David Jahns
Forum Replies Created
-
[Walter Soyka] “Of cours SpeedGrade can do proper video out, but it does require an NVIDIA HD-SDI daughter card — meaning it also requires a Quadro GPU and a PC. “
Ok, Thanks, Walter. So SpeedGrade on Mac is apparently hobbled – but works on Windows with specific video NVIDIA cards? That makes sense, and explains the discrepancies I heard at NAB.
Better than nothing, but I think most users would prefer it to talk to Transmit & push video out to the AJA-BM-Matrox cards.
If it doesn’t, CS6 on Mac is somewhat limited as a complete suite, which is what most FCS customers are looking for.
Good thing Resolve fills that gap!
David Jahns
—
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
Assuming the Transmit (video out to KONA card) works as advertised, I’d say it’s 90% likely we’ll replace all of our FCP 7 systems with CS 6 this year.
(By that, I mean Premiere – we all have CS 5 for Photoshop/After Effects, etc. And most also have Avid on a different boot drive. We’re currently doing about 50/50 Avid-FCP 7)
I’ve heard conflicting things about Speed Grade and the video output. I heard that SG does NOT support Transmit, and therefore the “Grading Application” can’t actually output to a calibrated monitor. If so, that’s ummm… disappointing is about the nicest word for it. Can anyone confirm?
I realize SG was a recent acquisition, and they barely had time to integrate it at all – but the whole idea of Dynamic linking falls apart when to/from SpeedGrade means flattened intermediate renders. Hopefully, that will added before CS 7!
David Jahns
—
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
Wow – no Mac Pros? They put a Red Rocket card in an iMac? 😉
David Jahns
—
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
[Alan Okey] “”As someone who owned Discreet products in the past (edit* & combustion) I would like to state for the record that in my opinion Discreet / Audtodesk is the most dishonorable, disingenuous, disagreeable and disloyal company I have ever dealt with.””
Wow – you sure you guys aren’t talking about Avid in the 90’s? 😉
Granted, I’m new to the Autodesk scene, but in the 6 months I’ve been using Smoke on Mac, I’ve been quite happy with them. They’ve helped with extended trial periods, tech support, training, etc…
This certainly doesn’t address issues with product lifecycles and other big picture issues, of course…
Avid certainly has gotten better in the last few years – now my biggest beef is with Apple. Who would have thought that, just a short time ago?
David Jahns
—
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
funny – I started this same thread on the Smoke forum and only got one comment – should have known this would be the place for speculation and chatter! 😉
I’ve been using Smoke-Mac for about 6 months as a Color/Finish tool in a shop with 10 edit rooms (currently Avid 5 and FCP 7 – hoping CS6 is great), and I’ve gotta say that the learning curve for Smoke is pretty steep. It’s quite a reminder of how similar most Mac/Windows programs are – the metaphors and organization Autodesk uses are completely different than what you’re used to. Once you get it, it’s pretty awesome/powerful, (and could be even more awesome with some improvements) but the idea of switching a facility to Smoke as a primary editing tool?
It would need a MAJOR overhaul to fit that bill – interface, cost, SAN architecture, etc…
Well, let’s see what the big news is – but I doubt it would make sense for most places. With the XML/AAF conform, why do you need to edit in the same tool as you finish?
For short projects with a quick turnaround, it might make sense to skip the conform step, but I can’t imagine doing a large project, and sorting through hours and hours of footage and with Smoke would be more efficient than an Avid/FCP 7.
Just not sure “more editing centric” is good enough for most editors to make such a major switch…
Personally, I would love to see
1) some Lustre integration (or at least g-masks in the Color Warper secondaries!),
2) Are re-think of the Editdesk/Library relationship, and of course,
3) we’d all love Batch FX… (or at least Batch Export from the Library)We’ll see on Sunday!
(at least the speculation is only going on for a few days, as opposed to the endless months of spilled in over FCP-X…)
David Jahns
—
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
Best timesaver in the world is to pick up a Subway or some other deli sandwich for lunch on your way TO the show. Subways are open early, Starbucks will have sandwiches.
Yeah, it gets a little squashed in your bag, but you can pop out to the sunshine for 10-15 minutes and grab a bite, while everyone else is waiting in a 20 minute line to pay $12 for crappy cafeteria food. The BarBQ trucks outside aren’t bad, but there’s always that long line to stand in. Times-a-wasting!
And definitely enjoy a nice meal or two in the evenings. It’s hard with all of the evening events, but worth it. Personally, I love Diego’s in the MGM…
David Jahns
—
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
I recall back in the day, when Apple used to make their own printers, too.
Eventually, they decided to just play nice with other hardware, and focus on their core business – the Apple experience – at the time, that meant the CPU Towers, Laptops, and software.
Nowadays, the “Apple experience” is mainly iOS, but tightly integrated with OS X, laptops, etc…
It’s not much of a stretch to think of CPU Towers as just another 3rd party device for OS X to play nicely with while letting them focus on their main strengths.
David Jahns
—
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
I saw the demo at NAB last year, and it was a jaw dropper. They had an OLED, a CRT, and and LCD in a completely black room, all calibrated, playing the same demo reel.
After the color bars (to show they weren’t cheating), the first image that played on the was the white sony logo on black, and I swear to God, the OLED looked like it was floating in space, not even on a screen the blacks were so black. You couldn’t even make out the size of the black screen or frame or anything. Reminded me of Spinal Tap- “How much more black could it be? None. None more black.”
The rest of the demo was just as impressive as this review makes it sound, but that title card on black literally took my breath away.
Boy, that’s super-geeky, eh?
David Jahns
—
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
I forget where I read it, but the idea of licensing the OS for high-end workstations was supposedly been kicking around a while at Apple, and strongly favored by Tim Cook, but Steve didn’t like the idea.
The advantages? Keep the high-end pros happy and using Mac OS, while shifting the production responsibility to HP.
Even if they do announce a new version in 2012, I’d bet a month’s salary that it will be the last version ever, and we’ll go through this same ordeal in 2014.
Will iMacs & Thunderbolt be a sufficient replacement? For most editing, that would probably be acceptable. But as a Smoke on Mac user – I think I’ll be screwed. 🙁
David Jahns
—
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
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