Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/933783
don't have to learn new tools, but now all these people can work together at the same time. That is thought-provoking. This level of soft- ware integration could really ease conforms across picture and sound. From a support standpoint, conforming is where all the nightmares end up happening. So imagine being able to go from the editing to the color to the audio, across multiple workstations, and there's no version differences or software issues, and when you're done, you can export and that's it! Yes, there are big suites of software that exist out there, there's interoperability, but you've still got to take it back to the edit software in order to make a change. Okay, now let's send it to audio, and we have to wait for the audio to come back before we can move on. You can see where the individual owner can say, "Hey, I'm going to buy this $299 software and get all these tools." And you can see at a large post-production facility how much time they could save if they move to this software, just from a streamlining perspective. So Blackmagic is manufacturing professional hi-end specific-function consoles? Definitely. We are already making color-grading consoles, and we're working on re-releasing the Fairlight audio console. It's important to note, though, that the console isn't a requirement. What's important is that the tool we call Resolve can work at many levels, based on your needs. I would also assume that, just similar to Pro Tools, the software itself may be one price, but the interfaces and levels in which the software operates have multiple price points. The $299 software is fully functional. The panels, whether for color or Fairlight audio, simply give you additional physical tools. Our color panels have been around for a while, and those high-end colorists at post houses around the industry use them extensively. For Fairlight, it took us about 12 months to bring the software into Resolve, but we are still working on rebuilding those Fairlight panels in the way we do here at Blackmagic. Those original Fairlight panels were about $40,000 per section, and could go upward of half a million dollars. Blackmagic wants to make our own version of those, which will come down in price. This is the real tough part for Blackmagic. How do you build a $300 piece of software that makes the highest end professional happy, as well as someone that's just coming out of film school? How do you make a $3,000 cinema camera that satisfies someone that operates an expensive cinema camera every day, but also is simple enough to be used for that high school student's first film project? It's a real trick to say these are professional Hollywood tools that we put out there but are accessible to everybody, both in price and ease of use. Blackmagic manufactures one of two third-party-supported video cards for Avid Pro Tools. Are you going to continue to support that hardware? Yes, we'll always support workflows that utilize our hardware. We have diversified our product line to work with a wide range of solutions. We work hard at having a world-class solution. We want to fill in all these gaps so that we have the ability to create an entire Blackmagic workflow, but by no means are we going to turn around and say once you're in this bit, that this is the only way you have to work. Where is Blackmagic in its progress to release Fairlight consoles that natively integrate with Resolve 14? What we've done is, we've basically stopped production on the old Fairlight hardware panels. We've been really engaged with existing Fairlight audio customers over the last year to get the software right. We'll continue to work with the Fairlight audio software interface that customers are comfortable with, but we also made those existing panels work with DaVinci Resolve 14. So existing users can comfortably use their hardware, which allows us to put Resolve 14's audio through its paces. In the meantime, we are redesigning those hardware panels so that we can put them back out on the market. And there is a downloadable trial version available of the software today? There is a free version, but it isn't a trial or heavily limited version.The free version basically has 95 percent of the features of Resolve Studio. Largely what is missing in the free version is the creative enterprise level stuff, where you'd have multiple users on the same system.Those higher end features are stripped out, but it's a really robust free version. We did that because we want people to use the application and try it out in a real way. •