After the successful launch and enthusiastic reception of DaVinci Resolve 11 at NAB 2014, Blackmagic Design, DaVinci Resolve Product Manager, Peter Chamberlain and LumaForge CEO, Neil Smith ran the first workshop outside of NAB 2014 to deliver a detailed overview of the new features of DaVinci Resolve 11.
A select audience of senior colorists from the Hollywood creative community was invited to attend the invitation only event run at The Lot in West Hollywood on Saturday April 12. Peter Chamberlain with the assistance of Andrew Balis, senior colorist at Hollywood DI took the attendees through an interactive and informal overview of the new features of DaVinci Resolve 11 running on the powerful AMD FirePro™ W9100 graphics processing cards.
CEO of LumaForge, Neil Smith notes that, “We’ve been working closely with the Resolve engineering team to provide feedback and suggestions on the broader and deeper set of tools required by modern file-based post production facilities handling 4K workflows and this latest version of DaVinci Resolve has gone way beyond what we were hoping for.”
The new version of DaVinci Resolve 11 was first announced and demonstrated at NAB 2014. Among the many significant additions to the already rich set of software features are:
Multi-user collaborative workflow with simultaneous editing, grading and metadata entry. (Full Version only)
User selectable enhanced and optimized foreground and background render caching.
Completely New Multiple Level Render Caching includes selectable cache points for source, nodes, clip and timeline, cache indicators on edit and color page showing selection and status of cache and user selectable cache formats; ProRes, DNxHD, Uncompressed 10-bit and 16-bit float.
Dual monitor user interface support.
Apple certified ProRes decode and encode support on Linux.
High performance OpenFX framework extension for multi GPU OpenCL and CUDA plugins.
GUI support for multiple languages; English, Japanese and Chinese.
User customizable keyboard shortcuts and presets.
Multiple auto save versions.
The combination of Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve 11 running on the new AMD FirePro W9100 professional graphic cards offers tremendous benefits in terms of processing and delivering 4K content. “The new collaborative editing and coloring features provide some incredible tools for editors, colorists and assistants to work together on projects,” says Andrew Balis, senior colorist at Hollywood DI.
Smith continues, “At NAB this year we saw the Media & Entertainment industry take a significant step forward along the road towards 4K delivery of digital content into the home. 4K digital cameras were everywhere along with UHDTVs but the missing piece up until now has been a powerful but cost-effective 4K finishing platform that allows content creators to quickly and easily get their projects out of the camera and onto the screen in the most efficient way possible.”
The combination of powerful PC workstations with AMD FirePro GPUs (Graphic Processing Units) and OpenCL architected applications like DaVinci Resolve, Adobe’s Creative Cloud and NUKE Studio from The Foundry are dramatically increasing the productivity and creativity of artists working with video content.
“Up until now, post production facilities were limited by expensive and proprietary ‘Roll Royce’ type finishing tools but now with the move toward OpenCL and COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) based solutions like DaVinci Resolve 11 running on standard PCs with AMD graphic cards, the creative community can enjoy the benefits of super-computer performance at workstations prices,” adds Smith.
LumaForge, a Los Angeles based system integrator and reseller works closely with companies like Blackmagic Design, Adobe, AMD, Supermicro, ProMAX Systems and Netstor to deliver high-end workstations, servers and storage at a fraction of the cost of legacy, heavy-iron alternatives. LumaForge also supplies training and support service to help implement these new cost-effective collaborative platforms.
Further Information
For more information about LumaForge and its ‘ULTRA RAWpower’ workstation, visit www.lumaforge.com.
For more information about Blackmagic Design and its products, visit www.blackmagicdesign.com.
For more information about AMD and its products, visit www.amd.com
AMD and FirePro are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. DaVinci Resolve and ‘Power Windows’ are the trademark of Blackmagic Design. All other trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.
