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DaVinci Resolve 21.1

blackmagicdesign.com

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Re: DaVinci Resolve 21.1

#71
post #54
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there has to be demand for it. There are hundreds of tasks that could be automated right now, and people still choose to do them by hand. Just because something is technically replaceable doesn’t mean it will be replaced and editing is a deeply personal part of the process for almost every director. It will change, but for serious work, it will never be a sure shot job handled entirely by AI. Sure, for low ef…

> ...but for serious work, it will never be a sure shot job handled entirely by AI. Maybe not entirely handed by AI but when AI starts doing it better than most and in a fraction of the time, for a fraction of the cost, why do you think it wont be at least partly delegated to AI? the "never" is what gets me here.

> the "never" is what gets me here.

The process is the point for any passionate creative. And yes, for every passionate creative you have a burned out creative who's trying to make ends meet who will use more AI centric tools because both that creative and the people paying them likely do not care how things look when they're completed, only that they're completed, on-time, and under budget.

However, again, an actual creative wouldn't. Imagine you and I are climbing a mountain: I'm climbing the mountain because I love climbing mountains. Climbing mountains is what I live for. I work full time and hard as hell so I can afford trips to climb mountains. You, on the other hand, have a terminal illness and you know that at the top of this mountain is a plant you can eat that will cure you with no side effects. So we're both doing this thing, but for WILDLY different reasons.

If as we're climbing a helicopter flies up and hovers behind us and the pilot says "hey I'll take you to the top of the mountain if you want!" we're going to have very different responses: you don't care about climbing mountains, and even if you do, you're not on this particular climb to enjoy it; you're here because you need this plant to cure your illness. You'd be crazy to not jump in that helicopter and get what you need to live. However, I'd be equally crazy to do the exact same thing, because climbing the mountain is why I'm here, I live for climbing mountains, and I want to climb this one.

This is what AI people do not get about creatives and why we talk past each other. AI people think creative people make things to have finished works, and that's certainly a part of it, and basically a requirement if you'd like to monetize your creativity. But like, I work in software as my day job and I'm bloody good at it, but I use AI to generate code sometimes because the process of developing software doesn't do nearly the same thing for me as creating art. I love making art, and I'd do it even if it made me no money. And I know that, because I've been doing it my whole life and it's never made me money. I feel depressed if I go too long between making works of art. I get ideas building up inside me and they itch and scratch at my being until I sit down and spend several hours turning said idea into something I can see, but like, if I just put a prompt into an AI image generator, I feel absolutely nothing doing that.

All of that to say: I genuinely do not believe AI will completely replace all of this, for no other reason than only a fraction (sizable though it may be) of creatives will ever want it, let alone use it. The quality of it and arguing about if it can "match" a human creative isn't the point, the humanity is the point. I don't want to look at AI generated art, and so I won't, and I especially do not want to replace my creative output with that of Midjourney. Ever. I don't care how good or cheap it is which is why those arguments just bounce off of me. I'm here to climb a mountain and you're offering me a staircase.

Re: DaVinci Resolve 21.1

#72
post #54
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there has to be demand for it. There are hundreds of tasks that could be automated right now, and people still choose to do them by hand. Just because something is technically replaceable doesn’t mean it will be replaced and editing is a deeply personal part of the process for almost every director. It will change, but for serious work, it will never be a sure shot job handled entirely by AI. Sure, for low ef…

> ...but for serious work, it will never be a sure shot job handled entirely by AI. Maybe not entirely handed by AI but when AI starts doing it better than most and in a fraction of the time, for a fraction of the cost, why do you think it wont be at least partly delegated to AI? the "never" is what gets me here.

Autopilots have been able to fly planes better than humans at almost zero cost for years yet no one has replaced pilots.

Re: DaVinci Resolve 21.1

#73
post #23

I've been using it for many years, and it's grown in power and functionality with every release. BMD has offered free upgrades to Pro users (with no subscription) for many years, which is refreshing given the current state of software licensing. For those upset with the new agent integration, keep in mind that one of the big knocks on DaVinci Resolve is that it's hard for beginners. Powerful tools like color grading…

No offense whatsoever. But this whole line "but it won't replace the real experience and taste required for larger projects" is not how I see it. I wish people are more humble at this juncture of AI progress. This is not to say humans won't play a part but saying xyz cannot be replaced is a big stretch. Saying its not there currently is okay but saying it won't replace I don't see where that's coming from.

I would gladly enjoy to collaborate with an agent if I can learn more about video editing. I edit my video only for passion and to learn something new though, so I guess that professionals may see this in a different way. But I don’t think that it’s much different from how Claude code revolutionised the software scene.

Re: DaVinci Resolve 21.1

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have videographer friends, and this is exactly what they've been asking for. Their dream is to be able to say "sync the A and B camera footage, chunk the whole interview down into segments, and then pull together the highlights based on this outline." Not every application of AI is "do the creativity for me."

