ProVideo Coalition.com: the EDITBLOG on PVC by Scott Simmons

DaVinci Resolve for Mac has begun shipping en masse and is now getting into the hands of a lot of end users. Apparently I talked up the right people as I stalked the Blackmagic Design booth at NAB as they sent over a copy for testing and review. I wanted to install Resolve right away but a busy week of editing meant I didn’t have to time gut the office machine to get the cards in for a proper Resolve configuration. After looking at the install discs sitting around for a few days I couldn’t stand it any more and took them home to install there and at least get a taste for what Resolve for Mac is like. But my home Mac Pro doesn’t really meet the recommended system requirements ....

The Mac Pro I am working with at home is a single processor 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Xeon with 7 megs of RAM. As I mentioned it’s not technically a supported system but I do have the supported video cards (NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 for Mac [which has been discussed here] and a GeForce GT120). The 4800 does the heavy lifting for Resolve while the GT 120 runs the GUI. My home system doesn’t have the supported DeckLink card nor does it have the exact recommended internal storage (all system recommendations are in the Resovle for Mac Configuration Guide: PDF link). Instead I have a 2-disc RAID from the internal drives. It should be noted that an updated Resolve was recently released, 7.0.2, that does add some support for some older Mac Pros.

Installation

I wasn’t sure if Resolve would even install on this system since the MacPro wasn’t a “recommended” dual processor unit and I have an odd 7 gigs of RAM. RAM specifications in the Resolve Mac Configuration Guide are very specific: RAM: 6, 12 or 24 GB for memory optimization (not 8, 16 or 32 GB).

When I went to do the first install it actually didn’t work as I got this error message when the disc tried to mount:

Uh oh.

Ii looked like it was just a bad disc. After a discussion with Blackmagic I was told to log onto the support website and download the Resolve for Mac update. This was a full installer of version 7.0.1. Resolve for Mac is protected via a USB dongle so with that unique serial number I download the installer and ran it, installing without any issues.

Installation went off without a hitch. There was this message that popped up as I didn’t have any control surface attached:

Despite what this warning says the Tangent Wave panel doesn’t require a power cable which is good since it can’t get external power anyway. Wave power comes via its USB connection. The much bigger and much more expensive Resolve panel probably does require power even though it’s a USB connection as well.

Getting familiar with the application

Launching Resolve takes you to the User Login screen where you log in to the application or the administrator can manage users:

You have to first log in to Resolve in order to get to work. [FYI - the Resolve GUI is large and takes up the whole monitor screen. With the image size constrains here on the web I’ll be showing pieces of the GUI as opposed to the whole Resolve screen]

The application uses buttons across the bottom of the screen to navigate to its different work areas or rooms:

The Resolve tabs for moving to various rooms for various tasks.

These aren’t rooms in the sense that Apple Color has rooms but they are different parts of the program itself. One thing I noticed right off is that Resolve is a more complex application than Color overall. That’s not saying it can do more or is a better grading application (I don’t want to step into what will surely become a debate) but Resolve for Mac comes from its big brother Resolve system that has been grading feature films and network television for quite a few years. With that kind of full featured-ness you’ll see preferences and settings for a lot of things that you don’t see in Color. There’s probably a lot of settings that the Resolve for Mac user will never touch.

I’m most certainly a new user to Resolve only having seen a full blown Resolve out in the world a time or two. In preparation for the Mac version I have been studying the Resolve user manual for a few weeks but the best training I experienced was the DaVinci Resolve course from FXPHD. They’ve had a Resolve course in the past and were selling it in the Vault during the July 2010 term. While the class revolved around the older Linux version and the older Resolve panel the software interface seems nearly identical so it was very helpful to have watched the course when I sat down with Resolve for Mac. If you check the new October FXPHD term that’s just been announced you won’t see the Resolve class in their vault but rather a new Resolve for Mac course. Well worth taking if you’re going to invest in the software.

Upon signing in a user you begin in the Config room where there’s tabs to setup various user and project configurations as well as manage projects. The Project List will become important as you build time with Resolve as projects are loaded up there as well as keeping tabs different versions and lists that are imported on a specific project.

