[Kim Krause]

funny you should mention the fcp plug ins…they have been great for my business. everytime an editor uses them in final cut i always end up being hired to redo the job properly in color….editors edit and shouldnt be messing with color…but i’m glad they at least try so i can get more work from them when it all goes wrong! hahahaha

[Kim Krause]

thanks for clarifying that…..thats the first real honest answer i’ve found. i’m not a resolve user yet but am very open to the possibility in the future….both color and resolve have their strengths and weaknesses but i just get a bit fed up with people making false claims. i use color exclusively but would be the first one to curse its shortcomings. i really miss the soft clip features and dedicated hue control over individual vectors that davinci always had. i have never had to render a clip to play it in color so i dont understand that scenario! but when you put them both together and compare apples to apples (pun intended in this case) it does come down to comfort and convenience. also for me there is a cost factor. $1000 is cheap in america and europe but in south africa it is a different story, the software is actually closer to $1600 and there are some other tech issues that have to be considered. i hope people will realize this and stop comparing a high end resolve suite with all the goodies, to a single mac running color. the rendering thing is a real bone for me as well. even in a tape to tape situation you still had to output the grade to a new tape which meant having 2 decks and playing out…this causes the price to be much much higher than just rendering to the clients drive and sending them off. and i mean really the last time i rendered a 30 second commercial it only took 90 seconds and it was done…thats not much of an inconvenience in the real world!

[Kim Krause]

you’re absolutely right craig…you will find davinci in most “high end” post houses. and that’s really my point. high end price tags! there is a place for the more economically challenged and in case you don’t follow international economic news, the big trend right now, especially in my town is towards downscaling and cheaper solutions…..i often have to work on a budget that wouldnt even buy cigarettes and coffee in america…i’m very serious! i have to to crawl on my hands and knees and jump through hoops just to get paid my daily rate which is about equivalent to the hourly rate in some so called high end post houses! as for my other comments, i have worked on a davinci system for over 25 years and have played around with resolve for the last 4. it is a messy interface and still makes no logical sense to me from a user point of view. and if you read some of the other posts here, to get the best out of it you need the panels, as was pointed out in regard to the secondary isolation and vector curves issue….i just don’t have that kind of money to invest so i am forced, for now, to stick with what works!

[Kim Krause]

maybe you need a new mac…i can get faster than real time on mine…i always have to remember to check the “maintain frame rate” tick in user prefs to make sure……and i still say no to sound…it’s enough to have to listen to the client go on about how great his last job was and then explain in great detail how he used this and that to do the shot…..if he was so great he would have lit it properly in the first place and never bothered with the grade…

[Kim Krause]

i’m really laughing now…so if color is so crappy why would the davinci boys being trying to copy it? oh i know because it works and makes sense to almost anyone…i just recently finished a half day training course for young editors on the use of color….within 10 minutes i had them all up and grading and understanding the process…by the end of the session they were all drawing user shapes and tweaking the secondaries and even doing basic tracking of shapes….try showing even some real colorists that on a resolve and it would take all day and they still would be scratching their heads for days until it sunk in! what do they say about “the sincerest form of flattery”…..

[Kim Krause]

this whole sound argument is a lot of b.s. years ago we stopped syncing sound in the telecine suite because it just took too damn long if there was no smart slate or not enough pre-roll on the audio or no slates at all…it was way quicker to just concentrate on the color and give the sound over to audio department where they would just sync up the rushes…way cheaper and you can get more work through the doors of the telecine suite. last time i even heard sound in a grading session was 10 years ago when we used to do tape to tape grades from digi-beta! even then we would alwyas turn it down…nowadays the sound is still being mixed while you are doing the grade so i dont understand this need to have sound in the grading suite……why not put grading in the audio suite as well? besides its much more fun to pop on your favorite tunes or even the radio while you work without having to hear some rough half mixed bad audio track over and over….that would drive me nuts…i remember once a client asked me if he could hear the audio from his show while we we’re grading…..i told him the audio suite was down the hall…..

[Kim Krause]

or just grade in color then send back to fcp…sorry i couldn’t resist…the round tripping is one of the best features of color and fcp and i still haven’t seen an easier way. i guess you could always import the video as one chunk then import the edl or use auto scene detect then grade it…..

[Kim Krause]

thanks for the feedback…like i said earlier, i’m open to switching if i can improve my workflow and offer a better product at a competitive price. but right now for my money and the clients i service it’s not an issue.
oh and speaking of clients, about 95% of mine just drop off the drive and fetch it whenever i’m done. in south africa, we have to work with budgets that are often 1/10 that of an overseas production so for me to set up a suite in an office with all the stuff i would love to have (eg: control panel, external scopes, huge monitor, cappuccino machine, etc..) i would have to charge way more per hour and would be out of business within a few months…there is just not enough of that kind of work to justify the outlay…..besides clients trust me to do the job well and i dont want them hovering over my shoulder anyway.

[Kim Krause]

i just finished a stunning feature film…all shot on on the canon 5d….graded in color over 4 days….maybe i’ve been lucky with color but it’s still my tool of choice..i’ve played with resolve in a telecine suite and i never found it to be very intuitive. and i keep hearing that you need more than just the bm intensity card to make it work…and what about the panels? like i said earlier, i am very open to the idea of upgrading if i can find a tool that actually helps me work better and brings me in more money…right now i don’t see anything that fits the bill…i just wish the good folks at pandora would bring out a pogle for the mac that costs less than a grand…i’m sure it would be the bomb!

[Kim Krause]

just to stir the pot…i hate seeing people get all caught up in the hype of the latest whatever when all they really need is the tools they’re comfortable. i used davinci products for almost 30 years and i never liked their market domination. have you ever used a pogle? its so much better than a davinci in almost everyway yet they have never managed to crack the market the same way……remember that having the latest car doesnt make you a better driver! i’ll continue to haunt these pages, if for no other reason than to keep a fresh perspective on things. how do you like your new system by the way. i am still waiting for a reason to upgrade and am genuinely interested in user feedback in case i ever have to make the jump.