Robbie Carman
Forum Replies Created
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Hey Stuart
Good to see you back on the boards – feels like its been a while
I’m a bit biased since I’m currently on the full Resolve Panel which is like heaven at your finger tips but we actually have both the wave and mc color with mc transport. So I can give a opinion on both.
WAVE – From a connectivity stand point the wave is awesome! One USB cable and your rocking. However if you have a central machine room (we do) where your computers are located you’ll have added expense of a USB extension box which can be a few hundred dollars (if going USB2) The mappings with Resolve are pretty good but there is still quite a bit of going thru pages and shift etc. As I’m sure you’ve read and others will probably mention the wave is a bit plastic feeling, with that said that is not my biggest complaint. I really just don’t like the joyballs separate from the lift,gamma, gain rings. Drives me crazy but that is really just a personal preference.
EUPHONIX – Fro connectivity MC Color and MC Transport are ethernet based (using the EUCON drivers). Its pretty straight forward to setup but you’ll have to go through a hub if you want to use both devices and then connect to only Ethernet Port 1 on the Mac Pro (pretty sure it 1 not 2). Depending on your setup this might be difficult to do – for example if you were on a SAN where your metadata network is on one Ethernet Port and your public network on another you might be out of luck – not sure about using a PCI based Ethernet card for connecting it. In my opinion the mappings for the Euphonix aren’t quite a good as the wave but for me the feel of the Euphonix with integrated joy balls and wheels is great. Seriously they feel “almost” as good as the big panel (just a lot smaller). With that said there is no where to rest your wrists like on the wave and the big panel, the balls will just fall out if you turn it over or are moving it around and there is not integrated transport section on the MC Color. We’ve not been able to get the MC Transport to work really with Resolve as far as transport controls go but we might be doing something wrong.
Anyway my two cents – both are pretty good panels but in my opinion lack the ergonomics and control of the big panel but hey what can you want when both are $1500 compared to 30k!
Robbie Carman
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Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion -
would be nice however if that message told you it was just standard black or tri-level
Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion -
[Jonathon Lee] “The price difference between the x2 and the x4 is about $500 on the B&H website. Having the 4 double wide slots will give you way more flexibility. You could have 3x GPU + RR which you would otherwise not be able to have installed.”
Agreed. I had originally purchased the x2 and thought I could make it work but it was a tight fit and once I caught the smell of what I thought was burning plastic I decided enough was enough and sold the x2 and got the x4. Its kick ass. I have 2 285s and a Rocket inside and its quick.
I’m tempted to toss another 285 in there but I seem to remember Rohit saying they weren’t happy with the performance of 3GPUs (or maybe just 3 285s) Maybe he can chime in to see if this is still the case.
Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion -
DPX can be input or output. For example you might have a project shot on film and using a datacine scaned to DPX files. From those DPX files you could create “offline” video files like ProRes etc to cut the story together and then in the finishing process in Resolve you could conform or relink back to the high quality DPX files.
Some editorial tools and plugins also allow you to edit with DPX files (glue tools for example enables this in FCP 7)
On the other end if you were doing a film out you’d most likely deliver DPX sequences for each reel of the film.
Its just another file format but a very high quality one. In fact if you want to play with DPX files to see how they can work download the AJA QT to DPX translator app from AJA (its free) and you can convert a QT to DPX and bring the image sequence into resolve. You can also of course output DPX from a project in Resolve.
Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion -
Yuri
I would suggest you pickup my good friend Alexis Van Hurkman’s book The Color Correction Handbook which you can find on Amazon. Alexis does a great job of going in to detail on these subjects and a whole lot more but in as you say “laymans” terms. Its a great read and will get you up to speed quickly.
Gamma is a deep subject that has many implications but put simply gamma is a non linear equal power adjustment. Often you’ll see gamma as it relates to a monitors non linear luminance response (2.2, 2.5 etc) in color grading to a non linear adjustment to mid tone contrast.
You should also check out the articles by Charles Poynton on the subject https://www.poynton.com/notes/colour_and_gamma/GammaFAQ.html
DPX (digital picture exchange) is an uncompressed file format its often used when scanning film but its also used in high end digital recorder and as file exchange for VFX and of course in grading. While you can have a single DPX file they’re often grouped as image sequences. So for 1min of 24fps content you’d have 1440 individual frames or separate files. Its main advantages are in its high quality uncompressed nature but also how it can handle things like log image data.
Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion -
at the moment not inside Resolve. Its a huge request of mine and I know others here have mentioned it. I’ve been creating grain in After effects and then compositing in Resolve but it does take a while to get out of AE and plus you need to know specific lengths etc.
My hope is that this is a feature we’ll see soon
Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion -
What everyone is saying is that you can download resolve 8 free from blackmagic. Anyone can download it but you need the dongle to make it work. So it doesn’t matter if b&h is selling 7 or 8 all you need in the retail box is the dongle
Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion -
nice one!
Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion -
well since Resolve is on Mac your set!
Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion -
totally possible, however as a professional grading tool you’ll see a lot more functionality and speed using a supported panel. Resolve was built with a control surface in mind – without you’ll be handicapped a bit but you can still function quite well but slower.
Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion