[Marc Wielage]

It’s sobering to reflect that 90% of all questions here boil down to:

1) how can I get inexpensive hardware to provide better performance? [and the answer is often, “get a much more powerful computer”]

2) how can I get highly-compressed source files to play back in real time? [and that answer is often, “transcode the material to a less-compressed format]

3) how do I use such-and-such a feature [RTFM]?

[Marc Wielage]

[Michael Gissing] “You can’t blame software for trying to render as fast as the machine allows. If it overheats its a hardware issue.”
Yes, that parallels the response from BMD. They pointed out they have other computers that get even hotter but don’t add any glitches at all to the picture. I think it’s three problems: a) bad ventilation within the Trashcan Mac; b) design flaws with the AMD D700 [sacrificing size for reliability]; and c) a large batch of defective chips that AMD accidentally let slip out. What that percentage is, I have no idea. I only know that I got three bad ones, and the one I have now is the “least worst” of the three.

[Marc Wielage]

[Robert Olding] “I understand that Apple has a recall on some of the Mac Pro’s with D700’s but curiously, we didn’t have the issue with any of the machine’s until we started using Resolve 12.5. Makes me wonder if some of the problem may also lie with Blackmagic.
“
I’m not convinced the problems are Blackmagic Design’s, because there are people running Adobe Premiere who are also running into GPU glitches with 4K material under some circumstances. BMD has also demonstrated that there are perfectly fine Mac Pros out there that have zero glitches at all. I honestly believe this boils down to “bad hardware,” and in particular “bad cooling.” iStat Menus and Macs Fan Control let you see the internal temperature of the machine, and GPU #2 can get up to 180° F during really stressful renders (with the computer itself averaging around 148°).

[Marc Wielage]

[Rob Davis] “Now, if you were planning on printing to film emulsion or something that’s another story and a good reason to apply a LUT right off the bat so you know how that specific emulsion will impact your image.”
Actually, it has been possible for some time to drop in the LUT as the front end for the film recorder, so the final record-out interneg image is precisely set for film color space. It can be done, and in fact I’ve done it on a half-dozen films released on film print. We worked this way at ILM (to name just one facility).

It doesn’t happen a lot these days, except for very wide-release studio pictures. For small indies and TV, they’re never gonna hit film in 2017 except in very rare, unusual cases.

I get that some people cling to LUTs as a way to get to a starting place quickly, but I honestly think a PowerGrade can do just as much good. I don’t have a problem working in the right color science (like RedColor or whatever), which is not the same as a LUT. DaVinci CTLs are another alternative that will hold up well and are actually better than LUTs in a lot of ways, but are not as widely used.

[Marc Wielage]

[Willian Praniski] “And regarding the LUTs then, am I right if i say that a good colorist should be able to grade the image and maintain a consistent look without using any LUTs??”
It’s possible to do, but there’s no harm in using actual color science to put the file in a good starting point. The problem with an actual LUT is that they can be destructive and get in your way, particularly if the material is shot poorly. Bear in mind this is still an 8-bit camera, and that alone is a big hurdle to get past.

[Marc Wielage]

Spend the money and pay for the Studio version. Having access to noise-reduction, sharpening, motion blurring, OFX, and 4K and up resolution is extremely useful. The old adage “nothing good is ever free, and vice-versa” particularly applies to post-production.

[Marc Wielage]

[John Sniadecki] “we are actually editing a very simple 90 minute feature in Davinci Resolve Lite and want to conform the project for color correction at a post house that will be using Davinci Resolve Studio. The original footage is 5K scans of Super 16mm film (delivered to us as .mov files). We are editing in a 1920×1080 timeline, and I need to bring the project back to the 5K original, i.e. I need to deliver a conformed Davinci Resolve Project with a 5K timeline that can open with all the media linked to the original 5K .mov files.”
It can be done, but you’ll need the paid version of Resolve Studio 12.5. I would suggest buying the dongle version and not getting the Apple Store version.

Relinking and conforming media (chapter 22 of the manual) is one of the most critical in the entire book. What you describe is not that complicated, and it’s done every day. I would question the workflow: I’m not convinced there’s more than 2K of MTF sharpness in Super 16mm to begin with, partly because of the lack of pin-registration. I think 2K would’ve been fine for the scans, but that’s me. At worst, you could’ve gone UHD 3840×2160, and that you can do with free Resolve. Even if you have to deliver 4K (which is extremely rare for non-broadcast indie projects), 3840 would’ve been reasonable, albeit excessive for 16mm. My joke is, at least in 4K, you get more grain.

There are a lot of issues with choosing a workflow that have to be settled before you begin the project, not afterwards. I would give a plug to Patrick Inhofer’s excellent recent “Conforming Giants” series on complex workflows and conforming on MixingLight.com. (Note this is a pay site.)

https://mixinglight.com/insights/

[Marc Wielage]

I don’t think Auto-Sync is the answer. The reality is for any multiple-camera project, you have to deal with a degree of doing it by hand. It’s not that hard, and if it’s long takes (like a concert), it’s very simple to do.

I was one of several people who worked on a long-form 22-camera Rolling Stones concert a few years ago, and we had about 300 hours of material to go through. It all got done, and everything was precisely in sync. Roughly half of it was done completely by eye — no timecode, no nothing, just watching and listening. You develop a knack for it over time.

[Marc Wielage]

[Tom Durham] “It seems like I have the same need (doing some color correction without being able to purchase a true reference monitor.) I’m about to purchase the LG Electronics 31MU97C-B. I’m doing a small indie and need to be able to view, and eventually output to DCI P3 and Rec 709.”
A cheap LG computer display is not going to be good enough for grading purposes. It’s fine as a GUI monitor. You need a serious color-managed, calibrateable monitor that you can really trust in order to do a decent job in Rec709. Once it’s in Rec709, you can use a LUT to convert to P3 for theaters.

Too many people seem to believe because software is free or even $995, they can use a very low-cost monitor for acceptable results. Nothing could be further from the truth. You can draw a parallel to sound: you can buy Pro Tools for $499, but the cost of building a good room and buying speakers for a theatrical sound mix are many thousands of dollars.

Read Alexis Van Hurkman’s Color Correction Handbook, which goes into great detail about the need for good monitors for color correction.

[Marc Wielage]

[Joseph Owens] “The notion of re-purposing a grading application for editing — in particular dialogue editing – for me at least is falling into the category of *lipstick on a pig.*”
I don’t think it’s quite that bad, Joe, but I would agree that Resolve is a color-correction program first and an editing program second. I think if you throw enough hardware at it, it could actually be used for editing… maybe not a vast documentary with 2000 hours’ of material, and maybe not a 20-camera live concert, but for smaller projects, it could work. My hope is that it will only get better over time.