his blog, done by John Carr: http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2012/05/17/adobe-speedgrade-tutorial

Enjoy,
Lin

As an Adobe and red fanboy, I must say I am pretty disappointed in the number of speed grade crashes I have had today. I have been playing with the trial on individual clips, red, h264, sony, and prores succesfully . Sadly I can't get any EDL to open in speedgrade, just getting a Red screen then CRASH. I couldn't even open a cuts only 4 minute prores sequence edl.

I'll try it again and post my crash report at Adobe.
Adobe please fix this as you are making me look bad on this forum. I still have hope.

single files open fine though. But we live and eat sequences....

 

[Adam Beck]

Did I miss something or SG software still only supports a single GPU? As such, even if it is capable of 4k, using SG can't possibly be very satisfying real time grading experience. I hope then you have money left to spend on very fast and very expensive RAID system, capable of playing multiple 4K DPXs and very expensive, 4K capable display. And am I the only one, who for forceable future doesn't really care for 4k finish? May be in 3-4 years? Meanwhile, probably 99% of Resolve users are satisfied with free Resolve Lite and HD finish.
As far as SG being "by far the most cost-effective 4K grading system on the market", I would question this too. Even paying $1k for Resolve, this is a one time charge. BM doesn't charge for upgrades for Resolve. That is vey unlike Adobe's upgrading model, where they charge a hefty upgrade price every time. Couple of upgrades and Resolve's $1k price doesn't look that bad.

With all due respect Jake, I think we understand your position on Speedgrade. Feel free to go to the Resolve forum to discuss its many pro's. Continually telling readers how bad SG is as a program is not helping this Adobe forum much. I do say that with much respect as I've seen your work and it is very good. I think you're a better colorist than a Resolve evangelist.

I also have my own problems with Speedgrade, but I'm handling it with Adobe personal.

 

[Subhadip Sen]

Versus Resolve, SpeedGrade's greatest strength is the underlying engine. Instead of using compute (thru CUDA/OpenCL, imitating CPU functions) SG uses the GPU's shaders directly thru OpenGL. The result is incredible performance an order of magnitude advanced over the likes of Resolve. With a single Radeon HD 7970, Speedgrade performs like Resolve with several GPUs. I haven't been able to knock it out of real-time in my brief time testing with it, at all. OpenGL also means it is completely vendor agnostic - you can use AMD, NVIDIA or even Intel's IGPs. AMD's Trinity ULV APU parts look extremely promising - quad-core CPU and 384 core GPU within 17W. With such an APU, real-time grading with SpeedGrade on tablets and ultraportable laptops is very much possible (not 4K, of course, but could be very useful for 1280 or 1920 dailies). Another great advantage is external monitoring directly through the GPU with absolutely zero latency. Blackmagic's capture cards are pretty good, and latency is relatively low, but SpeedGrade just feels more responsive and faster - there's no going back.

The downside is OpenGL is it far more driver dependent - both for performance and stability - and on OS X both NVIDIA and AMD don't pay nearly enough attention to drivers. I have seen a lot of comments from OS X users reporting instability. Personally, I haven't any issues with HD 7970 on Windows though - it has been extremely quick and perfectly stable.

Resolve is still more feature rich. How much you value those features will ultimately decide if SpeedGrade is worth it.

In short, SpeedGrade is very aptly titled. As always, speed comes with associated risks.

 

[jake blackstone]

With all due respect Jake, I think we understand your position on Speedgrade. Feel free to go to the Resolve forum to discuss its many pro's. Continually telling readers how bad SG is as a program is not helping this Adobe forum much. I do say that with much respect as I've seen your work and it is very good. I think you're a better colorist than a Resolve evangelist.

I also have my own problems with Speedgrade, but I'm handling it with Adobe personal.

Adam.
If you had read my other posts, you'd know, that I'm the farthest thing from Resolve evangelist. :lol: I'm "a right tool for the right job" kinda guy...
I just like to speak my mind and dislike any kind of blind, partisan propaganda. The point of my SG posts are not to put down Adobe, but to investigate a reason why or how I personally could benefit from trying SG. So far, I haven't found the reason. Isn't that why these kinds of forums exist in the first place?

