Am I correct in thinking there is no grade control surface we can now use with Avid? 

Nige

Eve though the Artist panels are EOL (I believe) they still work (as badly as they ever did) 

But otherwise no. 

I now teach round tripping to Resolve as the grading option for Media Composer.

Or install baselight for avid and grade within avid.

Both artist control and tangent ripple work perfectly with baselight 

Hi Nigel-

From my research, the Baselight plugin is awesome.  Works within Media Composer and is compatible with Tangent control surfaces and others.  There's a YouTube video that shows a Tangent surface controlling ProTools by mapping.  But you have to have Baselight first.  I have not pulled the plug based on economics but it's on the Wish List.

-B

Hi there

Thanks all for chipping in.. 

Yes Baseight  is very good ad we have it and it works well with the slate and tangent. But we were looking for a solution for grading in avid alone. It seems a bit weird as avid put some effort into adding shapes etc only to remove the control surface. 

We can't do this in baselight or resolve as we need to share the projects with others without the plugin 

Nige

nigelgourley:

We can't do this in baselight or resolve as we need to share the projects with others without the plugin

If you mean sharing the project with other Avid users, then you can use the Baselight plugin for free in any other Avid setup if you only want to view the grade.  It's when you want to alter the grade that you need a licence.

It's also worth mentioning that the Baselight licence can be moved around from one machine to another (what I think they call freelancer mode). If I remember correctly, when you buy a licence, it's valid for two setups (say a workstation and a laptop). When you enter the licence details into the activation menu, you can specify the number of days to activate. Once that period has expired, the licence is released for you to apply to another setup. All this is handled by the Filmlight licence server, so you'll need an internet connection to do this.

Nigel I teach basic MC/Symphony grading as 2 sessions. Just so they know the tools. But I don't promote it as anything but a quick grading option. No surface is covered.

I have Baselight and its used at some of the Unis I teach at. I teach that to a basic level and that can support panels.

Likewise Resolve. This is my prefered grading route as its free and its good for students to see a real world workflow.

I had hoped some years ago Avid would tackle the grading shortfalls but they haven't delivered. 

So as tutors we need to adapt.

I really don't get it. How hard is it to support a control panel?

I Now have the Tanget Ripple, work fine with Resolve 17(could do better), and doesn't work at all with Avid Symphony.

Any news if Avid will support it?

Thanks

Yair

YOP:

I really don't get it. How hard is it to support a control panel?

I Now have the Tanget Ripple, work fine with Resolve 17(could do better), and doesn't work at all with Avid Symphony.

Any news if Avid will support it?

Thanks

Yair

I'm confident symphony will be updated and a control serface will be there soon, I'm good friends with a member of the ACA and beta testers group, although he can't tell me directly because he's bound by an NDA - he hinted it :p 

YOP:

How hard is it to support a control panel?

Pretty hard I guess, since in all the time that the Avid Artist/Euphonics colour panels have been available (over 10 years), they've never been able to get Symphony working smoothly with their own controllers.

It's a strange state of affairs, as the same panels work fine in Baselight, Resolve etc.

If it was easy to fix, I'm sure they would have done it, but I suspect the underlying architecture/code is such that it's a major headache to remedy.

Given that the likes of Davinci Resolve/Baselight have captured the vast share of the grading work, the number of professionals wanting to grade on Symphony must be at an all-time low. It's just not worth the effort, and Avid have a lot of other fish to fry in terms of improving MC.

Bruno M:

YOP:

How hard is it to support a control panel?

Pretty hard I guess, since in all the time that the Avid Artist/Euphonics colour panels have been available (over 10 years), they've never been able to get Symphony working smoothly with their own controllers.

It's a strange state of affairs, as the same panels work fine in Baselight, Resolve etc.

If it was easy to fix, I'm sure they would have done it, but I suspect the underlying architecture/code is such that it's a major headache to remedy.

Given that the likes of Davinci Resolve/Baselight have captured the vast share of the grading work, the number of professionals wanting to grade on Symphony must be at an all-time low. It's just not worth the effort, and Avid have a lot of other fish to fry in terms of improving MC.

I agree with you, although I personally prefer to grade with Symph because it's so much faster than AAF's - and as i'm a student - I can't afford both Avid and Baselight or Resolve (Need the full version of resolve because I online/finish most of my projects at 4-8k) I guess it would also appeal to people working on shorter form content, who don't want to roundtrip, and want to use a surface for its speed. 

