[Marcus Smith]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for jumping in here and clearing up my terrible terminology.
I’m just learning about ACES and its clearly not the appropriate use of RRT here, and its great to learn from someone with your experience.

In regards to Arri log, I was referring to Arri’s implementation of log, for Post Production / grading purposes, not its full colour pipeline from raw to Rec709. With Arri log in Davinci the colour matrix and the log to video transform happens in one 3D lut. You can break the two up, but standard workflow is all in one.

It my understanding this is different compared to the Red log pipeline, or the original Sony Slog pipeline, where the colour matrix is applied and included in the original log format. The only thing is required in the signal chain is to add a 1D RGB curve to bring it back to a video 2.4 gamma viewable image. So when comparing these two log formats with ARRI log they are different conceptually (and visually if compared). Its still the same colour pipeline just different from the log part up, which is why I mentioned it here in this post. Is this correct – or have I misunderstood something?

I’ve also noticed with Arri log to REC709 3D LUT is that it appears to be bending and changing colours quite dramatically, more than just a colour saturation boost. Do you think its just a straight forward 3×3 colour matrix that’s being applied here? Or is something more complicated going on?

Thanks again!

Marcus.

[Marcus Smith]

It sounds to me like you either have:

1. The wrong footage. IE not the camera originals, maybe something with a lut baked in?

OR

2. The wrong lut. This is probably more unlikely though, as the standard ARRI lut works well and is clearly labelled in Davinci.

Arri log, ungraded, will have blacks sitting on the waveform from 256 and the highlights usually end somewhere around 680. That will usually take any log lut you throw at it without the intense contrast you are talking about. Arri’s implementation of log is somewhat unique in that it requires a Reference Rendering Transformation (in the form of a 3D LUT) to bring the colours up to the saturation of the original scene shot. This means that most 1D log / SLOG luts thrown at Arri log will look desaturated as it doesn’t factor in the RRT RGB transform that needs to take place to get the picture looking correct.

Also, ARRI log footage with the lut applied almost always gives you a low con starting position, with the blacks sitting around 100 and the brightest spots around 900.

Cheers,

Marcus.

[Marcus Smith]

Hi Bill,

Seems like your new to Davinci. Welcome!

Before I address each of your questions I’ll first make a comment about learning Davinci. Davinci Resolve is a very powerful grading and (soon to be) editing and finishing tool. It’s quite unlike most other Non Linear Editors and graders like Color, so I would advise spending a few hours running through the manual before diving in to the program. You’ll save quite a bit of time learning, doing it this old school / manual way. Some programs are easy to learn by just diving in without the manual, but in my opinion Davinci Resolve is not one of them.

You can find the manual here:
https://software.blackmagicdesign.com/DaVinciResolve/Manual/DaVinci_Resolve_Colorist_Reference_Manual_Feb_2014.pdf

1. Are you running the latest version (10)? As of version 10, all of your hard drives should show up in the media pool. The top left of the media pool shows the folder structures of your hard drive. By drilling down these folders (by clicking on them in the top left pane) you should be able see the contents of them in the right column next to it. Davinci will only show the contents of media it can pull in.

When you click on a folder that you know contains media and you can’t see the media in the right pane, the most logical explanation is that Davinci doesn’t recognize the media. Maybe your file extension is wrong?

2. The free (Lite) version in V 10 is almost identical to the paid version. There are some differences like the supported timeline resolutions, but if you’re just working in HD, you’ll be fine with the free version. Maybe try it out first before diving into the paid one, to see if it’s for you.

Whatever stage you are with your Post Production skill set, having Davinci under your belt can only be an asset. It’s an incredibly powerful program!

Good luck,

Marcus H Smith

[Marcus Smith]

Thanks for your thoughts gentlemen.

Just wondering if there is any differences between the Titan Black brands? Palit, Asus, Gigabyte and EVGA all make the Blacks. Will all the brands be fine working with Davinci?

Cheers,

Marcus.

[Marcus Smith]

[Mike Most] “I don’t have any real disagreement with your overall post, but I don’t know of anyone who is actually a working colorist who would prefer a Tangent Element set over the DaVinci panels under any circumstances.”

Well that’s me. Been working as a colourist in Australia for almost ten years on Australian TV, commercials and films. The majority of colourists I have met would prefer something like the BM panel but for those that don’t the reasons are twofold:

Firstly a lot of post production suites are moving to multi purpose rooms, where they need to do both onlining and grading. The BM panel is just too bulky and not practical in this circumstance.

The second is that the BM panel is not as ergonomic as mine / other’s custom solutions. The Tangent Element by itself is not as powerful as the BM panel. But it’s slimline fit and minimal buttons create a lot of space for custom USB panels to be placed seamlessly around it. Using well documented techniques on this forum of assigning complex macros to unsupported features in Davinci, you can match and even surpass the BM panel in terms of feature set. A lot of standard functions in the BM panel require two clicks or multiple buttons. Using your own setup you can get most of your needs down to one button. Furthermore the BM panel is plagued by excessive and wasted space around the track balls. In my opinion, a colourist wastes too much time wind-milling her hands around the panel, where most of the often used functions (such as STILL GRAB / PLAY / DISABLE or whatever the colourist feels is relevant) should be placed within centimeters of the track balls. Doing this means that both hands do not need to leave the trackballs for most of the time. A huge time saver.