 

[jake blackstone]

Versus Resolve, SpeedGrade's greatest strength is the underlying engine. Instead of using compute (thru CUDA/OpenCL, imitating CPU functions) SG uses the GPU's shaders directly thru OpenGL. The result is incredible performance an order of magnitude advanced over the likes of Resolve. With a single Radeon HD 7970, Speedgrade performs like Resolve with several GPUs. I haven't been able to knock it out of real-time in my brief time testing with it, at all. OpenGL also means it is completely vendor agnostic - you can use AMD, NVIDIA or even Intel's IGPs. AMD's Trinity ULV APU parts look extremely promising - quad-core CPU and 384 core GPU within 17W. With such an APU, real-time grading with SpeedGrade on tablets and ultraportable laptops is very much possible (not 4K, of course, but could be very useful for 1280 or 1920 dailies). Another great advantage is external monitoring directly through the GPU with absolutely zero latency. Blackmagic's capture cards are pretty good, and latency is relatively low, but SpeedGrade just feels more responsive and faster - there's no going back.

The downside is OpenGL is it far more driver dependent - both for performance and stability - and on OS X both NVIDIA and AMD don't pay nearly enough attention to drivers. I have seen a lot of comments from OS X users reporting instability. Personally, I haven't any issues with HD 7970 on Windows though - it has been extremely quick and perfectly stable.

Resolve is still more feature rich. How much you value those features will ultimately decide if SpeedGrade is worth it.

In short, SpeedGrade is very aptly titled. As always, speed comes with associated risks.

Well, finally there is a well reasoned case for giving SG a try. It got my attention:thumbsup:
So, my question then, on Windows one can use Quadra GPU with SDI option to drive the second grading monitor at 10 bit. BTW, not an inexpensive solution. What about OSX? Does that means, that AJA is the only option? If that is the case, then Resolve and SG are mutually exclusive on the same system.

 

[Subhadip Sen]

Well, finally there is a well reasoned case for giving SG a try. It got my attention:thumbsup:
So, my question then, on Windows one can use Quadra GPU with SDI option to drive the second grading monitor at 10 bit. BTW, not an inexpensive solution. What about OSX? Does that means, that AJA is the only option? If that is the case, then Resolve and SG are mutually exclusive on the same system.

I haven't looked into it, but as far as I can tell, monitoring on OS X is a real concern. I hope Lin can clarify the matter.

I am sure integrating Mercury Transmit for SpeedGrade will be high on Adobe's priority list. Nevertheless, the option for direct GPU output, even if restricted to Windows, is a great option to have for any grading software.

Another thing I just remembered, along with utilizing GPUs more efficiently, SpeedGrade also uses up every last bit of RAM you throw at it. Rendered frames are cached to the RAM in the background. This adds to the "responsiveness" of playback as well. Everything in SpeedGrade seems tuned for speed and efficiency. It's hard thing to explain, and Resolve is no slouch either, but SpeedGrade just feels more lively and responsive. There's zero lag between your input and seeing the results of your decisions.

 

[Lin]

As an Adobe and red fanboy, I must say I am pretty disappointed in the number of speed grade crashes I have had today. I have been playing with the trial on individual clips, red, h264, sony, and prores succesfully . Sadly I can't get any EDL to open in speedgrade, just getting a Red screen then CRASH. I couldn't even open a cuts only 4 minute prores sequence edl.

I'll try it again and post my crash report at Adobe.
Adobe please fix this as you are making me look bad on this forum. I still have hope.

single files open fine though. But we live and eat sequences....

Please bring this over to the official SpeedGrade forum at http://forums.adobe.com/community/speedgrade and we can find out what's going on.

Lin

 

[Taylor F.]

