Davinci Resolve: program only?

[omar robles]

First of all excuse my ignorance. But I see Davinci Resolve is being sold for a affordable 999.99. I know the saying if something is too good to be true then it probably is. So my question is do you need to buy the control panel to make it functional? I realize you need a good video card, but besides that can you just use the standard mouse control to grade with?

[Christopher Barrett]

Not at all. You could drive Resolve with nothing more than a mouse and keyboard. Though... I would highly recommend at least going with the Tangent Wave or other entry level panel. These start at around $1400US and will add great efficiency to your work.

I love me some Resolve!

[joe hedge]

This is one of those exceptions to the rule of something being too good to be true not being true, haha

$999 is fir the control panel to function, plus a bunch of other cool features like denoies and networking

The free version does almost everything else, but you need some hardware acceleration, like a CUDA card (which Black Magic sells - hence the rub), to make it function properly

[Jeff Kilgroe]

You can just use your mouse and keyboard, no control surface needed. Alternatively, it supports other control surfaces in addition to the DaVinci panel -- such as the Tangent wave, Tangent Elements, and other popular lower cost options.

[Neil W. Smith]

First of all excuse my ignorance. But I see Davinci Resolve is being sold for a affordable 999.99. I know the saying if something is too good to be true then it probably is. So my question is do you need to buy the control panel to make it functional? I realize you need a good video card, but besides that can you just use the standard mouse control to grade with?

Omar, in answer to your question, there are a few things you should know about DaVinci Resolve .... we've been using it for couple of years now and are actively beta testing Resolve 9 as we speak:

1) Resolve offers great functionality at a great price - whichever version you go for you will not be disappointed ... the saying about 'things being too good to be true' definitely does NOT apply in the case of DaVinci Resolve.

2) there is a totally free version Resolve Lite which you can download from the Blackmagic site and play with on either Windows or Mac ... it does most of the things the "big versions'" do but not 3D or 2K and above ... so if you're grading HD stuff try out Resolve Lite.

3) the $999 version will allow you to do everythng the $30,000 version does ... the only differene is that you don't get the $29k dedicated BMD Resolve control surface. There is also a UNIX version which is probably out of your price range and skill level but is being used by major post-houses here in Hollywood.

4) while the $29k Resolve control surface is super-duper and has lots of the Resolve functionality mapped directly to the knobs and buttons, there are other less expensive control surfaces that offer great functionality and, for many coloring situations, are totally adequate ... along with the BMD Resolve panels, we've tested the following:
a) Tangent Wave
b) Avid Euphonix
c) JL Cooper Eclipse
d) Tangent Element

Of those four, the Tangent Element offers very good functionality at an excellent price point ... plus it looks very cool!

We include the Tangent Elements with our 'Dailies In A box' solution so we're slightly biased on how good they are :-)

If you're on a tight budget, the Tangent Wave is a good alternative.

Check the prices at B&H and you'll see the range ... if you have a spare $30k to blow, then definitely go for the BMD Resolve panels ... there are uber groovy ... if not, a full set of Tangent Elements will set you back around $3500.

Also, if you haven't used DaVinci Resolve 8 yet, suggest you wait a week or two for the public beta of Resolve 9 to be available .... it has a spiffing new interface and lots of new goodies and you won't have to re-learn the new layout.

Let us know how you get on and what you end up choosing.

Cheers,
Neil

[omar robles]

Neil

Thank you and the others for providing me with more then enough information to make a decision.

You guys are the best

[Mike Halper]

I started using Resolve without a control surface and it was sort of a pain because one slight movement of the mouse made a big difference. So I bought an Avid Artist Color/MC Color surface and that made a big difference. I didn't really like that surface though, so I returned it and bought the Tangent Element, and that's an awesome surface to use. I'd say it's probably the best one of them all unless you go up to the actual BMD surface. If you look around you might find some 10% off pricing on the full Element bundle.

[Neil W. Smith]

Neil

Thank you and the others for providing me with more then enough information to make a decision.

You guys are the best

Pleasure Omar .... you asked a great question.

Would also like to confirm Jeff and Mike's points about being able to use Resolve with a mouse and keyboard shortcuts - definitely usable for quick fix situations and demos .... but if you want to do any serious grading using Resolve, you should seriously consider buying a control surface ... it will save you much time and frustration.

The only exception might be if you're using the new Retina Display Macbook Pro laptop ... I'm running Resolve 9 on it now and the high resolution 15 inch screen gives you quite good control with the onboard mouse ... still better to use the Tangent Elements which are USB based.

If you're interested in seeing Resolve 9 in action, we'll actually be giving a demonstration and overview of Resolve 9 running on the Retina Display MBP at the LAFCPUG meeting on Wednesday July 25th ... if you're in the Hollywood area next week suggest you stop by ... Michael Horton puts on a good show!

Here's the details of the LAFCPUG Event on this coming Wednesday:

http://www.lafcpug.org/user_schedule.html

Hope to see you there ... if not, they do record the sessions and put them up on the LAFCPUG website.

Cheers,
Neil

[Will Steer]

How is the performance of the Retina Display Macbook Pro with Resolve? I have one arriving soon and have heard enough good things about Resolve that I think I'm going to switch to that, especially due to the (so called!) Lite version.

[Neil W. Smith]

How is the performance of the Retina Display Macbook Pro with Resolve? I have one arriving soon and have heard enough good things about Resolve that I think I'm going to switch to that, especially due to the (so called!) Lite version.

I think you'll pretty amazed with Resolve 9 running on the Retina Display MBP .... screen is gorgeous and the performance of the RetDisp MBP is awesome ... just remember to turn OFF the energy savings switches in System Preferences ... especially the graphic option ... the RD MBP defaults to the onboard Intel GPU and of course with Resolve you need to utilize the CUDA cores in the nvidia 650M GPU.

We have our RetDisp attached to the 27 inch Thunderbolt display and Promise Tbolt RAID ... the extra screen and I/O performance is unreal ... plus check out USB 3 drives (sweet!) ... 5GB per second compared to 3GBs for eSATA ... as soon as they bring out USB3 and Tbolt on the MacPro Tower, Apple will regain a lot of professional users and undo some of the damage they did with FCP X and the WWDC non announcement :-(

The RD MBP really is an amazing feat of engineering ... i'm running all the CS6 apps on it plus Resolve 9 plus Colorfront's Express Dailies ... we showed the system to some ASC chaps yesterday ... not often you see crusty old geezers behaving like kids at Christmas ... the times they are a'changin.

Cheers,
Neil