I watched the new Dune at home on HBO Max, being a huge fan of the original David Lynch version, and having read all of Frank Herbert’s original novels around the time the original film came out.
I still am trying to wrap my head around the fact that they Shot the film on ARRI Alexa LF for the most part, then color graded in DaVinci Resolve, then scanned back to 35 mm film and then scanned back for grading. Which is to say at the least an incredibly expensive process. And how did it integrate with FX, did they do the scan first or after effects were added?
Another great video from Chadwick shoults and this one showing just how fast the new M1 Max MacBook Pro is at DaVinci Resolve, which not only says allot about what Apple did, but also what Black Magic Design has done about getting DaVinci to really shine on Apple Silicon.
Man I can’t wait for an Apple Silicon iMac Pro and Mac Pro to really see what these chips can do, and if rumors are right they will likely be M2 Max chips, as the MacBook Air next year is likely to be the first M2.
Things sounds great so far, and it really gives me hope for the Apple Silicon iMac Pro and Mac Pro.
Still hope that plug in makers start speeding up the process of re-writing their software for M1. It disturbs me that even companies like Maxon with Red Giant hasn’t upgraded everything to M1 yet, even though it is a subscription, which means they really should be upgrading their applications quickly, because I am paying for them constantly. At least Adobe has the Beta of After Effects working on M1, but it is going to be limited on plug ins for sure.
Unfortunately they have gone Full Screen as default and it took me a while to figure out how to turn it the hell off, but when I did it fixed a big complaint which was DaVinci hiding my damn dock.
I love DaVinci, and I love all the free updates at a rapid pace, but my biggest complaint about DaVinci is it’s lack of customization, and I find forcing full screen mode to be another customization annoyance.
My big complaint with Final Cut Pro (x) is that it feels designed by engineers who want to force you to use a program how they want to, and not how you want to. I have always felt AVID and Premiere allow you to set things up how they work best for you, and I always customize allot, with DaVinci you are forced to work how they want to, down to being forced to hide my dock, and now being forced into full screen mode. And honestly my biggest complaint of this is the menus. i want the menus there all the time, not dissapearing and coming back when I put my mouse there, that loses efficiency!
OK anyway, to turn it off, you have to bring up the menu, then when you see the stop sings, hit the green one.
Full Screen Mode in Davinci with Hidden menusWhen you put your cursor in the menu, the dots come up under the menu and the green turns off full screen.Exit Full Screen
And even better once I exited Full Screen mode, DaVinci added something new, for the main screen I can now resize the window and it even shows my dock! WOOHOOO.
I have never liked Full Screen nor having my dock go away, as I leave it up always on my main monitor, so actually I think this is great.
Now if only the second screen worked like this as well, this is how the second monitor works in Final Cut Pro and I hate it there as well.
And there is a ton more to like in the new update, look at all these features:
What’s new in DaVinci Resolve 17.4
Key Features • Hardware accelerated Apple ProRes on Apple M1 Pro and M1 Max. • Faster DaVinci Neural Engine performance on Mac OS Monterey. • Native HDR viewers and 120 Hz playback on supported MacBook Pros. • Native Dropbox and Dropbox Replay integration with render presets. • Sync markers, comments, annotations with Dropbox and Dropbox Replay. • Export timeline markers as YouTube video or QuickTime chapters. • Steinberg VST3 support with access to even more audio effects. • Simplified auto color management settings with SDR and HDR selection. • Improved 3D keyer and matte finesse controls. • New Resolve FX including film halation and custom mixers. • Text+ support for combined glyphs, right to left text and vertical layouts. • Subtitles can auto resize backgrounds and decompose to parent timeline.
Apple M1 Pro and M1 Max • Hardware accelerated Apple ProRes on Apple M1 Pro and M1 Max. • Faster DaVinci Neural Engine performance on Mac OS Monterey. • Smoother 120 Hz UI and playback on M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pros. • Native HDR viewers on M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pros. • Native full screen mode on Mac OS.
Dropbox • Dropbox login within DaVinci Resolve preferences. • Render presets for Dropbox and Dropbox Replay with background uploads. • Sync comments and annotations with Dropbox Replay in Studio. • Sync markers and comments with Dropbox in Studio.
