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Survey: Mappable Control Surfaces
For the 10,000th time on this forum, I want to address the issue of mapping control surfaces.
Since we know Peter and other BM folks monitor this forum, let’s give them a business case for making a mappable version of Resolve. This would include all the features of the big BM panel.
I am asking anyone that would be willing to pay for this feature to respond with the price they would pay.
This may prove that (x times (mapping fees)) will equal more than the potential revenue for big panels sold. In my business, clients won’t pay more for the big panel so I doubt I will ever justify it. I would also like the functions such as jumping to a scene by scene number or timecode and scroll corrections (miss that one, the old timers know what I’m talking about) and many others. -4, apply correction, man I’m getting nostalgic!
Please don’t let this lead to BM bashing as they have provided an unbelievable value with Resolve and they need to continue to make money to develop it.
Also, if your not willing to pay anything, please don’t post as this is self evident.
I would pay an additional $1000US to $2000US based on available “buttons” and panel features if I could map my element AS LONG AS this feature was not going to become free in a future release.
Next………
Clark Bierbaum
Color Grading / Post Consultant
GarnetColor.com
Charlotte, NC -
15 Replies
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[Clark Bierbaum] “Also, if your not willing to pay anything, please don’t post as this is self evident.”
I already work for free, or at least it feels like it.
Seems like there are a lot of third-party add-ons that do cost money already, and we buy them from example companies like Fraunhofer and GenArts, neither of which I have subscribed to.
I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that this is a product that Blackmagic is responsible to develop — its probably Tangent that should be doing it, so maybe its actually their business case. Nonetheless, lets look at the Tangent Elements collection, retailing at about $3500 for the set. $1K-$2K would represent another 30-50% premium, which I am *pretty sure* (Danny Moynihan Jersey-accent) most users would baulk at.
$250-$300? 10%.I am also not at all sure that numeric keypads are even possible to be mapped to the USB interface.
Although -2{preview] is a command that I dearly miss, yes you are spot on with that. Although I am getting used to [middle-click].Probably $29,000 plus a license of Resolve would be too much…
(although it is still a tiny fraction of the MSRP for a 2K+.)jPo
“I always pass on free advice — its never of any use to me” Oscar Wilde.
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[Joseph Owens] “I am also not at all sure that numeric keypads are even possible to be mapped to the USB interface. Although -2{preview] is a command that I dearly miss, yes you are spot on with that. Although I am getting used to [middle-click].”
From the v10 manual, page 647:
> To copy a grade from one clip back: Press comma (,)
> To copy a grade from two clips back: Press colon (:)You can’t do a -4 preview yet, nor can you scroll through the corrections the way you can on the control surface (not that I’ve seen, at least).
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Considering that I paid 1k for the software I would be willing to pay $500 for custom mapping of the elements panel. As far as I know and confirmed from Tangent this is not up to them but up to BM to implement the use of the tangent hub to allow custom mapping. Not hard coding the panel in resolve.
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Count my 1000$ in….
Let’s do away with Resolve free completely…
Bundle it as light with the camera (locked to its resolution and format) and as Full with the Element set for 5000$ and there is a market again.A slice of color…
Resolve 10.1.0.021
Colorist / VFX / Aerial footage nerd
https://vimeo.com/saschahaber -
[Sascha Haber] “Let’s do away with Resolve free completely…
Bundle it as light with the camera (locked to its resolution and format) and as Full with the Element set for 5000$ and there is a market again.”And bundle it with the cards too…oh wait!
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I posted about this a year ago:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/277/22580
Unless things have changed since then, adding more comprehensive & customizable 3rd-party control surface support is low on BMDs priority list.
As much as I hate the de-valuation of the craft that has come with the commoditization and zero-cost accessibility of Resolve, it still seems odd to me that BMD is still tied to the notion that Resolve software is a loss-leader gateway drug towards selling more $30k BMD Resolve panels. It seems out of character with BMDs overall operating philosophy of “let’s-make-everything-that-used-to-be-expensive-unsustainably-cheap!”.
I would gladly pay $3000-$6000 for a version of Resolve that had a fully customizable shortcut-mapping & 3rd-party control surface interface. But this really makes no sense from a business and engineering standpoint, if you think about it. Maintaining separate branches of a software product as complex as Resolve would be a management, marketing and engineering nightmare. Adobe doesn’t even do this anymore (anyone remember when you used to have to pay an extra $1000 for the “Production Bundle” version of After Effects just to get motion tracking functionality?), and their engineering resources are undoubtedly way larger than BMD.
BMD would probably make a crap-ton more money–with almost zero additional engineering overhead–if they simply lowered the cost of the BMD Control Surface. Doing this would cause people like me, who are picky enough to be complaining about the lack of 3rd party control surface mappings, to just shut up and buy “the big panel”. This would free BMD’s Resolve team from wasting their time considering and implementing 3rd party panels, and they could spend more time concentrating on core software features.
Of course, if I were even half the brilliant businessman and marketing genius that Grant Petty is, I’d probably be spending more of my free time relaxing on a beach in the Bahamas, sipping Cristal from the shoes of my Caribbean handmaidens, instead of spending time offering unsolicited marketing and business advice to highly-successful corporations on internet messageboards.
I’m sure there are many good reasons why we haven’t seen any of these scenarios happen, as of yet. The people at BMD are certainly not stupid, and if they could deliver the full Resolve Panel for under $10,000, I’m sure they would. I would like to think that one of the main reasons why we have yet to see better 3rd-party panel support in Resolve is because they are working hard to eliminate the need to purchase 3rd-party panels in the first place. So why would they bother spending the time developing 3rd party support in Resolve 10, when they know that they will be eventually shipping a sub-$10000 panel that’s heads and tails better than every other currently available “cheap” 3rd-party panel?
I can at least dream that this is true. But BMD has an established track record in making dreams like this come true, so I’m definitely keeping my fingers crossed, and will continue to “tolerate” the existing state of control surface mappings until this happens!
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Mel, what you are saying makes a lot more sense. For BMD is much better business to invest in bringing the price of their panels down or coming up with a cheaper one than investing in helping other companies sell theirs.
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Makes a lot more sense if you don’t have $3500 invested in a full set of elements.
Maybe Grant should just buy tangent devices, would save a ton on r&d and fabricating new panels!
Clark Bierbaum
Color Grading / Post Consultant
GarnetColor.com
Charlotte, NC -
I mean, sure. But isn’t this like telling Ford to allow you to use all the Chevy accessories you picked up for your Chevy before you went Ford?
How do you think it would go down if you went to reduser and asked them to make the Epic compatible with the Alexa’s viewfinder? Or worse, make the red viewfinder compatible with the Alexa.
And what about all the guys who bought MC Color?
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Guess I forgot “;-)” Also, you don’t get what you don’t ask for!
Clark Bierbaum
Color Grading / Post Consultant
GarnetColor.com
Charlotte, NC
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