DaVinci Resolve working with cheaper Intensity Pro card...

cheezweezl

cheezweezl

Veteran
Not sure if this has been discussed before. I couldn't find it if it has. I just got my DaVinci Resolve up and running. Funny thing is, while waiting on a couple of things to come in, I went ahead and tried it anyway and it works!!!

I ordered a Decklink card to replace my trusty Intensity Pro that I've been using forever. I got a GTX 285 card for the GPU but am still waiting on the recommended GT120 card for the GUI.

So my current config is the GTX 285 card and the Intensity Pro. That's it. I'm running a 2008 Mac Pro 2.8ghz 8-core with 6gb ram. I also have the Tangent Wave panel.

With this setup, I'm getting realtime playback with primary correction (1 node) at 1080 30p. Framerate drops as I start to add nodes but I think that will amend itself once I get the dedicated GUI card. I may add another GTX 285 or quadro 4000 to the mix later for realtime with lots of nodes.

The interesting thing to me is the Intensity Pro actually working. I never output to a deck. It's always file based output. I only need the card for monitoring. So if the Intensity keeps working, I may return the Decklink and save myself a grand.

Here's a pic of the rig working.

web.jpg
 
Shhhhh, don't tell BMG, they'll probably send out a driver update that turns that feature off :-).
 
UPDATE: got my gt120 card for the GUI and installed it. huge difference!! i'm grading 1920x1080 prores422 with 3 primaries and 10 secondaries and still getting realtime playback at full quality without using proxies.

apple color = FAIL
resolve = WIN
 
Does your BM intensity pro card still work fine with your resolve output to your grading monitor?
If so, i think you stumbled on to the greatest discovery ever. BTW what is your setup, computer and monitors used for your grading?
I'm trying to setup my home system now and could use any recommendations.
Thanks!
 
intensity pro kicking butt. as of now, i have no need to spend the dough for a decklink. my grading monitor is a sony pvm-14L5. it's a crt monitor connected via component. my client monitor is a panasonic 42" plasma via hdmi. i don't do outputs to tape at my facility. i use a place down the street that takes my prores or dpx output and does the layoff to hdcam sr or digibeta or whatever. not worth it for me to invest in those decks...

my setup is a 2008 mac pro 8 core. 20gb ram. gt120 + gtx285. intensity pro. 3tb raid. tangent wave. wacom tablet.

performance, so far, is totally acceptable. for projects shot in hd, i'm grading prores 422 hq. i'm getting realtime performance at full rez almost always. if i have something that involves a ton of blur or keying, it can slow down but not much. turning on realtime proxies quickly solves this and makes it possible to do pretty much anything realtime. realtime proxy at 960x540 only shows a slight difference on the plasma. no difference on the crt.

one thing that may be a con for some. davinci won't output audio via the intensity card. tried once and it gave me errors. not a problem for me. i'm so used to grading with either my music or clients talking, having sound would kinda throw me off....
 
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Jimmy Moss said:
Do you need an interface for Davinci?
Click to expand...
Nope. But it's not as fast for fun to use it without one. I haven't used a color system that didn't make every thing available to the user through the UI (Lustre, Baselight, etc. The interface only quickens the workflow significantly.

Thanks for the reply cheezweezl! I guess the panasonic plasma's are the way to go. Is the sony pvm-14L5 an HD monitor? and does that matter for a grading on a crt monitor?
Do you ever deal with red footage? I want to conform projects shot on red edited in final cut back to 2K and grade the 2k r3ds project. Assuming you wanted to do this, do you think your system could play real time with the 2k r3d footage?
 
My system will grade red footage just fine, but not realtime. I have read that the new 12 cores will allow realtime 2k red grading. And of course a rocket card will get you there. The 14L5 is an HD monitor. I would say stay away from standard def monitors unless that's what you are grading. The panny plasmas are pretty darn accurate. Plasmas tend to crush blacks more than crt's but then again, nobody watches crt's anymore, especially broadcast monitors. I use both while working.

Regarding davinci without a panel. All functions are keyboard and mouse friendly. Color balancing will be a chore since there are no virtual wheels like apple color has. You just have individual controls over rgb and luma for lows, mids, and hi's. I suppose you would get used to it eventually but you'll always be slow. That's the beauty of davinci and a panel. It's not that you couldn't do a particular correction on a lesser application with no panel, it's that you just wouldn't because it's a pain and it takes too long. When it takes 30 seconds to isolate, motion track, and brighten a slightly dark face, you do it. If it's gonna take 10 minutes in after effects or color, you may just live with it the way it is.
 
