DaVinci big crash

[Kim Krause]

just to stir the pot…i hate seeing people get all caught up in the hype of the latest whatever when all they really need is the tools they’re comfortable. i used davinci products for almost 30 years and i never liked their market domination. have you ever used a pogle? its so much better than a davinci in almost everyway yet they have never managed to crack the market the same way……remember that having the latest car doesnt make you a better driver! i’ll continue to haunt these pages, if for no other reason than to keep a fresh perspective on things. how do you like your new system by the way. i am still waiting for a reason to upgrade and am genuinely interested in user feedback in case i ever have to make the jump.

[Thibault Carterot]

I agree with you Ola,
1°/DaVinci resolve in not expensive, since it cost 990$
2°/You’d need the BM card, as you would for color if you want monitoring
3°/Color is horrofully bugged. How many times did I have to spend one day after grading for rerender, with grades disapearing… I had to double check everything twice…
4°/There is no support at all, no developpment of the soft, stuck in vers 1 for too long know…(I have to say I was very exited at the begining of Color)

But in certain way, you’re right Kim, as we use to work with color for intern project and know we can have a dedicated grading room for long feature films…

Config : Mac Pro 2010, 8×2,4Ghz, 16Go Ram, FX4800,GT120, Decklink 3D+, RED Rocket, system on Crucial SSD 250, 5x2to Seagate XT Raid0 drive, DaVinci Resolve 7.02

[Kim Krause]

i just finished a stunning feature film…all shot on on the canon 5d….graded in color over 4 days….maybe i’ve been lucky with color but it’s still my tool of choice..i’ve played with resolve in a telecine suite and i never found it to be very intuitive. and i keep hearing that you need more than just the bm intensity card to make it work…and what about the panels? like i said earlier, i am very open to the idea of upgrading if i can find a tool that actually helps me work better and brings me in more money…right now i don’t see anything that fits the bill…i just wish the good folks at pandora would bring out a pogle for the mac that costs less than a grand…i’m sure it would be the bomb!

[Simon Astbury]

Kim
Having used Pogle for 10 years, then re-visiting the Revolution recently I found it depressingly backward. Nothing had changed ! We have all got used to a little more bang for our buck, there are many more ‘tools’ on Color for example. The Pogle I looked at was the same Pogle (more or less) I was working on 10 years ago. The only difference was it was grading DPXs and data rather than the output from an Ursa. I would be very surprised if we saw a low cost Pogle anytime soon, unless of course they get bought by someone. AJA maybe : ). AFAIK Pandora (Pogles parent company) still seem to be stuck in the days of Post Houses with deep deep pockets. Luckily for Da Vinci they were bought by someone with the vision to bring it into a modern post environment. I don’t think Pogle seem to have that mindset. Do you remember the days of 1000s of $ just for an extra secondary !

[Ola Haldor voll]

I’m still using the same tool as I’ve always used with Color, and now with DaVinci. A Wacom Inutos 4, and as of today, a Logitech G13. I tossed the ShuttlePRO2 to make space for the G13. Boy does it make the table look a little cooler.

A Wave, Euphonix MC Color or DaVinci Resolve panel would be nice, but you don’t need it. I’ve graded a few short films, a music video and a couple of ads for the big screen already. With a Wacom…

[Robert Houllahan]

I have used a Pandora Platinum with the Spirit and use a 888DUI/network panels all the time and I had a Baselight 4 on demo at Cinelab for a few months over IBC a few years ago. My impression of the Pogle was that it worked almost exactly like my System Copernicus as far as lists, etc. I have been using Color on a fully maxed out 2,1 Mac-Pro for 2K dpx grading for about a year.

I am just getting up to speed on Resolve and I really do feel I would want the panels esp. coming from using DaVinci panels already. I really do not think you can characterize Resolve as the “latest” thing it is a tried and true hi end solution in V7 release. I have seen it working at Co3 and it seems to have some “market dominance” because it really works and works fast.

Color is probably the least supported app on the Mac platform which seems to be rapidly turning into the least supported platform in the apple stable. Could I use it to do work? Yes Is it buggy and slow, especially rendering? Yes will I use it again? Probably not.

Resolve on Linux appears to be a highly stable platform and I am sure there will be a few tweaks for the Mac platform but it appears to be very bug free with quick fixes coming for the issues that are there.

-Rob-

Robert Houllahan
Director / Colorist
Cinelab Inc.
http://www.cinelab.com

Mackbook Pro

[Danny Scotting]

I agree with Rob in the the Linux version is VERY stable. There were a few teething troubles since BMD updated it but really happy with it.
Only just getting round to installing the mac version and so far so good.

Haven’t used colour yet and hope not to, had the opportunity to work on Lustre, Baselight and even Scratch for some digital rushes and to be perfectly honest Resolve is, by a long way faster, more powerful and ultimately more user friendly than any of them. Especially for commercials.

Added to that that I have had a system bug and with the help of my supplier and the guys in Singapore had a new build installed and problem fixed within 90 mins of discovering the problem!

From what I’ve heard about Colour you’d be lucky to have rendered a 30″ TVC in that time, let alone have apple even acknowledge there is an issue.

Kim I admire your persistence with an effectively free product and good luck with Colour long term but its not even a close competitor in reality and unless you have shares in Apple I’d be upgrading as soon as I could. You might have clients WANT to attend your sessions then.

[Kim Krause]

thanks for the feedback…like i said earlier, i’m open to switching if i can improve my workflow and offer a better product at a competitive price. but right now for my money and the clients i service it’s not an issue.
oh and speaking of clients, about 95% of mine just drop off the drive and fetch it whenever i’m done. in south africa, we have to work with budgets that are often 1/10 that of an overseas production so for me to set up a suite in an office with all the stuff i would love to have (eg: control panel, external scopes, huge monitor, cappuccino machine, etc..) i would have to charge way more per hour and would be out of business within a few months…there is just not enough of that kind of work to justify the outlay…..besides clients trust me to do the job well and i dont want them hovering over my shoulder anyway.

[Shane mario Ruggieri]

Kim, just curious, what is a typical day rate for a colorist where you live?

—
Shane Mario Ruggieri
Editor • Colorist

Coloring your piece isn’t an “option”, it’s the mark of dedication to the message.

[Kim Krause]

there arent many of us that are freelance…i would guess around $350 per day but the season is only 8 months long so if you average it out over the year you would be lucky to make around $200 per day or around $4000 a month if you’re good. obviously some jobs pay more but many pay way less….