The Project List will manage your Resolve projects

There’s two basic ways to grade a project in Resolve, conforming an edit from raw footage or working with a self-contained clip like a QuickTime. With a self-contained clip you can use Resolve’s Automatic Scene Detection to have the application determine where it thinks the cuts are and then export an EDL for reference in the Conform room. Automatic Scene Detection works well and is faster than realtime (unlike a tape based DaVinci 2K which requires playback of a tape). You can manually tweak the results of Scene Cut Detection but it works best if you are provided with an EDL.

If you’re working with raw media you’ll become familiar with the Conform room in Resolve as this is where you’ll bring in an EDL or AAF file to conform an edit from the source files. The term “conform” might be foreign to some users coming to Resolve for Mac as a color grading session might have meant working right in Final Cut Pro with full resolution ProRes files or using the Send To command to get an edit into Apple Color.

With Resolve you have to conform the edit via a list (an EDL or AAF) and the media on your hard drive. With properly formatted media and a properly prepped timeline it’s really a breeze, at least it was on the simple edits that I used for my testing which is what I’ll talk about here.

The first step in conforming an edit is to get media into the Resolve Media Pool. You aren’t copying media from drive to drive as Resolve looks at media drives you’ve designated in the Resolve preferences when it comes time to add media. When you drill down to the proper media folders you then select the clips you want and add those to the Media Pool. It’s this media that will be used when Resolve goes to conform an edit. This Media Pool interaction takes place in the Browse room, which is the second tab in the Resolve tab bar. You can also audition clips with the Browse room’s viewer.

Designated drives are listed in the Browse tab’s Media Storage window.

A lot of actions in Resolve seem to take place via contextual menu option when you right click on the GUI. For example, in the Browse room you shift + select to highlight the clips you want to add to the Media Pool, right + click and choose Add to Media Pool:

You’ll also see the command for Add as Offline Clip (among other things) that is used to add an offline reference clip for checking a conform.

Once the Media Pool is populated with the proper clips for conform you hit the Conform room. It’s there you load an EDL or AAF and the conform should happen instantly where a timeline is created for the edit. Multiple lists can be conformed and you can jump between them with a single click, handy when changes come in. This is also where you view the offline reference against the conformed edit to check the conform’s accuracy.

A screen grab of the corner of the Resolve Conform room. The left windows include a Timeline Management pane for the different lists that have been conformed as well as detail of the currently selected EDL. The right is a viewer with transport controls as well as a timeline.

It’s also possible to Enable Editing via a right+click on the conformed timeline for simple drag adjustments of clips in the timeline:

Simple editing is possible via dragging IN and OUT points in the Conform room timeline if the editing option is enabled.

After the conform you move to the Color room where the grading (and the majority of the work in Resolve) takes place. Again, I keep calling the different parts of Resolve rooms but don’t confuse that with how Apple Color operates where you enter different rooms for different parts of the grading process. Resolve’s different rooms, tabs, areas, whatever, are for setup, operation and output of a session where Color’s rooms are for different parts of the creative grading process. In Resolve you do most of the creative work in the Color room and add different nodes for creative tasks like primaries, secondaries, windows, vignettes and things like that. Ahhhh ... nodes.

Resolve’s nodes include different types: serial, parallel and layer nodes. I’m not going to go into details of these different types of nodes as I’m still learning and understanding them myself. But they are and very powerful allowing the user total control over the image. Those who have used a node-based application like Shake will probably feel quite at home.

A correction with three nodes in the Resolve Color room. The pop-up Parade software scope is floating below.

The Color room will take a lot of time to master (at least for me it will). In this room exists the node viewer, timelines for viewing the edit, a timeline for dynamics or keyframe based grading changes, an area for saved stills, an image viewing window and all the grading tools. Turn on a few of the floating scope windows and things can get cluttered. You won’t see color wheels like Final Cut Pro’s 3-Way Color Corrector so if you have a control surface think about the color directions on a vectorscope as the directions to push the image. All the actual grading controls exist the lower left quadrant including the primary tab and tabs for curves, keyers, windows and blurring.

The Resolve Primary tab.

The Resolve HSL Keyer controls. Notice the tabs above for all of the other secondary options available.

Other rooms include the Viewer, Gallery, Format, Deck, Revival and Scene. There’s also the very important Render window that’s activated via command + R. There’s a lot of great output options via rendering including rendering each shot as its own file.

A portion of the Resolve Render window.

