Why Resolve Needs to Support 3rd Party I/O

When Blackmagic acquired Davinci Resolve, I recall there was discussion about supporting 3rd party i/o cards. Eventually that discussion ceased and it seems Blackmagic decided against this. I'm here to say that I think it needs to be reconsidered and how I think it could be handled.

Many facilities have systems that are multifunctional. They may have FCP X, Media Composer, Premiere, and Resolve on the same system. That's the way it is in 2016. Not saying it's the perfect way to do things, but I've seen it done at enough facilities to know it is happening, especially because of the low cost of entry on all of those software packages.

The problem is, once Resolve is in the mix it requires Blackmagic i/o. For some this is perfectly fine. They like the BM hardware and they like the price point. No issue with that at all. However, many facilities are not happy about this requirement and some have considered looking at other options for color grading to avoid being forced into using a specific hardware that may only benefit them in one app.

What I suggest, and I realize this will probably get shot down fairly quickly, is that Blackmagic consider a third version of Resolve. This version would be called Resolve Open i/o. It would allow AJA, Bluefish and others to integrate their hardware into Resolve. Blackmagic would charge $695 for this version or perhaps $995 if they wanted to roll Studio and this open i/o all into one. That money would go towards any resources needed to integrate these other devices. This seems like a win-win for Blackmagic. They would still make money, even with perhaps less hardware sales. The reality is a lot of people just go with something like the Mini Monitor plus the free version of Resolve. Now they may choose to keep their existing i/o or the one they want to purchase and pay $695-995 for Resolve.

Is this completely undoable? I understand that for systems that are dedicated to color correction, this does not really apply as much (although one could still make a case for freedom in choosing hardware for that as well). But for all those multitasking systems, I think it would make a lot of sense. Editors who also color correct can then use the NLE of their choice, the i/o of their choice, and have Resolve on that system for when they need to grade their own edits.

Thoughts?

Even though I don't personally see why I would ever buy anything but BMD cards, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I've worked at a number of facilities where there was a lot of multi-purposing of workstations and as Davinci already costs $1000 they could consider that the dongled version might work with other cards. A sidenote though, I think them only supporting their own video pipeline is also to keep the cost down, so it might be as simple as that, invalidating the path DaVinci Resolve is going down right now.

This is from Grant a while back.
"This is also the reason why we even visited the NAB booths of other capture card and control surface manufacturers on the very day DaVinci Resolve on the Mac was announced at NAB 2010. We wanted them to know we were going to open up DaVinci if they wanted to support it on their producers. So far, some have responded very positively to that, so that's exciting. "

So, either those third parties left the table and decided not to be a part of this (maybe I could see AJA due to the competitive history, but not sure why a company like Bluefish wouldn't be all over it) or Blackmagic made a decision to keep the whole thing proprietary for revenue and support reasons.

Regardless, there are many that could benefit from this open i/o and I do believe that they would pay the $995 and keep their existing hardware, rather than get a $150 BMD i/o and the free version of Resolve.

Either way, BMD has the right to operate their business in a way that makes sense for them, so I respect their decision and I am more curious than anything else.

On the whole, I definately agree with you. My point was more among the lines of them saving a buck to let us save a buck (the software is pretty damn cheap in comparison to other platforms, but you know that). But i'm not sure if that's the reason.

They've upheld the same story about supporting other panels than the ones listed but as most of us know they haven't really made an open interface for the panel developers to work with (as far as I know, I'm not a developer) leading to frustrations about diversity in panels but also the way they're laid out. I'd throw a panel party if they ever 'allowed' customizing for instance the layout on the Tangent panels or third party apps to allow the use of midi and custom HID devices. Being able to use for instance a Behringer BCR panel as a stepping stone to something more serious would be an awesome thing, but now we're 'stuck' with the Tangent app. A great app, but I'd rather have panels.

Sorry if I went on a bit of a Tangent there. Harhar.