Resolve 11 Release Available Now

[Bret Williams]

Good luck with that. The version of Resolve on the app store is many many versions behind. They don’t update Resolve on the app store but maybe once a year it seems. I would guess they may not put 11 on there. If they do, be assured it won’t get updated promptly. The app store of 10 was also slightly different in that it wouldn’t let you relink to certain volumes. I found others complained about the same issue and I went back to the up to date versions of Resolve on their own site. Ignore the app store for resolve.

[David Mathis]

I agree. I find FCP X a rather good editor and very good finishing application. Perhaps the lines are a bit blury now. After all it is somewhat diificult to diiferienate between editing and finishing. I guess it all depends on who you ask and what their awnser or if you prefer, the definition is. After all X is very capable of many finishing tasks. Not sure about high-end but very close to it. At least that is my opinion. Right now most of the workflow will be done in FCP X with color grading done in Resolve though things could change. Guess it is a wait and see game for now. Time will tell.

I am an avid user of FCP X!

[Bret Williams]

But you can’t finish in resolve. That’s never changed. You can round trip your edits, but graphics, audio, templates , fx, none of that comes across any more than xmling x to 7 or x to premiere or vice versa.

And by adding a very capable editor (but not a fully capable finisher) they haven’t really changed the playing field. Yet. For now they may have shortened the trip from round trip to one way from resolve to X.

But since rough cuts often come to me edited on X by producers, that hasn’t changed either.

[Erik Lindahl]

It really depends on what and how you do things. We “online” or “finish” in FCP7 but quite little is done in the actual app. Color Correction comes from Color primarily, visual effects and titles comes from After Effects.

In our case Resolve could potentially replace FCP7 and have a vastly more powerful color tool built in (it’s a color tool with an editor). Color is the no 1 change I see being done, other effects like skyreplacment or pure retouch / paint work requires more than any mentioned NLE hence we’d still round-trip to either After Effects or Nuke.

The keyframe tools in FCPX are sad as they limit the app for finishing work. One can’t do beizer based in/outs, some vital parameters can’t even be animated (color correction!!!). PrPro is vastly better on the keyframe side, though it has some terrible CC filters and GUI issues instead… Since Speed Grade still is a seperate app, the round-trip feature still has some limitations and performance concerns I’m not sure that’s they route for many either. Work with PrPro > AE > Speed Grade isn’t as transparent as one would hope.

So… Resolve does have some potential.

[Scott Witthaus]

In reality however (not to be confused with reality TV), how much color do you need to do outside of X. Properly shot footage usually needs a light touch that X and assorted plug-ins can handle. I see very few times and projects that need to round-trip. I know people will respond with “well its got feature A and Mask B and Secondaries C….Doesn’t matter. I can do pretty much everything in X. Played with that in R10 and it basically works, but most of my color correction can be done in X. If it needs a lot more color work, the budget usually has color correction/colorist in it. I am not going to force simple color R11.

Now, if I am an Avid cutter and have watched the MC/Symph color tools rot on the vine, I am very interested in R11…perhaps thinking that this was what MC could have been.

Premiere? Eh, I find the Premiere product very distasteful and only use when that’s all a shop that hires me has. Not sure how R11 stacks up against whatever color corrector Adobe has.

All that said, I will learn more of R11 as I can see shops dumping the remaining FCP7 suites and some making the choice of Resolve over Adobe. Just my humble opinion

Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter

[Erik Lindahl]

In reality I’m often limited by the color-tools in FCP7 and FCPX has the up-side of being able to do static mattes but no keyframes or tracking options (yes there are some third party effects that sort of solve this). Almost every single project we do goes though a color pipeline, be that Apple Color or DaVinci Resolve, the built in tools in most NLE’s are vastly sub-par when it comes to detailed color work. Premiere Pro is going towards more advanced features given the mask-tracking soutions Adobe has chosen is idiotically implemented and pretty useless compared to doing a proper track / matte through Mocha (which takes times / is cumber sum) hence a tool like Resolve with this built in is amazing.

