DaVinci 10 adds many prosumer oriented ‘all in one” features, while not fixing basic issues.

[Rohit Gupta]

Hi Rob,

You already have a thread going about this:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/277/23752

You can continue to post on that one 🙂

Regards,
Rohit

[Juan Salvo]

Robert,

Perhaps it would be useful and illustrative if you tried the same shot in the various different applications keyers, and showed us some examples where one key was significantly better or worse.

I did this myself not long ago, and found that while in some cases resolve or base light or luster gave me marginally better results, ultimately when using the same source the results were remarkably similar.

Hard to key shots were hard to key everywhere, and easy to key shots were easy to key.

I’d love to see what material you’re finding so difficult in resolve that is simple in mistika.

https://JuanSalvo.com
https://theColourSpace.com

[Gustavo Bermudas]

I remember a few years ago having similar complains about Apple Color, and the response I got from most on these forums was “What do you expect from a software that’s $1000!!! (or free)?

We’re living in weird disruptive times…

[Robert Ruffo]

Rohit, I posted again because quite frankly I was hoping things would improve in version 10. They did not.
Instead we have tons of other features which mean little to the way we work. There is no way we are about to start editing on Resolve – and why would we when we own and know many other NLEs already.

I must say your somewhat curt response, also, does not impress me as a paying customer of several thousands of dollars of your products, both software and hardware. Last time you replied that Hollywood films used that HSL qualifier – I since found out that the films you mentioned did not – alpha channels for secondaries were assigned to a matte creator at another desk and then loaded in. Higher budget shows also get the look much closer in camera than some of my clients, and expect less from the color grade

Best way to stop someone from making a legitimate complaint is fix the problem, not tell them to shut up.

At least that’s how we deal with complaints from our customers, which is in fact why we are solving their complaint of slowness and noisiness of secondaries in our grading sessions by moving over to Mistika. SGO is famous for really listening to users and mining them for good improvement ideas, not flipping them off as you just did, and it shows in the elegant interface of their product.

I’m not asking for a new raytracing engine to be added to Resolve, I’m asking for simple alpha finessing tools – things like despekcle have public-domain software routines. Blur-choke is trivial, as is splitting out the alpha channel in the split/combiner node so that one could apply blur, a curve or a third party plugin to the alpha and thus have allow us more options and tricks for fixing the HSL qualifier’s inherent shortcomings.

It’s amazing you have not felt this needed fixing, as I am not the only one who feels that color-qualification is a bit old-school in Resolve.

[Robert Ruffo]

We don’t own Mistika yet, so I can’t do that on that platform, but I can do better – I’ll show you a secondary pulled with prosumer Colorista which came out way cleaner than the same shot in Davinci. Colorista is a generally a huge pain in the ass, but it pulls secondaries very easily an cleanly. Give me a few days.

Mistika secondaries are much more powerful than Colorista’s and I brought my own footage (which I had worked on perviously in Resolve) to try it out with. Granted, it was not a side-by side situation, but I did remember how long it took in Resolve – it was not 30 seconds like in Mistika and it never looked pristine like that.

The Mistika alpha finessing tools are not ground breaking or anything – similar tools (not real-time, but still) have been around in After Effects, Combustion, etc. for years and years – but in a grader in real-time, assigned to a control surface, using them is a dream.

As for the price of Resolve – well Photoshop is even less, and it’s extremely sophisticated and functional. Any tool can pay for itself quite quickly if you have the clients and give them good reason to come back – what I think is most important is the value of my time, and my clients’ time.

[Gabriele Turchi]

I think what Rohit and the guys at BMD did on V10 is quite great , we do need to be able to conform as best as possible in order to properly color correct in context ( AKA rebuild as much complex timelines as much as possible and have a bit of comfortable timeline .

But i do agree that the next version V11 should all be ALL focused on improving the color tools that are indeed getting outdate :

-keyer (the best friend of the colorist , the better it is the more value have the system)
-roto friendly tools (moka in it )

g

Davinci Resolve Control Surface
MacPro
Cubix desktop 4
2 Red Rockets
GTX580+GTX5800+GTX580
24GB RAM
Panasonic 58PF Plasma
Panasonic BT300 Plasma
Ultrascope

[Sean Ross]

I agree that the keyer needs an upgrade; but I have to say, Davinci 10 is a huge step in the right direction–totally not “prosumer”. By focusing and refining on the conform, edit and delivery tabs, and bringing the speed up a notch, davinci is fast becoming the ultimate online finishing application.

–sean

[Mike Most]

I guess the guys who are coloring the vast bulk of “A” titles – you know, the lead DI colorists at Company 3, Modern Videofilm, Technicolor, and others – all qualify as “prosumers” in your book.

Robert, I don’t know why you continue to harp on these things. Clearly you don’t like the product, and that’s certainly your right. But when top notch colorists with the most demanding clients in the world (and forgive me, but I doubt that your clients are more demanding than Michael Mann, Michael Bay, Ridley Scott, JJ Abrams, and countless other directors – and cameramen, too…) are happy with a grading system, it’s a bit ludicrous to guise that system as “prosumer.”

[Andrew Smith]

Yeah this is an insane thread and I have to say sure the keyer could be better like d-key in baselight or whatever but R10 is a huge improvement and a great step in the right direction!

I think we all have to keep in mind that the guys like CO3 also have Smoke/Flame etc. operators they work in tandem with – that seems to be forgotten a lot. ITS NOT JUST RESOLVE you are seeing on a lot of those Hollywood blockbuster films – they also work back and forth with vfx guys in house to get the best results.

[Gustavo Bermudas]

[andrew smith] “hink we all have to keep in mind that the guys like CO3 also have Smoke/Flame etc. operators they work in tandem with – that seems to be forgotten a lot. ITS NOT JUST RESOLVE you are seeing on a lot of those Hollywood blockbuster films – they also work back and forth with vfx guys in house to get the best results.”

Very true, they all have VFX department making mattes for them. Still I believe that v10 is an amazing release, although I wouldn’t call the editor an NLE until they allow us to enter TC manually using a regular keyboard.
I think the OFX inclusion is an amazing step, and they did make power windows better, no more bezier hell.

But I said this before, and it’s that I believe DaVinci Resolve’s point of existence right now is not to provide the best coloring tools, but to accommodate and sell BM hardware, the updates in v9 and v10 were geared towards the BM camera, editing, live mode, DIT tools, which is great, but you can tell that when they include Resolve for free with their cameras, so basically they’re saying that DPs can do their own color, so I guess colorist now must learn to become DPs as well?

So even though it’s a great tool, part of me agrees with Robert, the fact that Resolve used to be in the heavy iron category and now it’s been given away for free…well, doesn’t give me much confidence it is serving the colorist to be honest, as a matter of fact the color grading haven’t been updated much since they ever bought it, I think log mode is probably the only addition and I don’t know if that was accessible only from it’s own panel before.