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With 8.1.1 BM has just thrown a very destructive blow to the entire C-grading business
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Panels aside, I don’t think that BMD is focused exclusively on the traditional color correction market with Resolve.
Resolve’s low $1k license price has sold a lot of Decklink cards. I myself shelved a perfectly good Kona to install a Decklink with my Resolve system last fall, and I imagine many others here have done the same.
Everyone here is focused on the unlimited nodes in Lite, but there are three major factors at play here — unlimited nodes, cross-platform compatibility, and DNxHD MXF support — and I think they all work together.
With MC6 now supporting Open I/O, BMD is using Resolve Lite to give every Avid editor a fully-functional, free color grading system that works with their NLE if they only buy a Decklink for their box instead of an AJA, a Matrox, or Avid’s own DX hardware.
They are selling Resolve to editors in a box labeled “Decklink.”
No other capture card vendor has a value prop like this. It’s a brilliant move.
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 -
I have to disagree with Charles here. While I do agree it’s a great idea to get the DaVinci name out there and get more people buzzing about the software, I don’t see anybody really buying the paid version anymore now that the free version can pretty much do everything (how many people do 3D or 4K finishing? not many). While 1 GPU might slow things down a bit, you can drop in the RED Rocket if you are doing RED work. The system actually renders very fast even with one 1 GPU in my opinion.
I think it’s great to get the student market involved in DaVinci early. Builds up the user base for sure! But why would you not have the free version or the trial version get them into the product line and then they would want to upgrade once they get further along in their career? At this point, the free version would work for like 99% of the TV and feature work that I do. So other than selling Decklink cards, how can the DaVinci line continue to get money for R&D and more importantly support? And I mean even Microsoft Word, imovie and Adobe Photoshop Elements are more expensive than DaVinci! Is Blackmagic going after the consumer marking now like Apple is?
It’s just the idea of the full featured DaVinci for free that confuses me. The previous lite version made some business sense, but now everyone will download the free version like you said, and will not need to pay for the paid version. I full expect Blackmagic to drop the paid version at NAB and put all the features into the free version.
If you give everything away for free, it just does not hold as much market value (even though it does have more market recognition).
-Peter
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But you don’t need a Decklink card – you can use an Intensity Pro card and it works fine, and I would say it is preferable to monitor in 8bit if your final output is TV (which is 8bit). With a Vt25 or Vt30 plasma, you can go into the primaries of your monitor via a serial cable, and so no LUT boxes needed.
So at this point, all they got from me is $125 for a card (with small margins, it costs a lot to make a card) vs. the $1000 they would have gotten for the software had I not returned it.
I think they should offer refunds to anyone who bought DaVinci within the last 2 months
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“you can go into the primaries of your monitor via a serial cable”
where can I find more information about this? I have a PF series display.
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Yep, Resolve has become a driver software for video cards 😉
A slice of color…
DaVinci 8.0.1 OSX 10.7
MacPro 5.1 2×2,4 24GB
RAID0 8TB eSata 6TB
GTX 470 / GT 120
Extreme 3D+ WAVE -
Garage band and pro tools LE did not destroy pro sound, cheap shake / after effects did not destroy pro gfx.
Resolve lite will not destroy pro color grading.
It will however make it very difficult for the middle end post facilities, when they have to compete with cheap boutiques & freelancer who have gone into business for themselves.
But, yes it will drive rates down. Just like FCP drove editor rates down. But color already did that.
Joseph Mastantuono
http://www.goodpost.net
Color Grading & Post Production Consulting -
All very amusing. I could cry.
So having been twisting dials for over three decades, I have seen some changes. The trend has generally been more for less. Yes I bought into… or maybe invested … in assisting this in some respects by getting into Final Touch. Which now is part of FCX as an auto-grade/auto-match plugin. So what?
There are still thousands of editors out there who just want an “auto-look” button and *grading* software will never be for them. I heard some ‘woo-hooing’ out my door (with this announcement) that Resolve Lite ‘doesn’t suck anymore’… However, I’m still puzzled by what that means. Like many, or maybe the vast majority, I am one of those FCP users that never used either Motion or Soundtrack Pro, but I’d hasten to add FWIW that I’m getting fed up with DVD Studio Pro, but still use LiveType. (I really don’t “get” Apple, either, in some respects.)