Versus Resolve, SpeedGrade's greatest strength is the underlying engine. Instead of using compute (thru CUDA/OpenCL, imitating CPU functions) SG uses the GPU's shaders directly thru OpenGL. The result is incredible performance an order of magnitude advanced over the likes of Resolve. With a single Radeon HD 7970, Speedgrade performs like Resolve with several GPUs. I haven't been able to knock it out of real-time in my brief time testing with it, at all. OpenGL also means it is completely vendor agnostic - you can use AMD, NVIDIA or even Intel's IGPs. AMD's Trinity ULV APU parts look extremely promising - quad-core CPU and 384 core GPU within 17W. With such an APU, real-time grading with SpeedGrade on tablets and ultraportable laptops is very much possible (not 4K, of course, but could be very useful for 1280 or 1920 dailies). Another great advantage is external monitoring directly through the GPU with absolutely zero latency. Blackmagic's capture cards are pretty good, and latency is relatively low, but SpeedGrade just feels more responsive and faster - there's no going back.

The downside is OpenGL is it far more driver dependent - both for performance and stability - and on OS X both NVIDIA and AMD don't pay nearly enough attention to drivers. I have seen a lot of comments from OS X users reporting instability. Personally, I haven't any issues with HD 7970 on Windows though - it has been extremely quick and perfectly stable.

Resolve is still more feature rich. How much you value those features will ultimately decide if SpeedGrade is worth it.

In short, SpeedGrade is very aptly titled. As always, speed comes with associated risks.

Thanks for the illuminating explanation, Subhadip! Very interesting.

I'm guessing that once they Adobe-fy the UI and streamline the workflow from PP, SpeedGrade will come into its own.

I like the fact that it's free with the upgrade to CS 6

 

[Lin]

Did I miss something or SG software still only supports a single GPU? As such, even if it is capable of 4k, using SG can't possibly be very satisfying real time grading experience.

SpeedGrade has a completely different architecture than other products. It doesn't use CUDA but hand optimized OpenGL shaders. We started SpeedGrade in 2003 at a time when there was no high-level way to program the graphics card.

One of the big advantages of SpeedGrade is that you don't need stacks of graphics cards to have great performance, one good GPU is enough.

Dowload the trial and check it out.

Lin

 

[Lin]

I haven't looked into it, but as far as I can tell, monitoring on OS X is a real concern. I hope Lin can clarify the matter.

I am sure integrating Mercury Transmit for SpeedGrade will be high on Adobe's priority list. Nevertheless, the option for direct GPU output, even if restricted to Windows, is a great option to have for any grading software.

Until recently, because of SpeedGrade's architecture, the NVIDIA SDI card was the only option for us, since it's the only one that attaches directly to the GPU. All other SDI solutions had to pipe the resulting image back from the GPU into main memory and then out to the AJA/Matrox/BM card. We could have given you a non-realtime laggy SDI output, but decided not to.

In the past couple of months a couple of new technologies from both NVIDIA and AMD have emerged that finally allow us to address this issue. Mercury Transmit is ready to take advantage of these technologies. With the building blocks finally in place, giving you additional SDI options is very high on our priority list.

Keep in mind - if you don't need to interface with an SDI infrastructure, high end displays like the auto-calibrating EIZOs are a good choice. SpeedGrade supports dual DVI/DisplayPort/HDMI outputs on both Win and Mac.

Lin

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

Well, finally there is a well reasoned case for giving SG a try. It got my attention:thumbsup:
So, my question then, on Windows one can use Quadra GPU with SDI option to drive the second grading monitor at 10 bit. BTW, not an inexpensive solution. What about OSX? Does that means, that AJA is the only option? If that is the case, then Resolve and SG are mutually exclusive on the same system.

I used SpeedGrade for 2 years with this configuration: Z800, Quadro 5800 SDI. Output is 10 Bit. Worked very well and was very snappy and always RT regardless how many layer you stacked. The new, Adobe-fyied SpeedGrade is even snappier. Monitoring 10 Bit SDI is not working on OSX yet. Will come in the foreseeable future, I guess.

Hans

Edit: Lin was quicker.

 

[jake blackstone]

So, do I understand it correctly, that presently on OSX there is no 10 bit option for driving the grading monitor?

 

[Lin]

So, do I understand it correctly, that presently on OSX there is no 10 bit option for driving the grading monitor?