The other ergonomic problem with the BM panel is that it hasn’t been designed with the mouse in mind. A colourist has to lean quite far to the right to make it work. It probably was designed before Resolve had features that required heavy mouse use. Now that Resolve is an online tool, and clients will require more mouse reliant tools such as FX, curves etc this undersight will become increasingly problematic as panel users will need to interact with the UI more.

These are all small points that are essentially about tiny moments of time saving. Being a little bit faster, shot by shot, adds up. We’re always pressed for time, so for me being a faster grader means that my work is better.

The negative side with the tangent and all the add on USB buttons is that the panels look UGLY! 😉 Well at least in comparison to the BM panel. I have had some colourists laugh when they first see it. But they acknowledge the benefit once they witness it in action. Interestingly the clients don’t seem to care in a film / tv setting. This I feel would be different in a TVC post production house, but there’s not many of them around anymore.

Cheers,

Marcus.

[Marcus Smith]

Seems to be another issue that BM could collect extra revenue by creating a second class of the Resolve software that bridges the gap between panel and software users. It seems BM haven’t worked out yet that there are customers with the money to buy the BM panel, who would choose a more ergonomic panel like the Tangent Element over their own BM panel.

I wager everyone who posts on this forum would pay an extra couple of grand or more for additional features such as adding TC and notes / etc. Currently there’s little difference between the lite and paid version without panels. Maybe BM should widen this gap and feature set, and make some well deserved money in the mean time?

Nat, our workaround to your problem is map a hotkey via a hotkey program to the add marker feature in Davinci. You can then tap out markers on the the fly and sort as such on the Davinci timeline.

I often find if you’re watching on the fly you remember the notes yelled out by the client if you have an accurate timecode marker.

Cheers,

Marcus.

[Marcus Smith]

Hi Francois,

I think most would agree that a custom mapping option for the BM desk and the major third party controllers would be the ideal solution.

The fact that the current BM desk doesn’t enable you to fully remap its entire function set suggests that they haven’t written an API for the controllers, and that the controller devices are to some extent hard wired / coded. If there doesn’t exist a controller API for Resolve then BM can’t be fully accused of trying to lock out controller competitors by giving their own desk more functionality. It may just be an under-sight.

However if that’s the case – if BM is really trying to recoup lost profit of the Resolve software by selling the desk – then why not introduce a second, more expensive class of the Resolve software that includes the custom remapping option? It’s a win-win situation and I’m sure many post production houses would pay and extra 3-10k for such a feature.

On the flip side BM might not care about recouping extra profit from the desk and might just simply be under resourced. Alternatively, the designers may not see the benefit and key mapping. In this case the ball is in our court to do something about it.

A number of threads have been started in the past without much luck, so I doubt if you’ll get BM’s ear this time given the history of the subject. However, there is another way we might achieve the goal of custom remapping.

It is possible to build a software controller that could enable remapping on the Tangent and other devices without BM’s help. It would be a matter of listening to the ports of the BM desk and then making a software controller that emulates it and tricks Resolve into thinking that it’s present. After that its a simple matter of remapping the controller keys to third party devices. I’ve recently looked into this and think it would cost about 10-20k to pay a software engineer to build. So it might be a great pozzible or kick starter project if others are interested.

Even without BM’s help, legally we’d most likely need them to sanction it. If they didn’t, then at least we would know where they stand in the controller market and pricing of the desk in the Resolve business model.

Marcus.

Marcus.

[Marcus Smith]

+1.

[Marcus Smith]

[Walter Soyka] “Does DNxHD 220X render any faster for your setup?”

On your suggestion I went back again to test the 220x codec with some surprising results. I tested one minute of Prores HQ and DNXHD220x footage rendered in 220x, 440x and Pro Res HQ timelines with and without GPU.

The findings were that 220x actually renders faster than HQ, which I was rather happy to find out! The other interesting thing was that the DNXHD timeline renders the HQ faster than its own codec. Still though, the 220x timeline can’t recognise its own format, ie if you render out 220x and bring it back into PPro, it still requires rendering.

So for now 220x is the best options for online. One hour of Prores HQ should take about 20 – 30 minutes to render, which isn’t the end of the world. I’ve published my rendering results here: https://www.hightail.com/download/OGhmeEVRUzhWRCtKUmNUQw

What is the best way to inform Adobe of these bugs?

Thanks again for your help,

Marcus.

[Marcus Smith]

[walter biscardi] “I love assumptions like this. Well Quicktime might only be 8bit in CC so immediately it’s unprofessional for delivery.”

Walter, did you not see the question mark in that sentence? I don’t see how an honest question about the whether the use of PPro is a valid online tool is an assumption, especially given the gravity of the mentioned problem in an OSX platform.

I also fail to see how your statement contributes to the issue at hand other than talking about the shows you have worked on.

Thanks,

Marcus.