Kevin Cannon
Forum Replies Created
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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 -
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Great! Thanks!
Another question – does the XML resizing ever apply to clips in the master session? Or is it all specific to the timeline loaded from the XML?
KC
Prehistoric Digital
PhD Grading Suite -
I’m not sure if they explain this anywhere but this is what I gather:
The decoder settings happen first and they feed that image into all the other processes (grading, keying, PTRZ, stabilization) so in general it’s best to use full resolution when you can, especially for shots that are resized significantly.
Then Resolve scales the 4K Full Res (or half res or whatever the decoding is set to) down to the timeline resolution, but if you scale it up, it uses the optimal path. For example if you have 4K Full Res, scale it down into a 1080p timeline, then scale it to 200%, Resolve will calculate the resizing in a non-destructive way, rather than scaling down then scaling up. I presume the zoom for stabilization is part of the same calculation.
Again, as long as the source settings are set to Full Res you don’t have to worry much about the rest.
Cheers,
KC
Prehistoric Digital
PhD Grading Suite -
Although the Ultrascope supports 3G, it doesn’t support 444 RGB over 3G. it only uses 3G for 422 at higher frame rates. I’m sort of stuck in the same position… there isn’t a great and inexpensive option for 2K resolution or 444 RGB scopes… I could use a 2K > 1080p scaler to deal with the ultrascope being limited to 1080p, but the 444 is a little harder to sort out.
KC
Prehistoric Digital
PhD Grading Suite -
Try enabling “gray viewer background” in the settings… this might help because the viewer background will appear gray, and your 16×9 frame will appear as black or with picture.
Zooming the viewer doesn’t change any of the scaling, so “actual size” probably just zooms the viewer so pixels appear 1:1. But you would want to zoom out until you see all the frame edges (and with the gray background there’s no confusion about the frame edges.
KC
Prehistoric Digital
PhD Grading Suite -
The nice thing is that DaVinci will do the optimal scaling for you… so if you take 5K into an HD project and scale it up, you won’t lose quality. You will, however, lose quality if you have your source decoder settings set to half-res, quarter-res, eighth etc. The best thing to do is use “full-res premium” when rendering.
I find it easiest to keep the default “scale to fit” and then scale in the format > input tab. You will still get the highest quality (if your decoder settings are high) and the framing won’t change when you change the decoder settings (which I think happens if “center crop” is chosen).
Cheers,
KC
Prehistoric Digital
PhD Grading Suite -
Hi David,
When multiple GPUs were enabled for Resolve on the Mac, there was some discussion that OSX effectively had a ceiling of the number CUDA cores that could be put to work at any one time… Do you know anything to this effect or would you expect three 480s (inside of a Cubix Desktop 4) to have three times the power of one 480?
I’ve been working with approved set-up of three GTX285s (as you know).
KC
Prehistoric Digital
PhD Grading Suite -
If you bring up a DPX sequence in Browse window, select it in the Clip Details, and use “Change Source Timecode in Header.” That should rewrite the timecode in the file (as opposed to “change timecode” in the media pool which won’t write anything into the file).
I think it cannot be undone…
It shouldn’t change the filenames, but you can use Automator for that if you’re on a Mac.
KC
Prehistoric Digital
PhD Grading Suite -
Possibly the Mac needs to use more CPU resources to use the MC Color interface, and that your CPU isn’t powerful enough to do 1/4 Res Red debayer and run the MC Color. Try 1/8th Res and see… Also a Red Rocket card would take a lot of the load off the CPU.
I notice this occasionally when using RED footage, using the CPU to debayer, and drawing a lot of curve shapes in windows… I lose realtime playback not from too much GPU but too much CPU resources…
KC
Prehistoric Digital
PhD Grading Suite