Correct. Keep in mind that the entire pipeline is floating point until it goes out to the monitor. Also keep in mind that while a few monitors have 10 or 12 bit LUTs internally, most monitors, including most SDI monitors have an 8 bit frame buffer before they drive the actual LCD panel.

As long as you stay RGB and not YUV, 8 bit monitoring is usually not such a big deal. Not ideal, but you'd be hard pressed to see the difference.

(Again, I am talking about the final output, not the input or processing pipe, just to emphasize)

Lin

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Well, in poor Johnny's defense, if you can call a badass like Johnny "poor"...

I've also tried to help him with suggestions about workflow, the fundamental difference is that I work on PC and he on a MAC, and I've never had to endure the pain of gamma shifts of QT. Johnny is not making the wrong assumptions, on the contrary, he assumes that certain things should be far easier and predictable by now, but aren't. Here are some of my own complaints/questions. Anyone with proven answers, please jump in and illuminate us:

1- Resolve. Even the full $990 version, what do you need to get accurate monitoring out of your system, so you can check your grading on a proper monitor? What BMD cards will do this, and then, since it would used only for this, what is the cheapest of those cards? Of course, it should be 10 bit capable and output through something from this century like HDMI or Display, not SDI. And of course, it should let itself be used only for Resolve, not load a ton of useless settings into your editing app, etc.

2- AE. The greatest do-a-bit-of-everything program ever created. Alas, with great awesomeness comes great disappointment. AE is color managed, but none of the grading plug ins that work with it are, nor any of the Magic Bullet apps, neither the otherwise great Color Finesse, etc. Or am I missing something? So while you may set up your color space for, say, REC 709, on AE, none of these plugins will follow suit, so you end up with different looks on both screens. Is there a way around this?

3- PPro. It has a few grading filters that are YUV to RGB corrected, which should mean you get extremely reliable output from those filters onto a monitor. But then, those filters are kinda crappy, and behold, the same correction from the Fast Color Corrector yields appreciably different results than from the Three Wheel Color Corrector. WTF? So what good does the YUV-RGB correction really does? Why can't PPro be color managed like AE? And why can't all grading filters across Adobe apps be YUV-RGB corrected, so that the ones that actually work well, we can use more often?

4- Finally, I would be delighted to hear complete set up recommendations from the people whose posts lead me to believe they have solved these issues that afflict people like Johnny or myself. For example, with Resolve, what I/O card do you use, what specs on monitors are needed, etc, etc. And the same for other apps out there.

Like Johnny, I have put thousands upon thousands of hard earned $ into my systems, and yes, I have managed ways to work it so that I can trust what I'm seeing and so that I can do what I want to do, but it's come at the steep price of endless workarounds, back and forths, and whatnot. I thought the time of the heavy iron was over, but this light iron of nowadays is neither that light ($$$) nor that easy or simple to work with. And, at the end of the day, color correction, color spaces and the like is all about math, numbers that are measurable, quantifiable, and thus, should be repeatable. Only they're not. So, those with concrete ideas and suggestions, lay it out there if you really "feel" us.

All you need is 3D LUT software (Lightspace) , a good probe ($500) and a very good Panny plasma ($2500). Any old cheap BM card will do. All told you need about $6K, plus a computer with the right specs (another $4K or so) Not cheap, but not crazy either.

 

[Johnny Friday]

well, got all of that except for Lightspace & BM card....But hard to find a probe for Mac....any recommendations?

 

[Rudi Herbert]

All you need is 3D LUT software (Lightspace) , a good probe ($500) and a very good Panny plasma ($2500). Any old cheap BM card will do. All told you need about $6K, plus a computer with the right specs (another $4K or so) Not cheap, but not crazy either.

Sorry, why would you need Lightspace, almost $4000, just to create LUTs? A probe and a plasma are no big deal, but wouldn't you be able to generate compatible color spaces between computer and monitor without the use of this software? It is my understanding that Lightspace is more for keeping accuracy among many different systems, something I don't need since I do my grading on a dedicated system.