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Resolve 16
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[Mark Suszko] ” but, I can definitely see work situations where speed and accuracy are key could benefit from the keyboard.”
More so than spending a few hundred dollars on keyboard w/extra programmable keys and a USB jog/shuttle? From what I can tell all the extra buttons on the BM keyboard are repeats of default keys (like I/O) or things than can be mapped to a custom short cut. And I assume it’s a forgone conclusion that this keyboard (aside from the standard keys) won’t work outside of Blackmagic.
Hardware controls for coloring I get. Hardware controls for audio mixing I get. But this? At first blush I don’t get why it costs $1000.
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[greg janza] “Unless that keyboard can allow me to work while sunning at the beach, it’s insanely overpriced.”
Decent jog/shuttle could be worth $1000.
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Andrew, do you go back far enough to remember the feel of real machine controlled, tape-based edit bays? I do. Maybe it’s only nostalgia. But I swear I was faster than a speeding bullet, using the EECO EMME edit controller with jog shuttle wheel, and later, the Grass 141. The EMME’s jog shuttle “ballistics” were unmatched in it’s day. It was my scalpel, and it made me a speedy, precise surgeon on my edits. It also had a build quality like fine furniture; lovely wooden enclosure. The 141 was chunkier and less elegant, but the fat buttons, grouped by function, made it easy to use without looking away from the screen.
No doubt that effective editing can be the case with a cheaper, more typical all-purpose computer keyboard too, in the hands of a well- practiced user. But I’m partial to custom interfaces with some haptics. I’m like those purists that love the IBM keyboards or a nice Yamaha weighted keyboard piano.
Some of the cost of the Resolve keyboard, I can understand, comes from less common components like the electronic clutch on the jog wheel. To make that work right and be “bulletproof”, under heavy daily operations, it’s going to add cost. Also, the high end Cherry or whatever brand keyboard switches come at a premium, as they are harder to buy in bulk. I’m sure BM are making a good profit margin on the keyboards, but it may not be as high as people suspect, due to sourcing the higher-end components.
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[Mark Suszko] “Andrew, do you go back far enough to remember the feel of real machine controlled, tape-based edit bays?”
Barely (mainly basic deck to deck editing w/a Sony edit controller that I can’t remember the name of).
[Mark Suszko] “But I’m partial to custom interfaces with some haptics. I’m like those purists that love the IBM keyboards or a nice Yamaha weighted keyboard piano.”
I am as well which is why I prefer using a control surface while grading and a Logitech G-13 gamepad while editing (my actual keyboard gets very little use outside of text entry).
[Mark Suszko] “Also, the high end Cherry or whatever brand keyboard switches come at a premium, as they are harder to buy in bulk. “
Gaming keyboards using Cherry MX Brown or Red switches can be had for $60 or $70. Even keyboards used by pro players will only be $100-200 (and most of that extra cost is in the custom RGB lighting, not the switches). A gaming keyboard and this JLCooper Transport control would get you more programable buttons *and* be cheaper than the BM keyboard.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/725423-REG/JLCooper_ECLIPSE_TX_MIDNIGTHT_Eclipse_TX_Midnight_Compact.html/pageID/accessoryBM is selling a keyboard with some extra buttons and a jug/shuttle for over $1000. It feels like an expensive piece of nostalgia for former linear editors. It doesn’t seem to grant nearly the amount of additional functionality as, say, their Micro panel which is also $1025. Does the keyboard help when I’m doing color? Mixing Audio? Doing GFX/FX? Titles? Even if I only work in the Cuts Tab I’ll probably have to do a bit of all of those things before the edit is ready to send out the door.
I agree using keyboard shortcuts is faster than mousing around the GUI, but to that end why would I move my hand to the far left of the ESC key to do an Insert Edit instead of keeping my hands on the home row and just hitting the default Insert Edit keyboard shortcut? Why Would I move my hand left of the Caps Lock to mark I/O instead of just using I/O? And since the KB short cuts are printed on the keycaps you can’t even reprogram the keyboard to make it more functional w/o turning it into a confusing mess.
