Tell me about DaVinci. . . and how it works with FCS. . .

[Lucas Wilson]

Resolve via TLC can (or at least it did in the past) control an external device, like VTR or DDR or telecine through 422 protocol, so it would be trivial to implement. Red would need to provide the infrastructure in the Redcine for that.

Speaking as a guy from a company who has spent a *lot* of time dealing with 422 protocol, it is faaaaaar from trivial. It's actually a very difficult thing to do and do well.

It's easy to do it badly, and have frame inaccuracies, dropped frames and stuff like that. But for a software program to be able to accurately respond to 422, emulate analog ballistics, and monitor frame output from a disk array to validate correct timing and frames is really friggin hard.

Not saying it won't happen, but it is a major undertaking, and takes a lot of time to get right.

Lucas

 

[Lucas Wilson]

PS for Daniel, it is not software only Raw conversion, that's why there is a dedicated GPU, and a powerful one at that, that's what allows the realtime 1/2 debayer, and I'm sure very fast rendering on full debayer.

If debayering was the only thing necessary to deal with R3D files, there would be no need for RED Rocket, and we never would have to deal with 1/4 rez, 1/2 rez etc.

Having a good GPU is only a small part of the chain necessary to process R3D at full resolution.

Lucas

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Lucas,

unfortunately Scratch will soon became a loser at RED user customer base just because you

already refused to talk about Scratch Limited Module for 1000 bucks more than 2 years ago here at the forum.

It was here at the forum when I asked you something about Scratch Limited Edition for about 1000 bucks.

Also remind you now that I was cutting QT proxies in FCP, then exporting XML, then was impressed with Scratch V3.6 R3D

performance grading, transcoding and conforming at BootCamp Windows XP on MacBook Pro 17".

Terribly sorry but I could see that the game is almost over and now people want to have DaVinci Resolve that

Blackmagic Design's CEO Grant Perry smartly offered as a Mac version for just 1000 bucks.

Everything in life changes...and there are also winners and losers...

 

[jake blackstone]

Speaking as a guy from a company who has spent a *lot* of time dealing with 422 protocol, it is faaaaaar from trivial. It's actually a very difficult thing to do and do well.

It's easy to do it badly, and have frame inaccuracies, dropped frames and stuff like that. But for a software program to be able to accurately respond to 422, emulate analog ballistics, and monitor frame output from a disk array to validate correct timing and frames is really friggin hard.

Not saying it won't happen, but it is a major undertaking, and takes a lot of time to get right.

Lucas

Hi Lucas.
I did mention TLC.
Davinci had controlled every conceivable VTR, DAT, DDR and telecine device under the sun, since they bought TLC and incorporated it into DaVinci many years ago. As far as I can remember, DaVinci 888 and 2k was able to control at least 4 record VTRs, a DAT and telecine, all with correct field cadence, proper handling of 3 perf film etc, all simultaneously. Yes, frame accuracy, ballistics etc. is paramount, but I'd be hard pressed to find any other company, that has more wealth of experience in controlling external devices trough 422 protocol. It is quite trivial for a company, like DaVinci, because TLC code is part of Resolve and they have done it more successful, than their closest competitors, like Pandora, for many years in the past. Not sure on the Mac side though.
But all this is strictly academic...
I can see from other posts, that you have your hands full with other, more pressing issues. I hope Assimilate will continue to innovate and prosper at these challenging times. Everyone needs to adjust to the ever changing market conditions and Assimilate is no exception...

 

[Lucas Wilson]

Hi Lucas.
I did mention TLC.
Davinci had controlled every conceivable VTR, DAT, DDR and telecine device under the sun, since they bought TLC and incorporated it into DaVinci many years ago. As far as I can remember, DaVinci 888 and 2k was able to control at least 4 record VTRs, a DAT and telecine, all with correct field cadence, proper handling of 3 perf film etc, all simultaneously. Yes, frame accuracy, ballistics etc. is paramount, but I'd be hard pressed to find any other company, that has more wealth of experience in controlling external devices trough 422 protocol. It is quite trivial for a company, like DaVinci, because TLC code is part of Resolve and they have done it more successful, than their closest competitors, like Pandora, for many years in the past. Not sure on the Mac side though.
But all this is strictly academic...
I can see from other posts, that you have your hands full with other, more pressing issues. I hope Assimilate will continue to innovate and prosper at these challenging times. Everyone needs to adjust to the ever changing market conditions and Assimilate is no exception...

Jake,

I'm not talking about DaVinci - they do know how to do it! I'm talking about turning RC-X into something with DDR-styler functionality that a Davinci can control...

Lucas

 

[Uli Plank]

I'd suppose a Xeon 8-core from two years ago is fine. The GPU is more important.

 

[Lucas Wilson]

unfortunately Scratch will soon became a loser at RED user customer base just because you already refused to talk about Scratch Limited Module for 1000 bucks more than 2 years ago here at the forum.

Please let me know when that happens so I can take a vacation.

Right now, I'm pretty damned busy installing new SCRATCH systems, so it will be a HUGE stress relief to know that we have lost and I can just quit now and sit on the back porch watching the bug zapper do its thing.

Tx,

Lucas

 

[Barend Onneweer]

Sanjin - stop trolling.

 

[shashbugu]

Please let me know when that happens so I can take a vacation.

Right now, I'm pretty damned busy installing new SCRATCH systems, so it will be a HUGE stress relief to know that we have lost and I can just quit now and sit on the back porch watching the bug zapper do its thing.

Tx,

Lucas

Ha ha! You've got to love Lucas, he is truly a charming individual with a great sense of humor even when he slips the occasional all caps SCRATCH in a reply. LOL

Sanjic I would not worry too much about Assimilate, they already offer scratch-cine, they can always reduce the price of that to wet your appetite. Since we all love the Original Redcine, at $1000 we will all jump on to Scratchcine, but the time is not right yet.

A scratch system is still one of the best all in one cut, color, conform systems out there. Its perfect for the Indie feature film post market. Its in perfect competition with, Avid symphony, Speed Razor, Smoke, Generations etc.

 

[Daniel Dávila]

I think Scratch and Resolve are very different products, Scratch has it's strength in real time grading AND FINISHING system for feature films (I mean integrate all kind of stuff in the timeline, vfx, titles, last hour changes, etc... not only cut & disolve media from a EDL). I see Resolve (please correct me if I'm wrong) as a very good color correction unit, just that. You have to finish your movie in another system (I wish it was FCP in a future incarnation).
Since it's "ONLY" grading, I think the focus of a Resolve system (because it's only a software thing) should be to streamline a very smooth operation, as real-time as possible, including full-res RED RAW processing. REDROCKET exists and works and should not be put aside for a generic GPU rendering.
Now, the use of GPU power is the base of a grading system, and we know (and we are tired of) OS X is a very limited system regarding high end video cards. Scratch uses just one CuadroFX for GPU processing, video output and computer interface. In OS X Resolve we'll need one card for the computer, one card for GPU and a third card for video I/O. I'm a full time OS X user, and very happy Resolve is OS X, but I wonder if it should work better in Windows in a Scratch-like configuration.

 

[rick youck]

i had a good conversation with 2 engineers from blackmagic at NAB about support for the "red rocket"

it is definitely on their radar, but their biggest issue (according to them) is the lack of pci slots on the current mac towers - 2xgpu, blackmagic sdi card, FC or SATA raid card.... = no more slots for RedRocket.

it will be interesting to see if apple addresses this in their next update, as its an issues in other applications as well (ie- protool HD3)