Resolve and Kona

[Jonathon Lee]

That is one way to do it. Really depends on your workflow and how you are managing your shots — and what file format you are using. With film workflows, which is what I mostly work in, I use DPX files. So, we have a file hierarchy of roll, reel, shot, take.

But, if your coloring shots, out putting “shot per folder” in Davinci, then assembling and finishing in smoke… yes, you would render out run-length from smoke as dpx or QT then output from Resolve.

There are more complicated ways to do it, but that is one reliable way!

– Jonathon

[David Jahns]

Hello again, Jonathon and others!

In my quest for a single system grading/finishing, I’m now looking at Scratch on Mac.

From my initial readings, it seems that, compared to Smoke, Scratch is stronger in grading, but less capable in VFX/Finishing – including no SDI I/O on Mac.

Anyone have experience to confirm/refute/elaborate?

As always, thanks for any insights…

David Jahns
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR

[Jonathon Lee]

I use Scratch on Windows. It’s a great grading tool. As you mentioned, NO SDI on Mac as of yet. I have not used the mac version yet. It is also 15k for the license only. So + hardware. What you should be aware of is that the GPU utilization on Scrath is not as good as on Resolve. You will be limited to 1 GPU and no SDI.

Workflow is a toss up. They are both great tools, but if you ever want SDI out of the color app then Resolve is the way to go. Scratch has a monitoring advantage in your case as you can use a “desktop” output in full screen for grading. So, if you use an Nvidia Q4000 you can connect directly to a calibrated HDMI display @ 10-bbc. Something that cannot be done on Resolve yet.

Scratch is much more expensive and no SDI, however, you can use desktop monitor. The conform tools are great in Scratch as well. But, no free grain/noise reduction… and eventually I think you will see more of the Revival functions implemented into Resolve eventually is my guess.

[Rikk Desgres]

It’s been a long time an no response from AJA. I would love to see Resolve work with AJA cards. I’m very close to wanting to dump AJA for BM, but there are a few things I need on the Kona that the BM does not have. But it may come to that.

Please AJA, write Davinci Resolve into your drivers so I can get back to work.

Thanks,
Rikk

[Juan Salvo]

I doubt very much that this will ever happen. The cost of the BMD card is negligible and is part of the profitability of the DaVinci platform. Resolve exists to sell BMD hardware. Don’t hold your breath. Spend 300-900 bucks and get proper video out for your resolve.

[Rikk Desgres]

Juan, you are not getting the point at all. BM is letting AJA or anybody else for that matter into their API and letting them write drivers. But it’s up to AJA to write those drives not BM. And it will cost more than the $300-900 for the BM card alone. I would have to purchase an entirely new MacPro add on the CUDA cards etc. I have to have the AJA in my current system. I can not swap it out. But when and if the time comes that I can I WILL get the BM card. But right now that’s not possible right now.

[David Jahns]

Hi Kirk.

I completely sympathize with you – I’m in the same boat, needing a KONA 3 for my Smoke, but wishing I could run Resolve on the same system. But I’m with Juan on this one. I don’t think it’s up to AJA – I don’t believe BlackMagic has opened Resolve up to 3rd parties. I could be wrong, and if you’ve heard otherwise, please share a link with us!

But I don’t see it happening, for a couple of reasons:

BlackMagic is giving away the basic HD version of Resolve for free, and then only charging $1000 for the 2k & up version. They are obviously trying to sell BlackMagic IO cards to use in this system. What possible motive could they have to open it up to 3rd parties? Altruism? I think it’s awesome enough that they’re giving away the software, I would flabbergasted if they gave it away for free AND made it work with 3rd party hardware. They are a business, after all…

2) If it were open to 3rd parties, how come no one has taken the time to write the drivers? Matrox, BlueFish, KONA and Blackmagic all wrote drivers for Avid MC6 – wouldn’t one of these other companies have done so for Resolve if were possible?

Yes, it would be a huge pain in the arse to set up a 2nd MacPro tower in our Finishing Suite – 2nd SDI I/O routing, monitor & keyboard switcher, shared storage, etc… We’re debating about setting up a 2nd room for Resolve, but for now, I’m just using Smoke’s Color Grading, which is very powerful, but the workflow is not quite as intuitive and fast at some tasks, like adding vignettes & windows.

Are you also using Smoke? If not, what other software is AJA only? If we were just FCP or Avid (or Premiere), I’d swap out our AJA cards for a BM cards in a heart beat to get Resolve.

Good luck…

David Jahns
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR

[Juan Salvo]

That’s just not true. BlackMagic writes support for the decklink io into resolve, resolve installs it’s own version of the decklink drivers. Evidence of this is in the fact that resolve is the only app that can output embedded TC over a decklink card. As David says below this is not a coincidence, BMD is factoring io sales as part of the revenue of davinci. For what it’s worth davinci doesn’t require a cutting edge CPU, just a decent gpu. If its not worth the couple of k to setup a dedicated system for grading, then you probably should just stick to color or colorista or whatever you’re using, from my perspective even with all the requirements to run davinci properly it is still and unbelievable value and I’m grateful to BMD for making it available.

[Rikk Desgres]

I have spoken to BM they HAVE opened it up to 3rd parties. Just nobody has taken the challenge to write the drivers.

[Richard Hall]

Hey Stuart,
Are you still keeping your fingers crossed? I keep trawling the forums in hope that one day the two companies will somehow produce the drivers between them. I too support both companies by using BM and AJA products but I really don’t won’t let my AJA 3D card to be made redundant just so that I can use BM software out of principle .. frankly its a joke that whilst both AJA and BM play pricing and product politics us loyal users get left in the lurch!

Rich

Today only your imagination is the limitation.