and Blackmagic acquires Fairlight and Ultimatte

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Michael Gissing] ” So what I prefer is irrelevant really to whether Fairlight will be in any hurry to port their big systems with specific hardware needs to another platform.”

Sure. Hard stuff is hard.

Blackmagic seems to make a habit of actually doing something with products they buy in fairly short order and I bet they will offer support to Fairlight to make it better (and more accessible) than ever.

[Michael Gissing]

[Tim Wilson] “”Commendably conservative” is pretty much the opposite of why Blackmagic does anything, but the question is going to be, can it work on Mac and still work “like a Fairlight”. The answer isn’t “no” until Grant says it’s “no”, and I’m not sure that Grant will often concede anything more than “not yet”.”

I’m sure the attitude at Fairlight will change with the ownership and looking to expand into other platforms and configurations will be obvious. I have said it before though that the jewel for Blackmagic is less about the audio and more about the controllers, mix surfaces, FPGA R&D and some smart people in file interchange to bolster the Resolve team.

I expect Resolves audio to improve especially with track based and bus based mixing and processing but seeing a full Fairlight hardware and software package on Mac would take a lot of development for a relatively small market return so I can’t see it as a priority. Totally agree that its not “no” until Grant says it but I’m sure his priorities are in other areas of Fairlights IP. I say that without any disclosure from my friends inside Fairlight so it is purely my conjecture and reading of the tea leaves. For the record, Blackmagic were already making inroads into audio handling including VST plugins so I don’t see that the audio side of Fairlight is the prime reason why Blackmagic made this purchase.

[Michael Gissing]

[Jeremy Garchow}”Blackmagic seems to make a habit of actually doing something with products they buy in fairly short order and I bet they will offer support to Fairlight to make it better (and more accessible) than ever.”

As I said in response to Tim, I think Fairlight’s IP in their hardware and file interchange software is probably more important than their audio systems. The Ursa Mini is BM’s first camera with an FPGA card and they have just released beta camera software that is utilising some hidden power they had in their card. Fairlight have been writing FPGA control software for over a decade and file interchange software for longer. They incorporated the team from dSP who had products like AVTransfer which was a conversion tool for file interchange.

So I fully expect that IP to be driving camera, Resolve edit functionality and control surfaces plus improvement to audio busing and mix automation.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Michael Gissing] “So I fully expect that IP to be driving camera, Resolve edit functionality and control surfaces plus improvement to audio busing and mix automation.”

Could be. It could also be just a bonus.

I feel like the Fairlight acquisition is another notch in Blackmagic’s belt to be a provider of post software and gear, to production, post, live studios and finishing.

An audio desk is one pieces that Blackmagic does not own.

They now have camera, color, edit, graphics, conversion, scanning, routing, switching, monitoring, ingest/record, and now you can add audio and live keying to that mix.

I do believe we will see some new free software to add another offering for audio post that will fit within Blackmagic’s existing hardware offerings and traditional Decklink style products, but I also think that Fairlight rounds out the needs of a facility or studio rather than adding Fairlight IP to existing products.

Thunderbolt represents a boon in cost savings and ease if use allowing many different kinds of connections and transmissions and it would be silly for Blackmagic to not incorporate Thunderbolt in a Fairlight offering where capable and appropriate.