Edit • Subtitle and caption backgrounds now auto-resize to fit text content. • Subtitle tracks in nested timelines now decompose to the main timeline. • Adding a new subtitle caption now auto-focuses on the text area. • Simple titles and subtitles are faster on Apple Silicon systems. • Improved ease in and out functionality for position curves in the timeline. • Options to include effects and grades for render in place operations. • Switch multicam angles in the edit page with the speed editor. • Ability to mark selection for timeline gaps. • Edit asymmetric audio transitions created in the Fairlight page. • Trim video and audio transitions asymmetrically using cmd/ctrl. • Fine audio clip gain adjustments using shift + mouse drag. • Support for pasting retime attributes on audio clips. • Option to limit audio sync to the first timecode match. • Preview composite modes by hovering over each mode in the inspector. • Ability to set per-clip deinterlace quality in the inspector. • New square iris transition. • Support for custom aspect ratio controls for shape transitions. • Improved overlays for Fusion tools in the viewer. • Improved undo support for Fusion effects and Text+ in the inspector. • Support for folder based organization of effect templates. • New customizable key actions to go to previous/next timeline tabs. • Ability to close timeline tabs with middle click. • Preview generators and titles from the effects panel in the cut viewer.
Color • Support for an automatic mode for color managed projects. • Support for ACES 1.3, gamut compression and new CSC transforms. • New 3D Keyer with new modes, better selection/stroke logic, live feedback. • Improved HSL and luma keyers with updated matte finesse controls. • Track forward and back with a single action in trackers and magic masks. • Node tooltips now indicate LUT and effect type present. • Dragging new links to layer and key mixers auto-creates node inputs. • Dragging color nodes over key links creates key-to-RGB connections. • Added individual primary and secondary tool icons for faster switching. • Clip filters for timeline clips with Dolby Vision analysis or trim. • Disabled clips are now shown as gray in the timeline. • Support for applying camera LUTs and CDLs to ARRI MXF ProRes clips. • The printer light state is now persisted across application restart. • Navigating to markers in the timeline now auto scrolls to center marker.
Resolve FX • Film halation emulates film stock reflections and scatter with Studio. • Custom mixer to combine effects and grades with finer control. • Improved 3D, HSL and Luma keyers in edit and Fusion. • Better noise handling and key refinement for existing keyers. • Improved patch replacer with ability to align source and target. • Film grain with interactive previews and grain freeze options.
Fairlight • Support for Steinberg VST3 audio effects on Mac OS and Windows. • Ability to reorder, move and duplicate effects in the mixer. • Support for copying clip ranges with partial fades. • Single sided audio transitions are now displayed as fades. • Support for multi channel audio outputs on Linux. • Waveform displays visible at smaller track heights and lower zoom levels. • Ability to shift-click and cmd-click on keyframe selections in the timeline. • Navigating to previous or next timeline marker now selects the marker. • Improved default processing order in Fairlight mixers. • Automation curves display current values when no automation is present. • Flashing edit cursor in edit selection mode. • Improved column order and search behavior in the clip index. • Improved jog, scroll and shuttle with the editor keyboard and speed editor. • Fairlight FX meters have resizable displays and improved channel labels. • Improved audio performance when using Blackmagic monitoring devices.
Fusion • Text+ support for combined glyphs and right to left language layouts. • Improved vertical Text+ layout, vertical glyphs, rotation and line direction. • Improved Text+ character grouping, spacing, underlining and borders. • Text+ supports per-character stylistic sets for supported fonts. • Support for OpenType features, including old-style numbers in Text+. • Multiple Text+ improvements for character styling and animation. • Hover to show tool descriptions in the effects panel and add tool window. • Improved default tracker search and pattern size for grid warps. • New search area scale slider in tracker options.
Codecs and File I/O • Improved encode settings for YouTube render preset. • Option to export a timeline marker color as YouTube video chapters. • Option to export a timeline marker color as QuickTime chapter markers. • Support for decoding opus audio in QuickTime and MP4 clips. • Hardware accelerated Panasonic 8K AVC decodes on Apple Silicon. • Improved decode speeds for ARRI ARX clips. • Hardware accelerated H.265 encodes on free version on Windows. • H.264 encode profile options on supported Nvidia systems with Studio. • H.264/H.265 encode bit rate controls on supported Windows Intel systems. • Faster hardware acceleration on Windows Intel systems with Studio. • Support for rendering EXRs with ZIP1 compression. • Ability to add custom languages in DCP/IMF composition naming options. • Ability to use approved operator / rating / region lists for DCP naming. • Marker support in the IO encode plugin SDK. • Ability to bypass re-encodes for Sony XAVC Intra clips. • Improved retention of comments metadata for third party XML workflows. • Improved display of render job names with tooltips.
General • Right click audio icon to adjust volume on media, color and deliver pages. • Auto-identifying media storage sequential image formats as stills or clips. • Prompt to overwrite existing projects when invoking save as. • Locked project indicator for PostgreSQL databases with usage info tooltip. • Ability to clone a PostgreSQL database from the project manager. • Ability to export PostgreSQL access keys from the project manager. • Option to import into current timeline when importing an AAF. • Scripting API support to access inspector properties for video clips. • Scripting API support to set playhead position on the timeline. • Scripting API support to get color version for video clips. • Scripting API support for reflecting upload status in render job APIs. • Scripting API support for setting network optimization in render jobs. • Scripting API support for H.264 multi-pass encode option in Mac OS. • Improved scripting property set when querying MediaIn nodes. • Addressed an issue with Vimeo login. • General performance and stability improvements.