If we can get the environmental impact of this stuff ameliorated (a big if), this is the real benefit of this kind of AI assistance imo- it transforms everyone into a director and frees them from being a surrogate for a director. See also: 3D modeling. Autodesk Fusion's interface is truly awful and people put years into learning it to do complex things. The MCP server functionality they added, though still in its inf…

Blender with fable and Astra is doing pretty amazing things it seems..

Re: DaVinci Resolve 21.1

#75
post #23

I've been using it for many years, and it's grown in power and functionality with every release. BMD has offered free upgrades to Pro users (with no subscription) for many years, which is refreshing given the current state of software licensing. For those upset with the new agent integration, keep in mind that one of the big knocks on DaVinci Resolve is that it's hard for beginners. Powerful tools like color grading…

No offense whatsoever. But this whole line "but it won't replace the real experience and taste required for larger projects" is not how I see it. I wish people are more humble at this juncture of AI progress. This is not to say humans won't play a part but saying xyz cannot be replaced is a big stretch. Saying its not there currently is okay but saying it won't replace I don't see where that's coming from.

I understand what you're saying and I agree, ostensibly, but on the caveat that it's hinged on the "we don't know what we don't know" aspect of reality. If we restrict our domain to what's forseeable, it's still apparently the case. Astra's demos have me scratching my head, diminishing returns are kicking in harder and faster than anticipated. It seems we've entered a phase to where frontier companies have completely abandoned improving the substrate because they can't justify it. It seems like it's all just harnesses and reasoning orchestration at this point. Hell, everybody but Google seems to have given up even on projection layer improvements (and Gemini is unusably bad in other ways).

Watching this next generation closely, because there are just a shitload of red flags starting to crop up that don't seem to be going away.

Re: DaVinci Resolve 21.1

#76
post #23

I've been using it for many years, and it's grown in power and functionality with every release. BMD has offered free upgrades to Pro users (with no subscription) for many years, which is refreshing given the current state of software licensing. For those upset with the new agent integration, keep in mind that one of the big knocks on DaVinci Resolve is that it's hard for beginners. Powerful tools like color grading…

Taking away some of the more monotonous and "uncreative" tasks in any job can be taking away some of the variety in the work. Variety is nice. Variety affords us downtime. As the job gets stripped down to its core function, while a machine keeps the pipeline full so that the work can continue uninterrupted, the downtime slips away.

And great for beginners, now they get to pay some chatbot company to cover the gaps left by detereorating software design. Lucky they're already using agents... are they?

Re: DaVinci Resolve 21.1

#77

Not even BMD is safe from the agent apocalypse: > DaVinci Resolve 21.1 now supports integration with AI assistants such as Claude, Claude Code and ChatGPT Codex, allowing customers to analyze projects, organize media, adjust settings and batch render using everyday conversational language. Customers can ask their AI assistant to create highlight edits from long form video, remove unwanted clips and render deliverable…

They'd rather add agentic AI support instead of adding proper codec support on the free Linux version (which is already supported on Windows). smh

Is it surprising that they’d rather make features that cater to a large portion of their user base instead of a tiny fraction of it?

Re: DaVinci Resolve 21.1

#78
post #39

I don't see how companies like this can survive going forwards. DaVinci Resolve is effectively ~200 Astra/Fable prompts, maybe even fewer if you're willing to forgo polish.

You can say anything, why stop at claiming 200 prompts, why not say you think Astra/Fable can one shot Davinci Resolve! And you can EASILY make the BM cinema cameras and other hardware by prompting Fable to run a 3D printer. (≧▽≦)

Re: DaVinci Resolve 21.1

#79
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense whatsoever. But this whole line "but it won't replace the real experience and taste required for larger projects" is not how I see it. I wish people are more humble at this juncture of AI progress. This is not to say humans won't play a part but saying xyz cannot be replaced is a big stretch. Saying its not there currently is okay but saying it won't replace I don't see where that's coming from.

Because there has to be demand for it. There are hundreds of tasks that could be automated right now, and people still choose to do them by hand. Just because something is technically replaceable doesn’t mean it will be replaced and editing is a deeply personal part of the process for almost every director. It will change, but for serious work, it will never be a sure shot job handled entirely by AI. Sure, for low ef…

For anything that can create better margins, and that is not outlawed, there will be demand.

Re: DaVinci Resolve 21.1

#80
post #16

I've had Claude Code drive DaVinci Resolve before in three ways: - Generate .otio files that are imported. Unfortunately, .otio doesn't fully support everything Resolve can do. - Resolve has a scripting engine. Claude can write Lua scripts, then execute the script (through UI Automation) - Computer Use. It's quite token intense, but it works. I didn't try it, but for the paid version, someone also built a MCP server…

I used IntelliScript a lot. I give Claude a subtitle export, ask it to cut it and import the cut subtitle track with IntelliScript. Resolve then creates a video version that’s cut based on the subtitle changes

Works pretty well!

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