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SInce Davinci now costs nothing, is it worth anything?
I appreciated the fact that I could download Resolve lite and get a feel for it, pay with basic grades, and make sure my JL Cooper Spectrum worked with it. But within a week or two I bought it, being a Color user now in need of a professional platform.
But aside from the tool, industry perception is important.
In the world of high end audio equipment people definitely think that more expensive products perform better, since they usually do. There are several examples of products that raised prices and suddenly found the market was taking them more seriously.
In the short term, will BMD sell more video cards? Probably so, but how is this a sustainable model for Davinci as a brand and it’s customer base?
Will color grading houses will begin to look for other platforms, simply because Resolve is now free, and the perception of it being a serious professional tool is gone?
Even iMovie costs something!
Is anyone else now rethinking their choice of grading platform?
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28 Replies
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I work at a post house in Argentina where we have an Iridas SpeedGrade license and are worried about the market perception of it now that Adobe bought Iridas, we don’t know what they plan to do with it.
We bought the DaVinci license less than a month ago thinking of it as a stronger color correction tool that might have some good “market perception” in the future (currently Assimilate Scratch has the lead in Argentinian’s concept of powerful color grading).
I agree with you, and I hope the industry starts to be less “price-oriented”, and also that BMD keeps improving the software as they have been doing since they bought it.Rodrigo Silvestri
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A real davinci resolve suite is not free.
A client who walks into a nice facility with nice furniture, goes into a nice grading suite, with nice monitoring, scopes, nice panels etc, is not going to give a rats ass what software is running if he gets the results he wants from the operator.
And the above description is many tens of thousands of dollars.https://www.postandbeam.tv
grade and finish @ post + beam
https://www.facebook.com/pages/post-beam/137967176232067 -
I too am a bit annoyed by the new Resolve Lite, because it will, in fact, destroy a lot of the perceived value of hiring someone who has invested in a full blown Resolve system.
But to keep things in perspective, the type of client who would thumb their nose at paying full rates for a “real” Resolve artist because they think the free version of Resolve is now good enough that they can now do it themselves, or they can hire some kid who lives in his parent’s basement to do it, is probably not the type of client you want to build a business on–from both a financial and personal standpoint.
It’s not 1989 anymore. The “democratization of tools” has made obsolete the old-school post-production business model of being hired solely for the sexiness of your gear. The ability for every shmuck with a Macbook Pro to now call themselves a “colorist” because they have Resolve Lite and watched a few Lynda.com or CreativeCow tutorial videos makes it all the more important nowadays to be able to market the value of your services based on talent, experience and professionalism, and not simply your investment in the tools.
Switching “platforms” simply because Resolve Lite 8.1.1 removes 90% of the elite-factor of your existing Resolve investment is ridiculous. Resolve does not stop being a kick-ass, truly professional grading tool just because “civilians” can now get most of it’s features for free.
Just like having TextEdit on your Mac does not make you a professional writer, Resolve Lite will not make untalented “colorists” any more talented than they already are. You only have to worry about the “industry perception” of it if your business-model is reliant on selling hype over true talent.
I very much doubt guys like Stefan Sonnenfeld are losing much sleep over this.
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I think mac book makes you no where near colorist.
It is slow and slow. Resolve kicks with big panel and multi gpu machines with shared database.
My first tests were on imac. It was long way from realtime 🙂And yes experience is essential. Bullet friends will not be fast geniuses any time soon.
I agree that client will buy service and results, not sexiness.
Around here everybody are editing on laptops. But some will not do it by them selves.
I can build a house but do i want to do it ? The same goes with service.
Some will do it by them selfs some will not.—
Margus
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i agree that real client “meaning client that pay good money ” expect a nice pro system , even on the MAC a full system (let’s say the one that the big client eyes expect ) cost around 60-70K (panel,monitors , scopes , raids ,cubic , multiple red rockets , multiple graphic card , color management system etc…)
i agree that the free lic might make some confusion around , but i honestly think that the confusion also comes from the 1K price , if i have to be honest , for the industry of colorists , a cheap davinci lic should be 15K , so around would not be 100’s of people offering “cheap” (meaning the price) color correction work claiming DAVINCI ,
i am not scared at all about this , but is fare to say that 3 times already clients argued with me about the price of the color work , saying that other colorist offered way less (ridiculously less) saying that they work on davinci , again , is the colorist that make the difference , and yes Stefan sonnefeld will not loose a dime , but the perception of clients about the “”””prestige”””” of davinci is kind of decreasing ,
again reason is is because they hear the Word DAVINCI in too many “”lower level”” post house , and now BASELIGHT is taking advantage ….it might be not fare but that is what it is , i guess is pretty Human being attracted by tools that less people can Have …
off course market is changing , prices are changing , but a 10K for a lic at least make the difference between a person that invest in his job seriously and a person that doe load a software for free and offer himself in the market as a colors confusing a bit clients ,
again , at the end , the talent win , but the marked is a bit confused by Resolve at 1K ….or even Free …
just my 2 cents
g
Davinci Resolve Control Surface
MacPro
Cubix desktop 4
2 Red Rockets
GTX470+GTX470+GTX285
24GB RAM
HP Dreamcolor
Panasonic 58PF Plasma -
I have to agree with alot of what is said here. I do think that Blackmagic is not handling their new “toy” (DaVinci) very well. Of course I love the new features that they are adding, but I am also very frustrated with the lack of support that is offered. And rather than spend the development time working on a Windows version, why not make the software even better? I am having all sorts of workflow problems when I bring Avid AAF sequences in and the support team can’t seem to help. How about support for more panels, support for more effects to transfer with the XML/AAF workflow, or address a bunch of the great product suggestions we have given here on the COW? Rather, they spend time on a Windows version and ways to make the Free version better.