Little-d daVinci is gone… we need to move on. The more I use Resolve, the better it gets — but is it the software? Debatable. However, as far as ruining the business model goes, I see this about every 5 years. Surf or die, was the message from Stephen St. Croix decades ago. Where there is no money, there never was a market, and where there is no talent, there is also no opportunity. The situation now is that there is so much chaos and confusion (co-opted democracy becoming anarchy) that if you know *anything* (for sure) you have a leg up on your nearest competitor.
Reductio ad absurdum, there’d be robots flying all the airliners by now… and nothing would ever go wrong. And won’t it be entertaining when the machines completely take over and do everything for free even without our asking them to? Awhile ago, I took a cinematographer’s observation to heart that ‘the only sin we can commit is boredom’, so that’s my real fight.
jPo
You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?
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I’m sure I don’t know where the whole business will be heading, but I know today I am working in a client’s suite because it was worth it for them to buy a DaVinci license and all the necessary hardware, rather than have to leave their building and drive 10 minutes to my suite. In the future, I have no doubt this client will opt to bring me or another colorist in rather than to take their material out to a large facility, as they have before this week. But it was 7.0 and not 8.0 or 8.1.1 that made that possible…
In big markets there is plenty of competition between differently sized operations. I have a small one, and certainly the products Blackmagic has developed and priced in this way have helped small boutiques to make fewer compromises with quality and compete with large facilities. That’s not hurting the “c-grading business,” just altering the balance. It drives down prices but also expenses, it’s the companies that are stuck with a lot of legacy costs that I see in trouble. Now has it made it possible for clients to do the same work as a freelancer or boutique? I know lots of cinematographers that are downloading it and will certainly do their own dailies, if not their own looks…
Meanwhile Resolve keeps getting better and better as software – I often have to inform repeat clients of new features since the last time they were in, which keeps them impressed (hey, remember when I couldn’t do that composite? Remember when I couldn’t do that NR?). I rarely find limitations in DaVinci that would prompt me to switch.
As far as prices going down…It’s like trying to catch a falling knife…
KC
Prehistoric Digital
PhD Grading Suite -
i have to throw in my 2 cents. when color was free with FCP, it didn’t kill the color correction industry. it simply made the tools for grading more affordable and more accessible. in fact in some cases it created new venues of income. i was able to break away from the big old bloated post houses and actually carve myself a nice little niche in the industry offering grading services to a group of clients who were maybe not able to afford the luxury of grading at the more expensive post houses. of course there is always a down side and as anyone has seen in the last few years, more and more people have now hung out the “colorist services” sign on their front door. this has caused a huge drop in the price of services and forced many people out of business. in my case it had the added effect of having to work twice as hard for half as much as i now compete with the film students who ran color on a laptop and called themselves colorists. as the old adage states “you can give 100 monkeys typewriters and maybe one will come up with a brilliant novel” or something like that. yes new technology does open up the door to more users and that makes for more competition but in the end it is the talent that wins out. now that davinci resolve lite is free i will probably see an even bigger decline in customers walking through my door, but that’s life. i for one am grateful not be at the mercy of the big boys post houses. one of the advantages of using color was that all my clients had it installed on their system. this made for an amazing workflow. clients would drop off the drive, i would grade then just give them back the color project. they would then render themselves and i could get on with doing other jobs. and if a change need to be done it was also very easy to update files and send changes or even in some cases go to that client and make any changes because we were all running the same software. no with davinci resolve lite being free, i am sure every editor will download it and it just makes the whole process even easier. in fact for me i can now easily do avid and premiere and fcp jobs on the equipment i already own. the old days of huge budgets are long gone and i have had to adapt. in the end talent wins over all else. it’s called evolution and it happens in every aspect of our lives. the magic has been exposed….
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Kim, could you please PM me your contact details. I have a few things I would appreciate your input on.
thanks, Peter
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