Why Davinci?

[Alex Prohorushkin]

Hello everybody.

I have long wanted to ask, but could not.
Why DaVinci?

Because - Price? Quality tools? Flexibility? Accuracy in color? Capabilities? Support?

After all, once the company BM lowered the prices of their program (Davinci), then immediately appeared thousands of "colorists" in the world who "can" create "wonderful" images.

Yes, of course, BM has made available to many people, the world of color correction. But BM did not create these people colorists!

Now almost every other editor thinks he "colorist" and that he is able to do the work of the Colorist.

It reminds me of the transition from foto-film to digital photography.
When I could for a long time to build the shot and choose the composition of the shot, before you take the picture. And then I selected the frame I want to print it already.

Now, I see the thoughtlessness and empty, without life pictures on the Internet.

So, "Why DaVinci?"

Alex.

[Margus Voll]

I went over as it was at that time still Hi end system and it was real time. Real time was most important thing for me. No rendering and instant feedback. Somehow i landed first Mac beta before it did come out on osx. At that time i had slow machine but i could work like that. Then i was doing it old school (film type grading) with primaries and offsets. Now going to it with lgg directly is more in fashion. By time i got better machine and finally got the speed i was after.

This is what went in and did come out if you care to see:

Before that we used to have Apple Color here but it was slow and painful to work with always rendering and playing it back then and re adjusting. I got better results faster even on super slow imac so it was no brainer to switch.

Now i'm looking to educate myself on different platforms as you have done.

This is my story short why i went with Resolve.

 

 

 

[Abby Bader]

Black Magic Design gave DaVinci a face to the masses, but their original color corrector (DaVinci 2k) was an industry leading tool way before that happened. People use it for their own reasons, and the big studios use it for other reasons than the price. 

[Ildus gabidullin]

First of all, a brilliant marketing idea
And of course, Davinci hi-end system
But I think the nodal system is better for compositing, for color grading,  layer system is much better 

[Alex Prohorushkin]

3 hours ago, Ildus gabidullin said:

First of all, a brilliant marketing idea
And of course, Davinci hi-end system
But I think the nodal system is better for compositing, for color grading,  layer system is much better 

Of course, the DаVinci system is amazing.
however, calling it Hi-end system, I want to know what the system is not hi-end?
Of course node system works quite good, and yet for the correct color correction are not only nodes and price.

All of you are right.
But why you use it?

[Margus Voll]

Maybe we should ask why not then ?

For my workflow it just suits good given that we have fusion now on board and raw editing is also nice option.

[Alex Prohorushkin]

2 hours ago, Margus Voll said:

Maybe we should ask why not then ?

For my workflow it just suits good given that we have fusion now on board and raw editing is also nice option.

Maybe so.

I like DaVinci, like the policy of BMD, like tools and regular support, updates, and of course price.

When I talk to colleagues in the majority believe that the priority and main advantage is the price.

Although with each new release of the system expands larger and larger An opportunity.

Alex

[Filip Zamorsky]

DaVinci is simply a great color grading tool. And it is an editing software too. I used to work with Final Cut Pro 3-6 and I would say that new DaVinci is already better. 

I also bought BMPCC - why would I use another software? 

[Alex Prohorushkin]

For more information:

- Assimilate Scratch - $ 650.00. In the case of Scratch VR Suite - $ 1,995.00.
- Adobe SpeedGrade CC, is included in the composition of the CC with a subscription of $ 75 per month or $ 600 if you pay once a year.
- Baselight Editions - $ 995.00.
- About Nucoda not say such was the price of $ 2700, but how many do not know now. (Or $5000)
- DaVinci Resolve Studio - $ 500.00.

- Autodesk Flame Premium (with Lustre) - subscription of $ 750 per month.

Prices only on the software without sockets, GPU, IO cards, and more.

[Bruno Mansi]

On 14/10/2016 at 0:16 PM, Alex Prohorushkin said:

When I talk to colleagues in the majority believe that the priority and main advantage is the price

While price is an important factor for small facilities or independent film-makers, I don't think the cost of the software is going do be of much concern to a professional post house. Given that the cost of installing a top-end grading suite (and the associated hardware) is going to reach a six figure sum, it's issues around workflow and support that are going to effect the decision about which software they choose.

I've talked to a few colourists in the UK who like the Davinci software, but have opted for Baselight. When asked why, they say that the support from Filmlight is much better to what Blackmagic offer, and that the Avid-Baselight-Avid workflow is vastly superior. Given that the majority of high-end productions are still cut on Avid, it makes perfect sense for them to invest in Baselight products. 