I have received some helpful support from some of the Blackmagic support team. But I have also experienced some very poor support, especially for what at least used to be considered the best color grading system around. I have talked to some of the Blackmagic support team and they did not have an answer or solution to my problem. They just said they didn’t know much about that aspect to the software. That is just very frustrating. We have some tight deadlines and high pressure sessions and to run into big workflow problems with no help from Blackmagic is real tough to explain to my clients.
I mean the help here on the COW is great… but it doesn’t make up for proper manufacture support. I have dealt with Assimalate and they are just amazing with their support!
I just don’t see how Blackmagic can continue to improve the software and support it’s users when it has created a situation where they will get little revenue from the DaVinci line. I know that I could have gotten away with the free DaVinci software for all the movies and shows that I have graded. I mean $995 was already a GREAT price for such a great color grading system. Blackmagic had everyone beat in the area of price. Like everyone has said, the software was already the cheapest thing in my grading room, and now it is FREE!
And we all agree that talent is more important than how much the software costs (or doesn’t cost) but it just makes it even harder for the independent shop to compete. The client can now setup a Resolve bay for Free (especially if they own some of the peripherals on their FCP or Avid system) and just bring in an operator (or just have the assistant) to color grade the show. Now there is a client that I just lost because they could save some money on their budget (everyone seems to be slashing their budgets) by setting up a Free Resolve system in-house.
I do think that a Free version that is almost fully featured really does make the DaVinci color system just less valuable. And I don’t see how that is a good thing for the industry or Blackmagic.
-Peter
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I think the unannounced reality is that the cracked version of 7.1 has been out there for quite some time now. So many of the users for whom the Lite version appealed were already on top of that. As even the cracked version requires a Blackmagic card, they probably figured it was only a matter of time before someone created a dongle emulator. The reality in that instance is that the only people who would be buying are more serious pros with cubix expanders, networking, distributed processing, etc. This short circuits the need and desire of the hacking community to even go there. So really nothing changes for them and it opens up the markets even more to their cards. The goal is a BM card in every home!
What of course they continue to neglect saying is that their Extreme 3D card is really only a recommended config and that even their less expensive cards do the basic i/o job.
I think the reality today is that software must come down and it must be in the service of some kind of hardware because the consumer market will never have the same needs as the pros and if you are smart you find a way to market to both.
However, even more than ever the necessity of having a real grading monitor, an actual physical grading interface, the horsepower to do 4K in real time and the ability to switch between multiple color platforms based on the job before you is what will really determine a colorist’s value in the marketplace.
Will Lustre and Baselite be the new gold standard? Undoubtedly, but as someone mentioned before the kind of environment the work is graded in will show the degree of commitment the colorist has to this profession or not.
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Flag to the mast.
I work for Image Systems and we make the Nucoda range of colour grading tools.However I am also a colourist and started as online editor on Avid DS, and have been around longer than I care to admit.
Bottom line, say what you want, clients want to pay less. To be realistic, the old “operator is the key” rhetoric is to make operators feel better (I say the same), clients will happily try and do it themselves, look what happened to “offline” editors….we are storytellers they cried, it is an art (and it is), but directors just started hacking their own stuff together anyway, now they will grade it as well.
As for support question raised in the last post.
I am proud of the research we do into working with other systems, and I am always open as to what is possible and what not with a system, unfortunately support and development for professionally used software costs money…and thats the bottom line.
Patrick Morgan
Patrick Morgan
Media Product Specialist
http://www.imagesystems.tv -
well i disagree wit peter on this ,
i think the way how BMD is making resolve more powerful is remarkable , in few months re-engineered the software so much , very very impressive …
i am just saying that the super low price point and even free , is making the client perception thinking that is not anymore the best … and for sure the fact that sooooooo many people have it at this basically zero price price point is messing up the offer and rates etc…
but i am very impressed how BMD is keep developing the software …i just wish costed 10K and not 1K or free ….
g
Davinci Resolve Control Surface
MacPro
Cubix desktop 4
2 Red Rockets
GTX470+GTX470+GTX285
24GB RAM
HP Dreamcolor
Panasonic 58PF Plasma -
I’m still driveing a DS mainly.. in the last month i’ve graded two MOW’s, three national commerical packages, done a trim pass to get a 709 feature into LOG, and am gradeing a feature in P3 for scope this week (and next)
My clients don’t care what i drive, they care that i care, they care that i do good work, they care i listen to them…
I need to see a reasonable ROI, moving Resolve to w7 is a key for me, i use Mac’s personaly, but all my working tools are on HP systems…
The value of Resolve is what it brings to me, and what it takes away… DS may be a better tool in my hands anyway, esp once it’s got the surface attached.. as Pat knows i’ve been using node based gradeing for a decade now.. and that set me apart from the crowd back then.
The cost is minimal for me once it’s ported, a BMD I/O card and an extra Q4000 card.. i’ll spend the 1K for sure… just to find out
The value of it? that is in my hands & my eyes..
d
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