Minimum system requirements • Mac 10.15 Catalina. • 8 GB of system memory. 16 GB when using Fusion. • Blackmagic Design Desktop Video 12.0 or later. • Integrated GPU or discrete GPU with at least 2 GB of VRAM. • GPU which supports Metal or OpenCL 1.2.
So yesterday I had a post how Adobe’s new color correction feature in Premiere Pro 2022 didn’t do anything to fix the gamma shift issue on Mac on exports, and I posted a link to my post in a facebook group on Premiere Pro for Pro users.
Responses included finishing everything in DaVinci, which does nothing about Premiere’s handling of the issue, and people saying just work on a PC which will fix the issue, though it won’t if you have people viewing on Mac, because the gamma shift will happen then.
And then there were the responses about putting the Gamma 2.4 tag in DaVinci in fact tagging the clip wrongly to display correctly on Mac, and I decided to do a little test with Parallels to see how the clips show up in Windows. And I know that putting the Gamma 2.4 tag on your footage is ignored by YouTube, which ignores a 121 tag on footage and in fact forces 111 which will then have the gamma shift.
So to start this is short film I am working on, and the first part are the clip set with the DaVinci Gamma tag set to Gamma 2.4 on export.
This is the Gamma Tag I am talking about.
So I exported the show with this tag.
So the left is the 111 tag and the right side is the 121 tag on mac in quicktime. The 121 is much closer to what I am seeing on my external monitor
So this is the 111 on left and 121 tag on right, these look the same, and actually look better than the 121 tag in Quicktime,
So the left is the clip with 121 tag in quicktime and the same clip in VLC on the right, VLC looks like the correct look, so VLC is still the best solution.
Now I wanted to see about the tags and how they would look in Windows, so I have Windows 11 installed in Parallels, and I used both just Windows viewer and VLC in Windows, now I just used whatever size they opened at so I will scale down the other images to match framing. And the frame might be slightly different as I couldn’t figure out how to go frame by frame in Windows player. This is all on my iMac Pro, though screen shotting form mac, find it interesting that the 121 Gamma 2.4 tag matches on Windows to Mac, but VLC on Mac and WIndows doesn’t and VLC on Mac looks closest to what is on my external monitor.
So the 111 on the left and the 121 on the right tag look the same in windows.
So this is the 111 tag on the left and the 121 tag on the right in VLC in windows.
And this is the 111 tag on the left and the 121 tag on the right and to me the color correct looks the same.
On the left is the 111 tagged clip in Quicktime on Mac and on the left the 121 tag in VLC in windows to see the gamma shift.
And this one I don’t get at all, but here it is, VLC on the Mac vs VLC on windows, the mac version seems correct, and closest to what I am getting on my external monitor. If anyone can explain it, please contact me about what is going on here. Windows 11 is on the same display as the mac, though I am taking the screenshots from the Mac into the parallels Window.
On the left we have the 111 clip on Mac in VLC, and on the right the
I am very confused about this last one, I think the VLC on the mac looks most like what the image looks like on my external monitor, but on the mac at least the clips exported from DaVinci with the 121 Gamma 2.4 tag look closer to the image than ones exported with the 111 tag which completely show the weird gamma shift.
So for exporting from Premiere Pro, I guess if you can get people to use VLC is the best option, but if you can’t I would love if Premiere was able to add the 121 Gamma 2.4 tag to exported movies because it will look better on client machines.
I have also read the YouTube ignores the 121 tag and plays video at 111, so they will look blown out on YouTube. Does Vimeo do the same? I might have to do some tests and see what the results are when I have a chance.
If anyone has any thoughts please let me know.
EDIT:
So since there is such a difference in VLC, I decided to try another app that doesn’t do ColorSync on Mac and that is Firefox in Windows 11 and Mac.
The left is 111 on Firefox Mac and the right is 111 on Firefox Windows. The Windows one looks better to me, but the mac is better than quicktime
So strangely Firefox looks different on Mac and Windows. Better on Windows, but not as bad as Mac Quicktime for sure.
OK so I have posted about this at Adobe Uservoice to ask Adobe to add the ability to change the gamma of a clip on export. I know you don’t want to do this for final export, but for clients viewing copies, it would be nice to guarantee that those on Mac and those on Windows see something approximating what I see on my external monitor.