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That's interesting to hear since I was a bit put off because on Blackmagic's page they say you need the most expensive card, the Decklink 3D or something and i already have a Decklink SDI. So I may not need to byu the expensive one and be able to get it to work with a Decklink SDI?
About the interface, it would be cool if tangent would release a vWave App with graphic color wheels etc for resolve :)
never used the one for Color but always wondered how much better it was than just a mouse.
 
i have heard about lot's of folks using older decklink cards with no issues... all of the BMD cards, including the intensity, use the same decklink driver. when selecting my card in davinci however, it comes up as "intensity pro"

honestly, the wheels on the wave are just a small part of what makes it awesome. i use the buttons, knobs, and transport way more than i use the trackballs. you can do almost everything from the wave and keep your hands on it 90% of the time. i occasionally use my mouse or tablet to grab color samples for secondaries but even that can just be dialed in on the wave using the hsl controls. i almost never touch my keyboard when grading.
 
Oh yeah, I'm sure the wave is great. But it's $1,500 :laugh:
This whole thing about Da Viinci at Apple Color's price only works if you can keep the price down. I know Da Vinci is better and was very expensive before but still. I would love to put a resolve suite together but it would be just for me as I don't think clients would pay extra for it. Just for the experience and delight of grading on Davinci and to gain experience on it too. But for that I would have to keep costs down as much as possible at least in the beginning. I would say price as close to a Color suite as possible.
 
Thanks for the info on this one! I am going to wait until after NAB to make the jump but Da Viinci sounds like such a good deal.
 
Yeah, it's a good deal for the software, but you still need about 15k in hardware to run it according to many.
 
Adamsenoj said:
Yeah, it's a good deal for the software, but you still need about 15k in hardware to run it according to many.
Click to expand...

Well, assuming you already have a newer Mac pro, you really only need a $350 gtx285, a $150 gt120, and a $200 intensity pro to run it and get realtime performance.

Of course, you need proper monitoring as well but that could be said for using any color app.
 
cheezweezl said:
Well, assuming you already have a newer Mac pro, you really only need a $350 gtx285, a $150 gt120, and a $200 intensity pro to run it and get realtime performance.

Of course, you need proper monitoring as well but that could be said for using any color app.
Click to expand...

My understanding is that you need a control board too no matter what right? While you can get away using only the mouse in Apple Color and I have done it that way so far, Resolve is supposedly VERY slow if you don't have a control board. I mean, you can do it, but not as well as with Color and I hear you will want to shoot yourself in the head. :)
Not true?
 
I don't know about shooting yourself in the head. The only thing that's faster with color while using a mouse is manipulating color balance. You have the virtual wheels in color while in DaVinci, you only have rgb and luma level controls. When using a panel, the trackballs change all four values at once.

I will tell you this. After spending the last month or so with DaVinci, I may be inclined to shoot myself in the head if I am ever forced to go back to color. Once you go realtime, 6-12fps just seems like a joke. Waiting hours for renders that are prone to fail seems like a huge waste of time. having a 3D tracker that works from the color screen with no track points to set becomes the norm and anything less (color's point tracker) seems silly. I could go on and on.

I know you are used to color and you think it's awesome. I did too when it's what I used.. But if you get the chance, really sit down with a DaVinci and see why it's been the standard for years and years.

I don't know where you reside, but if you're in LA, melrose Mac on melrose has one set up with the control surface. They'll let you go play.
 
Forgot a REALLY important point. In the last month I have graded a 9 episode web series, 4 music videos, a TV pilot, and 3/4 of a feature. Not a single crash. Not one. That's enough of a reason right there.
 
Oh, I'm sure Resolve kicks Color's butt. It should. it was always more expensive and it still is.
I'm considering getting into resolve. But having to buy a control board is what is putting me off at the moment. It would be great if there was something like wWave for Resolve. Is there anything like that in the market?

About Color, let's see what Apple announces on Tuesday. They are supposed to make a BIG announcement at the Supermeet. ;)
 
i'm hoping with fingers crossed and pretty please with sugar on top that apple will finally step up to the plate and give fcp users a much needed performance update. you never know, they may blow us away with cuda support for the whole suite. then again, history has shown that they could just as easily piss us all off in a huge way. i'm going to stay positive until the big day...

regarding interface, i don't think that there is a vwave type app for davinci. the way it uses the wave panel is very different than color does. in color, you select the tangent color plugin as your panel and then you have a whole interface that you can use to fully customize the wave to your liking. the ipad running vwave is recognised by the tangent color plugin, not color directly. so color doesn't know the difference.

with davinci, it has the wave as one of the options for panels, so it connects to the wave directly and not thru a separate plug-in. the downside is that you don't have any control over what button does what on the wave. that's something i wish would change. i mean they have almost everything that i would want already programmed to the panel and in a way that makes sense, but i'm a geek and i would love to change it up.

red cine-x does the same thing. works with the wave but no plugin and no options.
 
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