Do note we work in high-end commercials. I can spend a few days dealing with a few 30s spots. Most of our projects need a lot of color work. Most of our projects need the best quality for the job (with-in reason). Here for example doing title work takes a little longer in After Effects but you get it perfect here, the same goes for color in a tool like Resolve.

But it’s also a question of work-flow. Doing say reality TV or longer-form projects with a lot of changes and / or not as high requirements on color / grade / look I’d probably not leave my NLE. When we do case- or behind the scenes films we tend to stick to FCP7. When we do commercials or short-film work we always go through the proper tools for the job.

Resolve I would pretty much think kick everything Premiere has to offer out of the water except for the fact you do have effects built into your NLE and possibly the fact that Premiere has some interesting third-party tools. But for pure color-related work, there is no contest. This is where the question for me arrises how much of the NLE-part can Resolve handle vs how much color can my NLE-handel. The color board in FCPX is from my tests far better than the 3-way color corrector in Premiere Pro. FCPX however seem to lack a lot of standard tools I’d take for granted in a grade / finishing scenario – Hue / Sat Curves and RGB Curves to state a few.

Another part of finishing is conforming. Here FCPX is from my experience extremely poor and far to picky / buggy about formats and relinking procedures. The fact Apple seems to break internal project structures every other version doesn’t make it feel more “stable” in this regard. Premiere Pro has it’s quirks but it’s vastly better. I’d imagine Resolve is similar or better than Premiere Pro. The later does however have a decent link to After Effects for compositing work which again in some situations is a key / vital part of the finishing stage of a project.

So… My question remains really what Resolve can handle outside of hard core color work. IF the NLE-part of Resolve is more stable / fluid / solid compared to previous versions and it truly is a decent editor, it surely could become a very solid finish system.

[Michael Gissing]

I have just downloaded Version 11 release so maybe there have been some issues fixed but I have now done two projects with beta 11. First was a music clip edit & finish and I did it entirely in Resolve with ProRes 1920 x 1080, DNxHD 1080, Blackmagic 4k raw and a 720 XDCam.

Observations were basic editing functionality was good. I have a grunty PC so no issues with the frame sizes and formats except XDCam doesn’t work in Resolve on a PC so I had to convert. I only used dissolves and fades and basic titles & credits. Trimming, sizing and titles were very easy to control and having the ability to do final grade and denoise during an edit was terrific.

Second job was a dogs breakfast of codecs, frame sizes and frame rates. I needed to sort out field issues as well so a lot of footage was pre processed in FCP7 which was the edit NLE. Firstly Resolve couldn’t be used to finish as I needed some image processing which I had both in FCP7 and Pr. I also needed warp stabilise and Resolve has no stabilisation. Optical flow for speed changes in Resolve was very good and I used it extensively although there was a few funny little glitches but otherwise buttery smooth. I also had to use prescribed titles and supers with straps and they had been supplied in both FCP7 and Pr formats. Final clincher was Resolve didn’t seem to have multiple audio channel output so I couldn’t do the playout files and digi beta tape with stereo mix AND M&E mix.

So as an edit tool I enjoyed the simple job and found it better than Pr or FCP7 as there was no round tripping. For the broadcast doco with more complicated needs it was almost there but the few too many work arounds meant it was quicker to xml to Pr and finish there. And I had to go back to FCP7 for the playout to tape. SO in the end it was a complete hybrid. So the dream of a single finish tool remains elusive.

[Dennis Radeke]

[Erik Lindahl] “Premiere Pro is going towards more advanced features given the mask-tracking soutions Adobe has chosen is idiotically implemented”

Some things (like wine) take time before they fully mature. Given that we didn’t have any solution, we’ve made substantial progress in a short time.

forrest gump – ‘that’s all I’ve got to say about that.’

[Charlie Austin]

[Dennis Radeke] “Some things (like wine) take time before they fully mature. Given that we didn’t have any solution, we’ve made substantial progress in a short time. “

Xcellent point. 😉

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Neil Goodman]

[Michael Gissing] ” I also needed warp stabilise and Resolve has no stabilisation”

Resolve does indeed have a stabilizer and it works pretty damn good. Its part of the Tracking pane.