-
Is Resolve the NLE we’ve always wanted?!
-
In my Dan May interview at NAB, what he said to me directly on the record was that the Black Magic “vision” for Resolve at the current stage came from a desire to accommodate those interested in a RAW workflow, who would naturally want to do color grading, basic editorial and simple finishing all in one place on the types of modest scope projects that could benefit from such an “all in one” approach. It dovetails perfectly with their new camera offerings. He was quite clear that BM understands that Resolve is NOT at all designed to be a “full featured” editorial platform in this incarnation. And that was not the current design goal.
I think it’s amazing software. I also think it’s totally amazing since it’s bundled FREE with many of the Black Magic offerings. I also think that for someone who’s basically an editor, bolting a limited editorial module onto what was purpose designed as a color management suite is a whole different thing than designing an editorial system that also has color correction. And I believe that Dan and the BM team understand that.
Nobody outside their shop knows how it will develop. But it seems to me that Resolve has always been a special type of vehicle. Purpose designed for the needs of colorists. It’s like a truck designed to transport huge flat signs. If you decide to use that shape truck to deliver small square packages, there’s nothing stopping you. Load them up and hit the road. But you have to accept that you’ll end up with a LOT of wasted capability simply because it wasn’t designed to do that job from square one.
Maybe it’s great long range strategic thinking to consider an editorial tool with more color grading capabilities as the world moves more toward RAW workflows. But my question would be how many of my real-world gigs require more than the FCP-X color board? Which is much less complex and sophisticated, but gets me great results quickly and easily while reducing the complexity of the process.
(Here somebody should maybe pipe in as to how Premier CC addresses all this to keep the discussion as useful as possible to the largest number of lurkers?)
Anyway, I admire what BMD Is doing.
But I still think these are tools designed around particular view of the content creation industry as something built around solving traditional style movie or network TV based workflows.
Which is VERY interesting, especially in light of how BMD has just released the Production Camera series which seems to be addressing a totally a different market. Those “recorder-less cameras” with single cable talkback, tally and the ability to be grouped with in the BMD ATEM switchers into an extremely affordable multi-cam live production system for schools, churches, municipal meetings, etc, is addressing a totally different market from Hollywood.
Be interesting to see which part of their business goes farther, faster in the coming years.
Interesting times, to be sure.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
-
[Charlie Austin] “lol. Actually, there’s probably quite a bit we agree on. Except the bit about tracks. :-)”
I know, I was being humorous. I actually enjoy hearing your thoughts, whether I buy in or not…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill
-
I had a lengthy demo of it, and then kicked the tires a bit myself. Spent almost an hour with it. I actually commented on how similar the interface was to to “X”… especially the Inspector. That seemed to make the demo guy a bit uncomfortable. He didn’t disagree, he was just quiet. Maybe it’s because he used to be with Apple?
I think BMD knows that they’ve designed something that will appeal to X users (and to 7 users who feel like orphans), but they don’t want to kick the Giant in the knee… at least not yet. I’m not surprised they are playing down expectations. There is no upside in irritating Apple. At the same time, they know that there are a lot of people who want more from “X”.
I think they will continue to add some serious features to it with each release and let the naysayers continue to “whistle past the graveyard”… right up until they kick out a release that makes it obvious that they are offering an alternative to “X”.
The best comment I heard at the SuperMeet was “I’m not looking to replace FCP X, but I’m feeling less vulnerable now, in case Apple loses interest in continued development of FCP X”.
Interesting thought… I’d have to agree.
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill
-
[Mitch Ives] “Interesting thought… I’d have to agree.”
When the sales numbers are bad there are two options: improve the product or drop it.
-
[Michael Aranyshev] “[Mitch Ives] “Interesting thought… I’d have to agree.”
When the sales numbers are bad there are two options: improve the product or drop it.”
Yeah, but the X sales numbers are FAR from bad.
I was told by folks in a position to know that X reached a million paid seats WAY faster than legacy. And has continued to generate more “click-revenue” than anything else on the iTunes store (which makes sense considering that it’s priced so much higher than anything else!) – still, Apple is trading clicks for HUGE profits every time somebody buys X since there’s virtually no incremental “cost of goods sold” to book – so what possible reason could they have to discontinue it?
With a million seats, they’ve booked at LEAST $300 million bucks in gross revenue to offset the costs of a relatively small development team. So it’s not like it’s any kind of a drag on company revenues!
And as I’ve argued before, it keeps world class software engineering talent in house at Apple – something they need to keep on board in any case.
All they have to do is to keep making X stronger over time, and with an adoption barrier that low, there’s a whole generating of editors coming along who can come to see X as their personal professional editor toolkit of choice. The X implementation of Multi-cam was it’s initial “wow, this is better” software talking point. I’m confident there will be others.
Sure there’s a percentage of the young editors who will be initially happy to pay the Premier monthly tribute for a while if that’s what they learn on in, say, College – where Adobe has made great strides from what I’ve heard.
But that same student population is deeply burdened with abysmal job prospects and huge educational debt in the modern era. So I wonder across how many credit card crash and burn cycles (look Bobby, another big company list of CC numbers have been stolen, hurry and re-link to a new card!) those kids will accept and “keep my software rental alive” – before at some point, they just look for something they can buy once and own – and then edit on for the foreseeable future?
It’s one view. Not the only one. But the more I think about it, the less I see the perpetual payment model as a sustainable business strategy. Because in uncertain economic times. People LOOK for places they can shed expenses. And software rental, unless you’re directly making money on that software are to offset the expense – is something you can very easily let go.
Just my thinking. And I could be totally wrong.
; )
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
-
[Bret Williams] “I didn’t see green screen or a keyer. “
It actually does these things in the COLOR timeline page. It will use either imbedded alpha, an external matte (hicon movie) or you can create an HSL qualifier and port that to the layer output (add/send alpha) to reveal the layer(s) below.
jPo
“I always pass on free advice — its never of any use to me” Oscar Wilde.
-
[Bill Davis] “that X reached a million paid seats WAY faster than legacy.”
Sure. But the Party Line is FCP Legacy was niche and FCPX has much wider appeal, much lower price and a modern hip distribution channel.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up