On 14/10/2016 at 3:35 AM, Ildus gabidullin said:

But I think the nodal system is better for compositing, for color grading,  layer system is much better

I don't think one system is 'better' than another, they both have their strengths and weaknesses. In the world of compositing, it's true that for complex work, nodal systems like Nuke seem to be better suited, but for simpler work, you can often knock something out on After Effects much quicker than in Nuke. In the world of colour grading, Colourists find the system that suites their style/workflow best. Whether you use nodal or layer based software will not effect the speed or quality of your end product - it's the toolset and the craft of the operator that will determine the final result.

[Thomas Singh]

The Baselight-Avid workflow is probably superior, but as long as your color corrector can export MXF, you can simply set the destination to the media folder and Avid will read the files natively.

[Bruno Mansi]

12 minutes ago, Thomas Singh said:

as long as your color corrector can export MXF, you can simply set the destination to the media folder and Avid will read the files natively.

The beauty of Baselight is that if you have the Editions AVX plugin installed in your Avid, there's no need to do any media exporting and re-linking from the full Baselight system - just a small AAF metadata file with all the colour correction information. Additionally, if you need to make a change to a colour correction, you can do that from the plugin, without having to go back to the full Baselight.

[Thomas Singh]

But I guess most colorists prefer to do their main color corrections in the standalone full version of Baselight. Then you need to export files. Or am I missing something?

[Bruno Mansi]

1 minute ago, Thomas Singh said:

Then you need to export files. Or am I missing something?

No, you don't, that's the beauty of the Baselight method.

Assuming that both the full Baselight and the Avid workstation have access to the original rushes (such as in a shared storage system), You send your cut from Avid to Baselight via AAF in the normal way. Once you've graded on the full system, you then export an AAF of the metadata - that is, all the colour correction decisions that were carried out during the grade. This could (of course) be sent to another full Baselight system to replicate the grade, but the AAF can also be used by the Baselight Editions AVX plugin installed in a separate Avid workstation to add the exact same grade to your Avid timeline. No need to export any media to Avid or do any sort of media re-linking. You simply add the Editions plugin on a spare track above your media, point it to the AAF file and within seconds you have a fully graded timeline!

Filmlight provide the AVX plugin for free, which can be installed on as many Avid workstations as you wish. They also have a paid version of the Plugin which allows you to have Baslight grading within Avid, or even do a preliminary grade that can be sent (and read) by the Full Baselight. This plugin also lets you alter any of the grades you received from the full Baselight. If the director and Colourist do a second grade, then you simply point the AVX plugin to the new version. If they just want to alter one or two shots, they can send you a BLG file - one for each shot, which you can use to upgrade those shots in the Avid timeline.

It's a very neat system.

[Marc Wielage]

It would be very interesting to compare the total price of equivalent systems from Baselight, daVinci Resolve, Lustre, Mistika, Nucoda, and Pablo Rio, and see how they compare. There was a time when they were vastly different. I honestly think today, an experienced colorist can achieve virtually-identical results, but there's always certain operations that are faster or simpler in one system than another. 

Resolve 12 is not a perfect system, but it does what I need it to do. Compare it to what was available even 6-7 years ago, it's lightyears better than anything. I think the competition between all the various systems ultimately benefits the users, but Blackmagic has been a formidable competitor and changed a lot of aspects of the business.

[Thomas Singh]

Some of the companies behind the color correctors are trying to expand their users group by marketing their products as something else or more than color correctors. Marketing DaVinci Resolve as the world most powerful editor is an example. I think that Mistika is the only product mentioned above that really is a tool that can compete in both the color grading and online league because of its extraordinary toolset. Probably some of the reason why the price is so much higher than the rest.

[Remco Hekker]

Recently, I spoke to a fellow colorist from the Netherlands. We discussed colorists moving to other platforms (than Resolve) such as Nucoda and Baselight.

It felt for a minute as if I was lagging behind in some way. He himself had invested quite some time in learning Nucoda and told me he needed to make some more hours to reach the same speed as he did with Resolve.

When he asked me why I was still working solely with Resolve, I had to think a little bit before I realized I don't have a reason to leave Resolve or to learn a different platform.

I Used to think I'm a Blackmagic fanboy. Thankful for the amazing tools they allow me to use for such a low price. I am sure I wouldn't be where I am now if they wouldn't have offered a free version back when nobody else did.

However, I am not.
I would jump to a different platform the minute I wouldn't be able to achieve something important to me. That just hasn't happened to me, jet.

In a recent episode of the colorist podcast, Adam Inglis compared the first platform you learn as your first language. I feel I still need to learn how to be eloquent in my first language before I 'll be successful picking up a second.

 

 

Edited June 14, 2017 by Remco Hekker
typos + added a link to podcast