[Vladimir Kucherov]

You obviously gave the Resolve manual a closer read than I! Looks like I’ll never have to tell the client “that’s too complicated to track convincingly, we’ll have to take this to an after effects artist” again!

As for the 8800, I didn’t know this was the case. I’m thinking though I’ll try it anyway, since I want to wait on the GTX. There are too many variables right now in terms of GPU, with rumors of a new Mac Pro as early as september. It may even make more sense to sell my current machine and buy a new model.

[Vladimir Kucherov]

Oh wow, I haven’t even heard that. If that turns out to be true, it’ll be huge, especially with how good the roto tools in AE cs5 have become.

By the way, assuming the DaVinci comes out before the new line of Mac Pro’s and GPUs I am going to give it a test drive with the GTS 8800 I currently have. I’ll couple that with a GT120, and hopefully it’ll chug me through the month of two waiting for more news from Apple. The 8800 has about half the CUDA and RAM of the GTX 285, so I am guessing it either won’t work at all or will give me very few realtime nodes. Again, only a temp solution, but I’ll update on if it works!

[Vladimir Kucherov]

I definitely see where you’re coming from. I don’t think DaVinci is automatically a “Use Color? Then get DaVinci” type of system. I currently make my living using Apple Color and defend it often because you can push it much farther than people give it credit.

Now to upgrade a mac to a decent DaVinci rig seems to run in the 2 to 3 grand stage when buying up GPUs, the video card, and the software itself. That is definitely not trivial for a freelance colorist, and yet there are a few key features I’ve noticed that make it worth it.

Conform tools is a huge one. From what I’ve seen, if a client throws an entirely new edit on me, I can still make that work. Multi point tracker – this one’s huge, and could have saved 16 hours of my life last month. Real time playback is a big deal too – seeing all the keying and vignetting happen at full speed is important.

I think those 3 things to start with are big. Also, if DaVinci can finish to file with any degree of finesse, that means you can skip buying FCP altogether.

Again, it all depends on the clients needs and wants. I know in my case I can definitely do better by them with a davinci system than in color, and grab a few new ones by offering faster turnaround.

[Vladimir Kucherov]

You’re right, I haven’t counted correctly! It does seem that a good Mac Davinci workstation will require the magic of the next update (if there is one, and if it does have some magic to it!).

For those of us building such a workstation on a budget though, I would suppose some creative dremeling. Most eSata cards I’ve seen have enough space on the plate to cut an opening for an HDMI lead to go through reaching the back of the Decklink. Not elegant, but I suppose it’s a way in a pinch.

[Vladimir Kucherov]

the HDMI part of Decklink 3D is just a bracket that connects what look like HDMI ports on the back of the main pcie card. So you can stick that into any backplate slot you have open with some finesse, or, I would imagine with a bit of hacking, even pull a longer cable straight out of the main card somehow.

[Vladimir Kucherov]

Power draw indeed! It’s silly how hard it is to find exact specs for Mac Pro power supplies. Question is, can the following kits be run on the following machines?

Kit 1:
GT120
GTX285
BM Decklink HD
RAID controller
4 HDs

Kit 2:
GT120
GTX480 (if it’s real)
BM Decklink HD
RAID controller
4 HDs

And our possible computers are:

Early 2008 Mac Pro

Early 2009 Mac Pro

Late 2010 Mac Pro (I’m guessing/hoping they release one in a few months).

[Vladimir Kucherov]

How does less RAM hurt the 285 in terms of performance?

[Vladimir Kucherov]

Thanks for the update Peter!

I’m curious – if NVidia comes out with a new card, is it safe to assume it would just work with DaVinci?

Also, since only the GT120 is actually used for display, would a non-mac GPU possibly work for DaVinci’s number crunching?

[Vladimir Kucherov]

Any more info on this?

[Vladimir Kucherov]

That sounds fantastic regarding red support. It would be a huge time saver not to have to intermediate through DPX.

Knowing how detailed customizations are with Wave & Apple Color I have good faith in the Tangent guys to provide plenty of flexibility. It sounds like what might be key is the ability to write macros, combining a string of common shortcuts together. Let’s hope that’s included.