A keyboard with a bunch of soft-keys that are OLED screens (so you don’t have to manually label them) would be much more useful and much closer to being worth $1025. For a few hundred bucks it might be a good deal, but for over a grand I’d expect much greater functionality. I know the housing is made of metal, is the entire keyboard of a ‘hardened’ design (i.e. it’s designed to take a pounding in the field and not miss a beat)? If that’s the case then I can understand a higher price (but even then $1025 still seems excessive).
EDIT:
I also think there is a big difference between the feeling of a jog/shuttle hooked up to tape decks (where you are directly controlling the variable speed playback of the transport controls) and a jog/shuttle hooked up to an NLE (where the NLE software is doing it’s best to interrupt your mechanical input and create playback that corresponds to it). As an aside, this is one of the differences Murch talks about in “In the Blink of an Eye”; when you shuttle though video/film you are literally seeing every frame at high speed, when you shuttle though an NLE you are only seeing a small subset of frames because the NLE doesn’t playback every frame.A deck’s playback is always going to be consistent, where as NLE playback will change depending on the software version, the hardware used and the codec of the source footage. And since this keyboard seems aimed at the Cut Page I imagine you will be dealing with a lot of camera codecs and it’s going to take fast machine to allow you to quickly shuttle back and fourth through inter-frame codecs like that and get silky smooth responsiveness. I think this is part of the reason why jog/shuttles never really made the leap from linear editing to non-linear editing. Another reason is that since we are using a non-linear editor we can literally skip to any point in time instantly so having a dedicated controller tied solely to linear access was less important (JKL seemed to fit the bill).
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Some impressions from the show. Resolve 16’s “cut” page is an additional fast cutting mode. It seems about as close to FCPX as they could legally get, but with improvements. There is a 2-level timeline view. The top (small) timeline is the full-length view, whereas the bottom, detailed view can stay zoomed in. This makes navigation throughout the timeline faster, because you don’t have to zoom in and out all the time.
The system detects when you are close to a cut. So if you within the right distance and go to add a dissolve, it automatically applies it to the right cut point. In multicam work, you can drop a master shot down and then add cutaways. The system automatically knows where to add the cutaway (presumably based on sync sound or TC).
There is a version of content-aware video fill in the color page.
The keyboard is very much like a Sony BVE9100, only updated. Solid, metal construction, with a jog/shuttle knob that has proper ballistics (not like the various USB controllers that are out there). Very much like it felt on an actual 9100, although you can argue whether skimming in FCPX is still a faster way to work. Both Peter Wiggins and I were there (we’ve both worked a 9100 in another life) and the keyboard has a very familiar feel to both of us. Apparently it requires a lot of power, so it’s USB-C and there’s internal power caching for the knob. It’s probably not cheap to manufacture. This is definitely not just another high-end Logitech-style keyboard. Is it worth $995? Depends on the individual I suppose. But it IS geared around fast, keyboard-driven cutting and trimming.
Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Andrew Kimery] “A keyboard with a bunch of soft-keys that are OLED screens (so you don’t have to manually label them) would be much more useful and much closer to being worth $1025.”
Hmm. This is my first eyes on this controller and it’s a hard no for me too. Compared to what I’m using with stand alone Fairlight, this is a hybrid ASCII with a jog shuttle. Certainly not what I was expecting and not something that I would buy. It needs self labeling (preferably user programmable) keys like the Fairlight Xynergi panel.
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Thanks for the user feedback Oliver. And it answers yesterdays questions about whether it is coming but frankly I am disappointed given the control ergonomics IP that they inherited from Fairlight & dSP.
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[Oliver Peters] “There is a 2-level timeline view. The top (small) timeline is the full-length view, whereas the bottom, detailed view can stay zoomed in. This makes navigation throughout the timeline faster, because you don’t have to zoom in and out all the time.”
The two level view looked cool. It reminded me of the timeline view in the Touch Bar of the MBPs.
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Has anyone else played around with R16 yet? they weren’t kidding when they called the “Cut” page FCPX mode – it’s magnetic!
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It’s also very smooth, dare I say even smoother than X? Definitely going to try a few projects on this when it gets a little more stable.
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