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Mid-market NAB happenings
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[David Mathis] “They make their money off hardware as does Apple, so they can sell software for next to nothing. I can see how someone who spent 6 figures on a system would feel. To me it is a matter of perspective depending on when one entered the game and what the price of admission was at that time. My two cents, whatever it is worth.
“What’s weird is there’s free, then $995, then $29,995.
It seems to me, if BMD wanted to push hardware, they’d bundle the $995 version with more hardware. Or have a $1,295 version, or something between 1 and 30.
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[Walter Soyka] “The Foundry has just shown NUKE STUDIO, an all-in-one-ish product that combines NUKEX with HIERO’s editorial timeline and adds real-time GPU timeline effects and background rendering.
This is big for VFX people. Such power at a cheap price point. If I need proper VFX work done I always send it to a pro. I don’t try to do a job that is outside my skills base and the worth every penny to leverage such expertise. So being cheaper actually makes it more likely I will use a pro as their cost base has come down but not the concept of paying people properly for talent and expertise. I value my time too much to do a poor job on After Effects just because I have it but can’t drive it like a pro.
As a colorist and sound post person I spend more on my studios, IT infastructure, monitoring (picture and sound) and software than most editors so the price point on Resolve whilst it is helpful it is not making such a huge difference. It has meant my hourly rate has been stable for 20 years although I long ago moved to a subscription style of charging a price based on program duration. So cheaper faster hardware plus cheaper more powerful software has simply allowed me to spend less on more constant upgrading. Win win for clients and me. I would argue that the product is better as the tools are better and I actually have less time pressure on working.
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[Michael Gissing] “This is big for VFX people. Such power at a cheap price point. If I need proper VFX work done I always send it to a pro. I don’t try to do a job that is outside my skills base and the worth every penny to leverage such expertise. So being cheaper actually makes it more likely I will use a pro as their cost base has come down but not the concept of paying people properly for talent and expertise. I value my time too much to do a poor job on After Effects just because I have it but can’t drive it like a pro.”
Makes sense. At this price point, would you consider building a bay for NukeX Studio and ‘hiring in’ VFX/finishing work? I mean, for less than $15k you have a more powerful VFX/finishing capability than Flame or Inferno, and NukeX probably has a much bigger talent pool to draw from… I think I’ve only ever met two Inferno operators in my life. Something to consider, maybe?
Shawn
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Shawn, I am too small to set up a room for VFX. I sub contract to other freelancers who have their own setup. I don’t have enough demand to justify this. I am excited about Resolve as a finishing tool but I am not needing advanced compositing.
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[Frank Gothmann] “They may be developing it much more (and I hope it’s the guys from Davinici that are still there doing it), question is how stable and bug-free the outcome is.”
My experience with software has been that the more obscure a product is, the flakier it tends to be. The extreme case of this is that software developed for in-house ‘enterprise’ use is notoriously terrible, but the same phenomenon applies in less extreme cases as well. In general, a larger user base means more bugs are discovered more quickly, and if moving more copies at a lower price leads to higher total revenue (which is likely the case with Resolve, particularly counting all the video interfaces, etc. it helps to sell) then there are also more resources available to fix those bugs.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Walter Soyka] “I’m not arguing that Resolve wiping out the editorial market is inevitable — just pointing out that BMD is capable of destabilizing the market by sloshing around some revenue from ancillary markets. Not everyone competing in the space enjoys this luxury — small developers especially — and it may (or may not!) be negative in the long run for the industry.”
Buying BMD’s I/O hardware is basically a requirement for using Resolve Lite for serious grading/editing. Without this, you can’t monitor a full-screen image while simultaneously interacting with the UI. As far as I can tell (and someone correct me if I’m wrong here) this is still true in Resolve 11; the new dual-screen UI can split bins/scopes to one screen and viewers/timeline to another, but you still can’t monitor full screen while interacting with the timeline unless you have BMD I/O hardware.
This means that in practice Resolve Lite is ‘free’ as a transcoding and media management tool, but if you want a useful grading or editing tool, it still costs money.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Chris Kenny] “Buying BMD’s I/O hardware is basically a requirement for using Resolve Lite for serious grading/editing… This means that in practice Resolve Lite is ‘free’ as a transcoding and media management tool, but if you want a useful grading or editing tool, it still costs money.”
I agree that I/O hardware is necessary with respect to “serious” grading (are we saying serious now because it’s less incendiary than professional?) — but I think there’s a lot of serious editorial that does not need I/O in 2014.
I also think we are not that far away from “semi-serious” grading happening under a display LUT, obviating the need for video I/O. BMD should start making display probes.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Chris Kenny] “My experience with software has been that the more obscure a product is, the flakier it tends to be.”
Having used some obscure products, I’d agree. I’d add that there tend to be fewer acceptable workarounds for flakiness with obscure products.
On the flipside, you can often get custom builds to solve specific problems.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “I agree that I/O hardware is necessary with respect to “serious” grading (are we saying serious now because it’s less incendiary than professional?) — but I think there’s a lot of serious editorial that does not need I/O in 2014.
I also think we are not that far away from “semi-serious” grading happening under a display LUT, obviating the need for video I/O.”
I agree that the technical benefits of ‘real’ video I/O over GUI display monitoring are receding (though it would be nice if Apple would finally enable 10-bit output), but again, in Resolve, it’s not just about those technical benefits. You cannot display your program image full screen on one GUI display while interacting with the application on another display. The only way to get a full-screen program view while interacting with the UI is to buy BMD hardware. I think that’s a pretty critical capability.
[Walter Soyka] “BMD should start making display probes.”
Yeah, they could easily adapt the OEM version of the i1Display Pro like many other vendors do (HP with the Dreamcolor probe, SpectraCal with the C6) and have a whole calibration system built-into Resolve rather than just the test pattern generator it presently has. It’s a good idea.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Chris Kenny] “Buying BMD’s I/O hardware is basically a requirement for using Resolve Lite for serious grading/editing.”
I think you overestimate how many people downloading Resolve Lite plan on using it with a ‘proper setup’. It seems like almost a weekly occurrence for someone to ask how to balance their computer monitor for accurate video monitoring or which Dell monitor they should buy to use for color grading. Apple Color, Resolve Lite, Magic Bullet Looks or Colorista… same questions, different forums. “It’s just for the web…” “My budget is only $600…” “Stop being an elitist snob in your ivory tower and just tell me how to make my five year old Acer computer monitor color accurate!”
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