Blackmagic Design DaVinci Update from Grant Petty
I think the most exciting feature is the multi GPU support on Mac OS X. Now Mac OS X users can see a massive improvement in processing power by installing more than one high performance GPU card. This gives you super computer processing power, and it's amazing to see how many corrections can be done all in real time, even when grading direct from raw camera files such as RED or Arri. It really shows what a real time grading system DaVinci is!
We have also tested in this release the ATI 5770 graphics card for user interface support and the Cubix x16 PCI Express expansion chassis for use with multiple GPU's. Support for expansion chassis allows you to install additional storage, video capture cards, multiple Nvidia Quadro 4000 GPU processing cards, and Red Rocket cards.
Supported in this release are additional third party control panels including more menus on the Tangent Wave™ control surface including menus for stereoscopic 3D and version controls, individual adjustments for curves and image clipping, direct access to stills and memories and new keyer controls for post mixing offsets.
DaVinci Resolve 7.1 now adds support for the JL Cooper Eclipse CX control surface as well.
Another one of the big improvements in this new DaVinci Resolve 7.1 update includes a wide range of new file format and codec support for the latest professional cameras and scanners.
New file formats include native real time support for Arri Alexa ARRIRAW and D-21 ARRIRAW, Phantom Cine files, OpenEXR in uncompressed and compressed formats, Sony MPEG-4 SStP (Simple Studio Profile) and Sony XDCAM files in QuickTime format. I think even if you just used DaVinci Resolve as a simple converter from raw camera files to other formats it would be good value! It reads virtually everything!
One of the exciting things I have seen since this release shipped was a colorist doing complex grading directly from raw RED 4K camera files with multiple nodes of correction all in real time out to 1080 HD. That's with no RED Rocket card! Every one of the 12 cores on the Mac Pro were being used for de-bayering and this left the GPU free for correction. DaVinci Resolve on Mac OS X handled everything thrown at it all in real time!
