fxguide quick takes » BlackMagic buys daVinci – confirmed.
Word on a big sale in the post-production industry seems to have broken Labor Day evening that Blackmagic Design is buying da Vinci. Most everyone in post has heard of Blackmagic Design (their convertors and capture cards like the DeckLink and Intensity or the new UltraScope) but I’m often surprised how many are not familiar with da Vinci. da Vinci makes high end color grading and film restoration systems. These are very expensive hardware and software based machines that grade the biggest features in Hollywood. If you’ve never been in a da Vinci suite and witnessed their realtime systems in action or worked in and around a market that has a da Vinci them maybe it’s understandable if you’ve never heard of them. Rest assured that they are legendary and the color grading term of a “power window” wouldn’t exist without them. We have a 2k Plus at Filmworkers Nashville and while it’s not the newest system that da Vinci makes it’s amazingly powerful and produces astonishing images, often from what seems like an unrecoverable frame, at lightning speed. No rendering required.
What’s in store after this acquisition? No one knows for sure so the best we can do now is read the email Blackmagic Design CEO Grant Petty. Thanks for fxguide for breaking this story as it could make some big waves in the post-production industry. Maybe they’ll move forward with that version of Resolve that da Vinci had running on a laptop at NAB 09:
As a comment on my Flickr feed where the above image resides says … color me intrigued.
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15 Comments
http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/technology/what-next-for-di/5005140.article
da Vinci Resolve is an amazing product but it also is amazingly expensive. In this post recession world are there enough sales of these systems?
I think that’s the magical question. It also can’t be cheap to R&D this stuff either.
Interesting to see a maker of enexpensive products buying
a maker of real expensive products. The migration
is going to be that da Vinci products are going to PLUNGE
in price
As an old-timer (30+ years producing long form documentaries for PBS, the networks, and cable), I have long considered a really first-rate color correction session (on a DaVinci system in recent years) and a sound mix in New York or LA to be standard budget items. Budget pressure, combined with the color correction and audio features in non-linear edit systems, have seduced those who control the purse strings into thinking they can output the same product at a much lower cost. They couldn’t be more wrong. The mere fact that you feel compelled to recognize that the DaVinci name will be unfamiliar to some of your readers indicates how far this industry’s standards have declined.
I think what your seeing is the beginning of the end of the days when someone is willing to pay $500 to $700 an hour for color correction. It is sad the way our industry has changed. Experience counts for nothing when every kid out of junior college knows the ends and outs of Final Cut’s Color. But what they do not have is the eye that only years develops. At the end of the day it is one more “death by digital” RIP Da Vinci I knew you well
daVinci sits in a similar position as SGI did a few years ago. Their time has come.. and passed. It’s just pixels.. you cannot ignore the masses and stay alive. The reason not that many people have heard of daVinci is their own fault – arrogance. Success and high margins on a product always seem to blind the marketing and sales organizations. It’s their fault I do not have a clue what their system did, how it worked, why I should have aspired to learn and use their systems? Blackmagic will most likely allow the masses to see what it used to be like to do finishing on a high end system, and face a difficult road of keeping the existing base of high end clients happy, just as SGI had to do before. And another thing, what is an Inferno?
My guess would be that Black Magic buys the technology and makes a product that blows away Apple Color, maybe for the PC first and later the Mac. They have a track record for making rock solid products better, cheaper and faster.
I think this is a game changer. No two individuals have commoditized the Post industry more in the past several years then Steve Jobs and Grant Petty. Blackmagic buying da Vinci will have an even bigger impact than if Apple had bought them. Apple bought Shake and buried it, but Blackmagic will move quickly to leverage the Resolve technology and integrate it into a low cost product.
they should of bought AVID the stock is in the tank, and when they reduced the price of adrenaline from 25K to 10K, symphony from 50K to 12K & nitris from 95K to 15K is not so much due to competition, but lack of leadership by their management team – how long before DV’s price is cut ? because of Apple, Adobe, Sony, Edius & others -
So… just how expesive is it?
Follow-on questions to what does expensive mean for Resolve? What sort of laptop does Resolve require? Mac only? 17″ Mac Pro? Maxed? or …?
Products like Apples “color” and Red Giants “colorista” have to be eating away at the client base for da Vinci. They are like comparing apples and oranges but fewer small projects are turning to post houses with da vincis and instead are finishing in house. Maybe a Nle/da Vinci hardware/software is in our future…
Bob – I dont think this is the end of daVinci, its a new beginning. I think Blackmagic will undoubtedly breath new life into daVinci product range. Why would you buy the company to let it sit and rot.. Regardless of the cost equipment to perform a given task, color grading in this instance, If you don’t have the right person sitting at the desk, you wont get a good result. Anyone can learn to drive a piece of software, not everyone has the talent or the passion to color correct or create, high end clients will still pay for talent to enhance their footage. Post houses may now have a chance to profit from shrinking budgets….
I can’t imagine that Blackmagic wouldn’t do something great with da Vinci. While the prices might not remain so high to get the kind of realtime performance that a dv Vinci system is capable of requires lots of hardware. That costs $$. Can you imagine grading Terminator: Salvation on Apple Color and the nightmare that it would have been? That’s an extreme example but I really think there will always be a place for da Vinci in the market … thought maybe not at the current price point.
it’s the way to go. what you can do on a million dollars suite now can be done on a 20k dollars suite. same quality, same output. maybe a little less realtime at the beginning, but it’s just a matter of (short) time. quality is in the hands of the artist who’s doing the job, not in the machine that lies underneath. i thing blackmagic will bring davinci right on track: great product at the right price. i find this exciting rather than sad. my 2 cents.
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