Hi,

I have been researching about color correction tools in post production.

As I have found, there're

da Vinci, Lustre, iQ, Apple's Color, and more.

But just by looking at them and little try, I can't guess what products are popular and widely used in the field.

So I hope that you guys tell me about it, and thank you all in advance.

Well, since you asked here, The Symphony is THE only color corrector. ;-)

Assimilate SCRATCH

Filmlight Baselight

Quantel Pablo

IRIDAS SpeedGrade

Those are the ones that spring to mind. I believe Baselight has the best (only?) integration with Avid.

Digital Vision's Nucoda Film Master can read Avid MXF media and offers a wide array of finsihing tools.

Randall L Rike:

Digital Vision's Nucoda Film Master can read Avid MXF media and offers a wide array of finsihing tools.

and as I saw at IBC the workflow between MC and Baselight was perfect with the Unity mounted on Baselight. AAF from MC to Baselight and vice-versa. Total integration!!!!!!!!

It is a workflow that really works, not only reading MXF files

Can anyone advise on the best Avid MC to Apple Color workflow?

I am thinking:  

1. Auto Duck to FCP.  
   
2. Transcode the footage to Color compatible Codec (ProRes).
   
3. Prep the Timeline.
   
4. Send To Color.
   
5. Grade.
   
6. Send To FCP and Finish.
   

Has anyone done this or is there a better way?  

Can anyone enlighten me on any obvious gotchas and how to overcome them?

Any help gratefully received.

Sending to Color is a recipe for disaster. You can do what you are talking about, but it would be a major PITA. If you are willing to go to all that trouble, and you don't want to use the Symphony CC for whatever reason, you would be better off going to tape and going to a daVinci.

'you would be better off going to tape and going to a daVinci.'

Sounds expensive!

We have Avid MC, FCP and Color on the same system and just use Avid for offline with edl conform into an FCP  / Color for online, works fine for documentary / drama the downside is the conform time of a few hours needed to change into the FCP world.

I believe a lot of people use Avid for offline and finish on FCP as Symphony is too expensive an upgrade just for a Colour corrector, however the Avid DS looks much better value now so we may switch to that workflow for an all in one box solution.