[Mike Most]

I think it’s FUD to imply that a problem that you might have experienced means that Ethernet connected control panels in general are unrealiable. If that was really the case, high end systems such as Baselight and the DaVinci 2K wouldn’t have used them.

One issue on a particular combination of hardware does not mean that Ethernet itself is the problem. And it doesn’t make it any more or less reliable than any other interconnect, including USB.

[Mike Most]

I think one of the issues here is that there are certain functions that are not exposed in the software and are only available if you’re using the DaVinci panels. One of these is ripple, which many of us are used to having from the 2K. That would allow you to change the ripple mode to absolute and copy to a group of shots in one step, but that is one of those functions that seems to now be restricted to the DaVinci panels. I would like to see that available again, along with the semicolon and colon functions that allowed you to instantly copy from two shots back or one shot back – which is also only available on the DaVinci panels.

A number of us are mouse aversive…..

[Mike Most]

That’s not what Gareth was asking. What he was asking is how to select a group of clips and apply a correction to all of them at once without actually having to create a group. In version 8, you can select more than one shot by shift clicking on the VSRs, but simply selecting them doesn’t seem to create a group selection in terms of applying a single correction unless you go through the additional step of creating a group. That seems like an unnecessary additional step in many cases where you just want to apply one correction as a starting point.

[Mike Most]

From your post, my guess is that you’ve never worked on network dramas and/or comedies. The reason your suggestion is not practical is because a) not everything that goes in the show is a Quicktime file, and b) a lot of VFX show up at the last minute. It is impractical and a bit time wasting to do a reconform every time a new group of VFX shots arrive when the show has to be completed, colored, rendered, played out to tape, and delivered that night. Not to mention the simpler fact that Final Cut is not used for many network dramas and comedies. Ours is an Avid dominated world, and even the sight of Final Cut in a room being used for these things might cause some producers to have seizures.

As for the XML issue, I wasn’t being pedantic. The only way a program like Resolve that’s been set up to properly interpret Final Cut XML files could understand other types of XML files would be to rewrite the entire parser to understand different tags and data structures. There is no similarity in terms of database or edit structure between the three systems we’re talking about, and no commonality of terminology. Your concept of “trivial” and that of the programmer who has to write the parser and integrate the information into a form that Resolve can use are probably two different things. As I said before, just because these programs generate XML files doesn’t mean there’s any commonality between those files other than the fact that they’re written as XML. If you write two different programs in C++, they don’t do the same things even though they’re written in the same language. Same thing here. If you don’t believe that, generate an XML file from Avid or Premiere Pro, and generate one from Final Cut. Compare them and you’ll see what I mean.

[Mike Most]

XML is a general purpose metadata document, not a video EDL. When I said XML, I specifically referred to a Final Cut XML files, which consists of tags and data structures that are specific to Final Cut, just as Avid’s XML files are specific to Avid, and Premiere Pro’s are specific to Premiere Pro.

For some reason, people seem to think that there is some kind of video list exchange format called XML. That is not the case. XML files are specific to the program that’s generating them, they are not general purpose EDL replacements. So what I said is true in the sense that I was referring to the Final Cut Pro XML document that Resolve and other programs can properly interpret. XML documents are used for many purposes that have nothing to do with video editing because all XML really means is a text document with tags and metadata in a specific format.

[Mike Most]

>>I wonder what “pros” thought of the first AVID release?

We were pretty darned impressed.

In 1987 (I think….), I was one of a select group that was shown what was to become the Avid Media Composer in a suite at the original MGM Grand (now the Ballys) during NAB. Bill Warner had put together a system running on an Apollo minicomputer, using magneto-optical drives and a self invented video compression scheme, that he had designed multiple interfaces for. One was based on online editors, one was based on a film rewind bench metaphor, and there was one other that I can’t quite recall. At the time, nonlinear editing systems had already arrived and were being used on network television shows (i worked for Lorimar at the time). Ediflex, Montage, Touchvision, Editdroid – all of these were based on having multiple copies of all your source material and multiple transports that would precue for a real time playback of your “virtual” edit. They worked amazingly well, but Bill saw that the future of computer based editing was, well, in the computer. In the demo, we saw postage stamp sized, highly pixellated images, but it was clear that the complete random access nature of what Bill was doing was the future. We came out of that demo and my boss at the time said we’ve just seen how we’ll all be editing in 5 years. The only thing he was wrong about was the timetable, it was actually 3 years. By the next NAB, Avid on a Macintosh was born.

The difference between the introduction of the Avid and FCPX is that Avid didn’t try to tell editors how to cut, and they didn’t try to change the editing approach. They used new technology to get rid of all of the physical transport limitations, and provide some assistance in terms of organization (although they used the “bins” metaphor for a good reason…..). Apple is trying to tell editors that they know more about what they do, their thought process, their cutting room organization, and their working habits than the editors do. And that editors should just tell their producers and clients that they don’t need tape or hard copy deliverables any more, because Apple says they don’t. And that’s why they’re getting the reaction they’re getting.

[Mike Most]

>>On the Blackmagic Design web site, in the Support area for Resolve Mac, under Support Notes, is a PDF >>doc that describes the Resolve Wave control mapping..

Hi Dwaine,

That link (the Support Notes) is broken and has been for at least a week. Which is a bit frustrating because I would like to get some kind of guide to the panel mappings on the MC Color, but can’t seem to find it anywhere.

Regards,
Mike

[Mike Most]

A followup to my last post…..

In thinking about this I realized that it seems Resolve is always trying to conform from AAF using file names rather than Avid UMIDs. That would cause the behavior I’m seeing. Is it possible to add a user selection to allow for either one? That would in theory allow reconnecting to either the original sources when the system can play them (i.e., ProRes on a Mac but not on Linux) or the DNx media when that’s what you want. That’s something Smoke does and it makes things quite a bit more flexible.

Just a thought….

[Mike Most]

There is already a thread here called “log to lin.” In it I put the following post:

Good suggestion.

I would add that for most material you’d want to do this with, it would most likely be starting out as video gamma, not linear. So “what Sascha said,” with the caveat that you should probably make it “Video” to LogC rather than Linear. You should also make sure you make it Extended Range (in and out), 1D (No Matrix), and then Force 3D Lut in the output section. Select DaVinci format, drop it into the Library->Application Support->Blackmagic Design->DaVinci Resolve->LUT-.Arri folder and you should be all set. When Resolve starts, it should create a dat_3dlut file from the .dat file for you. It will then be available in any node via the LUT pulldown, under 3D.

That should explain what you’re asking about.

[Mike Most]

Thanks Peter, that’s really great news. Greatly appreciate the return of the mix mode. I’ll know now to expect the transforms a bit down the road and I won’t mention it again ;-D.

Communication is a great thing. Apple can definitely learn some lessons from you guys….