Have a look at this pic: it's on Avid's website when you buy MC 

Philip Kapadia:

Have a look at this pic: it's on Avid's website when you buy MC

They're not strictly lying in the photo. You can still use the Artist Color with Symphony - it's just that you cannot buy one new because it's EOL, and it's somewhat sluggish in operation, although still usable and probably preferable to just a mouse.

I'm pretty sure thay don't show a picture of it with (say) a Tangent panel 'cos they know that would definitely be a case of misrepresentation!

I appreciate that as a student, funds are limited. I'm involved with teaching MA students and a lot of them choose to pay the £300 for Resolve rather than the higher cost ownership of MC. They then do all their own editing work on Resolve. They still learn MC on the course (where they're supplied with Avid software) but they consider their limited funds are better spent on Resolve where they can do professional grading with any panel they might be able to afford.

In my experience, the speed benefits of not roundtripping have been much depreciated when working at UHD. In these scenarios, the Editor is often working in a proxy mode whilst cutting, and would have to relink to the originals and possibly transcode to a more Avid-friendly format before commencing the grade and finishing work. In my experience, it's just as quick to export a linked AAF and do the rest of the work in Resolve. Of course, if you're also doing your own sound work in MC, this may tip the balance in favour of Avid, since getting to grips with Fairlight is a rather steeper learning curve!

Bruno M:

Philip Kapadia:

Have a look at this pic: it's on Avid's website when you buy MC

They're not strictly lying in the photo. You can still use the Artist Color with Symphony - it's just that you cannot buy one new because it's EOL, and it's somewhat sluggish in operation, although still usable and probably preferable to just a mouse.

I'm pretty sure thay don't show a picture of it with (say) a Tangent panel 'cos they know that would definitely be a case of misrepresentation!

I appreciate that as a student, funds are limited. I'm involved with teaching MA students and a lot of them choose to pay the £300 for Resolve rather than the higher cost ownership of MC. They then do all their own editing work on Resolve. They still learn MC on the course (where they're supplied with Avid software) but they consider their limited funds are better spent on Resolve where they can do professional grading with any panel they might be able to afford.

In my experience, the speed benefits of not roundtripping have been much depreciated when working at UHD. In these scenarios, the Editor is often working in a proxy mode whilst cutting, and would have to relink to the originals and possibly transcode to a more Avid-friendly format before commencing the grade and finishing work. In my experience, it's just as quick to export a linked AAF and do the rest of the work in Resolve. Of course, if you're also doing your own sound work in MC, this may tip the balance in favour of Avid, since getting to grips with Fairlight is a rather steeper learning curve!

I'm still in high school - No way anyone will pay for my Avid subscription lol! Even at my future university/college (i think in America) they won't pay for Avid, They'll just provide me with avid workstations at the campus, but that won't help with my private, freelance long-form projects that I sometimes do. The Avid student subscription is quite affordable, and I currently got MC | Ultimate free for a year... because of some kind people at avid. 

I use Avid over Resolve because I really love it, It's the industry standard for offline, and I've invested lots and lots of time into learning it. I won't use anything that's not indusrty standard, just because when I get into the industry I need to be able to work with my tools without googling what this particular feature does. 

Anyway, back to the question, I notice in that picture the operator isn't even using MC | Symphony, he has Media Composer and is using the limited colour correction tools there. Regarding sound, I have no idea how good fairlight is, but Media Composer uses the same plugins as I use in pro tools so that gives me a lot of flexibility. (other than the fact that I have to render my audio effects before previewing them!!) and I also really like the new audio mixer. I think some time ago Avid had something called Avid DS, which was a finishing system. I guess that was EOL too because there wasn't enough demand. I think people must have used Autodesk Flame or something back then... I don't know

Philip Kapadia:

YOP:

I really don't get it. How hard is it to support a control panel?

I Now have the Tanget Ripple, work fine with Resolve 17(could do better), and doesn't work at all with Avid Symphony.

Any news if Avid will support it?

Thanks

Yair

I'm confident symphony will be updated and a control serface will be there soon, I'm good friends with a member of the ACA and beta testers group, although he can't tell me directly because he's bound by an NDA - he hinted it :p 

It's good to know.

Thanks!