It has expanded AMD support, optimization for Apple’s M1 chips, and support for the latest Adobe releases. You can read about the changes here.
Neat Video is incredibly good and they keep getting better and faster, the only rival is noise reduction in the Studio version of DaVinci Resolve, but I have found they are great companions, and tend to work on software that the other doesn’t do well on. I try out one and then switch to the other if that one isn’t working as well. And I have Neat for Premiere Pro and After Effects as well.
I so want a BlackMagic 6K Pro. My Canon 60D just shoots such crappy video that my Osmo Pocket looks so much better even without things like lenses. And the fact that I have some canon lenses (though of course not the best glass) means I could have some glass to shoot with it.
And the tilting back screen and view finder really sell it for me if only I was making enough money.
It is well worth checking out the differences. And it seems that ProRes RAW does seem better, but it doesn’t work in DaVinci Resolve, and BRAW works better in DaVinci Resolve. So it depends on how you are finishing, and I would assume ProRES RAW works better in Final Cut Pro X.
Now it is great for them to have a store, but the store is pretty useless to me if it doesn’t have SideShowFX in it, because they make the profiles for pro video users. Now you can find software for streaming in the store, but the Stream Deck really works for Pro Video users, and to not have that software represented seems like a huge mistake.
I still plan on doing an article on Steam Deck and SideshowFX, but have been so busy I haven’t had the time.
Fstoppers has an article with a video on the awesome X-Rite Color Checker (why doesn’t Premiere support it?) of which I personally use the Passport edition.
I do find that sometimes it doesn’t work (and I have yet to figure out why) but when it does it gives an awesome baseline for every shot. You just have to convince the camera department to shoot it every time the lighting or setup changes.
Still this is an awesome tool and one everyone should shoot with.
And this one from Craig Beckta at FStoppers which I need to watch again, because she goes into how to setup and export your videos to deal with the Mac Color shift, which is huge!!!!
Now I was a huge fan of SpeedGrade when it existed, and greatly lamented it’s passing when it went away. For those of you who don’t know, SpeedGrade was a professional color correction software much like DaVinci Resolve that Adobe purchased and added to their creative suite for a while, and then gutted it and that is where the Lumetri color panel came from. What I miss the most was that unlike with DaVinci where you render out movies with the grade baked in, the grade from SpeedGrade could be exported a single movie or movies of each shot, but you could also roundtrip to premiere and the entire grade came back to Premiere as the Lumetri plug in on your clips! Not only was this much faster, especially since most Lumetri grades would play back in real time without rendering in Premiere, but it saved hard drive space too and made the whole round-tripping thing a real pleasure.
Sure it wasn’t quite as powerful as DaVinci Resolve at the time, but it was plenty powerful and at the time even beat DaVinci on a couple of things.
Of course by this point DaVinci has vastly moved on from SpeedGrade, but this is Adobe we are talking about, and they could certainly update it (and give it multi-monitor support). And maybe bake in some After Effects tools for masks and tracking and the like.
Now Premiere Pro has the Lumetri Color Panel, but it isn’t near what SpeedGrade was and no where near what Premiere can do. So the Adobe Creative Suit really needs a high end color correction package and it could be the evolution of SpeedGrade or as Randi Altman called it Lumetri Pro (I wish I could take credit for the name).
Universe is available as a subscription for $199 a year, or as part of Red Giant Complete for $599.99 annually or Maxon one with all their products for $1199 a year or you can pay a monthly for $30, $79 or $149.
Personally I have used the Red Giant plug ins for many many years, and they have many of my go to effects. They are also fast and work across editing software for the most part. It is a big expense every year, but I find it very worth it for the suite of tools. And honestly if I could afford it would love to add Cinema 4D to the mix.