Next up: Testing a few workflow options for getting an edit into Resolve.

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I have to make a comment about the wrap up of the article…refusing to answer the question of which is better, Color or Resolve is, pardon my bluntness, a cop-out.

The ONLY scenario in which Color is superior is if you posted in FCP, are on a tight deadline, and don’t know/don’t have time to learn Resolve. Which of course is a VERY valid situation.

But don’t mistake ease of use for superiority. Having been a Color user since the day it was released, Resolve is superior in every way except ease of use. In many cases, far superior.

If you had said, “I refuse to say which is better, iMovie or Final Cut Pro”, most readers would understand exactly what I mean by the above.

Posted by Nate Weaver on 10/04 at 01:06 PM

I have to make a comment about the wrap up of the article…refusing to answer the question of which is better, Color or Resolve is, pardon my bluntness, a cop-out.

The ONLY scenario in which Color is superior is if you posted in FCP, are on a tight deadline, and don’t know/don’t have time to learn Resolve. Which of course is a VERY valid situation.

But don’t mistake ease of use for superiority. Having been a Color user since the day it was released, Resolve is superior in every way except ease of use. In many cases, far superior.

If you had said, “I refuse to say which is better, iMovie or Final Cut Pro”, most readers would understand exactly what I mean by the above.

Posted by Nate Weaver on 10/04 at 01:11 PM

I hope to read your follow-up article on the Resolve soon. And now for a bit off-beat question for you - have you heard of any plans to release it for PC?

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/04 at 01:54 PM

Nate - thanks for the comments but for me to even attempt to say one is better than the other would be disingenuous since I’ve been using Color for several years now and have only been using Resolve for just over a week. As I mention in the article there are entire features in Resolve that I haven’t even tried, hence the “kicking the tires” focus and not the article being a full on review or shootout between Color and Resolve. But this whole ‘which is better’ debate between software, cameras, platforms etc. is a tired debate. The better application is the one the user is most comfortable with and can do their best work on.

Lauri - haven’t heard about Resolve coming to the PC.

Posted by Scott Simmons on 10/04 at 02:34 PM

“But this whole ‘which is better’ debate between software, cameras, platforms etc. is a tired debate. “

True. I’ve been involved in a couple camera shootouts, one of them imploded before publication because of online discussion in the vein you’re trying to avoid.

I suppose the core issue is you simply didn’t get into the functionality that makes Resolve a more mature product than Color…and when you do, I suspect you’ll say as much.

Posted by Nate Weaver on 10/04 at 03:08 PM

“I suppose the core issue is you simply didn’t get into the functionality that makes Resolve a more mature product than Color…and when you do, I suspect you’ll say as much.”

That’s true Nate. Since I’m still learning Resolve I didn’t think it fair to the software to get into the grading functionality. My first question was with workflow between editing applications. There’s a LOT of things in Resolve that make it seem like a much more mature application than Color, first and foremost realtime. Rather than saying which is better I often think about which application would I use more often and I suspect that Resolve would win over Color but as if right now I still don’t know Resolve well enough to say that for sure. But man that realtime is very, very nice.

Posted by Scott Simmons on 10/04 at 03:20 PM

Nice Job Scott..I’m looking to building my Mac Tower for this set-up it was nice to know that u were testing this without the recommend system and still get a good performance out of it. Just a question though the BD HD 3D card seem to a little big will this card block the PCI another slot? I heard that u can install the card with out the HDMI daughter card..but i would love to use the HDMI out to my HD TV set it home…once i save enough $$ i would buy a monitor with HD-SDI input n use that…. again love the way you explain this..i’m an Avid guys. Seem to me you are not just an editor but seem to know where your way around a machine room..that where i start..in the machine room work my way up to the Avid bay hehe..i’m suprise a lot editors i work with got no clue in the machine room.. will anyway i bookmark your blog and this page PVC..best site for post info!!

Cheer
Dara

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/12 at 03:57 PM

Dara, thanks for the comments. I don’t have the DeckLink installed just yet on this system. It’s sitting right beside me, have to get between projects. I don’t think you can use the HDMI daughter card if you want the recommended configuration as there aren’t enough slots. We need more slots on a Mac Pro for all these damn cards!

And yes ... been around the machine room a time or two.

Posted by Scott Simmons on 10/12 at 04:58 PM

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