why are (the bigger) color grading panels so expensive?

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Rick van den Berg

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why are (the bigger) color grading panels so expensive?

PostMon Oct 01, 2018 1:49 pm

see title.

I mean, i can buy a new car, a fully functional kitchen, a high-end computer and a lifetime of toilet paper for the same amount of money as the advanced panel.

just curious, -no angry stuff going on here- how exactly are those prices calculated? is it all tailor made? because that would explain a lot.
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Dan Sherman

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Re: why are (the bigger) color grading panels so expensive?

PostMon Oct 01, 2018 3:41 pm

They are just like any other tech, the further you get from the main stream, the greater the price. The price increase isn't linear either, it's exponential.

Take TVs for example,
  • <40" 1080p LEDs for under $300
  • <60" UHD smart units for well under $1k
  • 85" 8k Samsung $15k

Not consider that a large panel is a niche within an already niche market, and you will see why the prices are exorbitant.
Last edited by Dan Sherman on Tue Oct 02, 2018 7:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
AMD 7950X | AMD 7900XTX (23.20.24) | DDR5-6000 CL30-40-40-96 2x32 GB | Multiple PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME | ASUS x670e HERO | Win 11 Pro 23H2 | Resolve Studio 18.6.5 B7
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Dermot Shane

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Re: why are (the bigger) color grading panels so expensive?

PostMon Oct 01, 2018 11:39 pm

now go price the Baselight Blackboard2, Nucoda Precision, Quantel Neo....

in the middle range there's the Tangent Design ARC, a really nice piece of kit, no idea when/if it will be supported in Resolve, almost everyone else has it as an option now

And the amazing Baselight Slate, that will never be supported by Resolve, but gives one an idea how good a small surface can be
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Rick van den Berg

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Re: why are (the bigger) color grading panels so expensive?

PostTue Oct 02, 2018 7:24 am

quite logical actually. guess there isn't a dedicated ''resolve panels factory''

just wondering, since i'm more of an editor then a color grader, is there a dedicated ''editing'' panel?

i know there are some very basic jog wheels/mouse combinations and such, but wouldnt it be great to have full control on trimming/adding media, selecting audio/videotracks, making cuts etc with a single panel which is fully designed with editing in mind? sometimes i feel like it can be much more ergonomic then just my keyboard.

or is this already possible (in a very smooth way) with the recent blackmagic panels. because then i would consider them.

i mean, since the editing market is much bigger then the color grading market (i think)
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Dermot Shane

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Re: why are (the bigger) color grading panels so expensive?

PostTue Oct 02, 2018 5:55 pm

all of the BMD panels are qute useless in editing, they are not mappable.. What . So . Ever. and seemingly never will be... and they are focused on the color page only

the Avid Artist Transport is very useful, tons of mappable softkeys, and the best jog/shuttle responce under Resolve that i've used

StreamDeck offers 15 mappable softkeys and you can insert layers of softkeys inside each one, again very very useful

i have both on my desktop at work and they are awesome when combined, huge timesaveings, good interactivity, dead reliable in cleint attended sessions


at home i have a Contour shuttle, and XKeys, mainly cast-off's from my suite downtown when transport and streamdeck proved to be faster and more flexiable, but still vastly better than nothing but a keyboard
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JPOwens

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Re: why are (the bigger) color grading panels so expensive?

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 5:06 pm

Dan Sherman wrote:consider that a large panel is a niche within an already niche market.
The price increase isn't linear either, it's exponential.


There is a *square law* in effect for discrete element count -- twice as big means 4x the area, but after manufacturing considerations, (defect attrition -- around 10%) manufacturers still have to deliver +10% dividend to their shareholders. A-Level grade monitors have to achieve performance specifications that are meaningless to consumers. Corner-to-corner linearity (not the built-in vignette that most home screens deliver) and sustained fidelity over prolonged use. Resistance to burn-in (not many home consumers leave a still image parked for an hour so that they can finagle a tracked, multi-shape power window while refining an overlay key) and of course strict conformance with colorspace and every frame rate and resolution under the sun.

That.

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Marc Wielage

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Re: why are (the bigger) color grading panels so expensive?

PostSun Oct 07, 2018 6:28 am

JPOwens wrote:There is a *square law* in effect for discrete element count -- twice as big means 4x the area, but after manufacturing considerations, (defect attrition -- around 10%) manufacturers still have to deliver +10% dividend to their shareholders. A-Level grade monitors have to achieve performance specifications that are meaningless to consumers. Corner-to-corner linearity (not the built-in vignette that most home screens deliver) and sustained fidelity over prolonged use. Resistance to burn-in (not many home consumers leave a still image parked for an hour so that they can finagle a tracked, multi-shape power window while refining an overlay key) and of course strict conformance with colorspace and every frame rate and resolution under the sun.

My old pal Gordon Holt, founder of Stereophile magazine, used to say that once you get to a certain point in sound quality, you wind up spending about 90% more money for (at best) a 10% improvement. I think a similar principle applies to video displays.

As far as color-correction panels go: I'm on record elsewhere as saying that I've come to the conclusion that the Advanced Panels save me somewhere between an hour and 90 minutes per day in an average color correction session. That may not sound like much, but in a 6-day week (very standard for me), that's like getting finished a day early, or getting an extra day's work at no extra expense. Unless and until you've sat with an advanced panel and actually used one for two or three months, you can't appreciate the difference. In a busy facility, the panel will pay for itself in less than six months.

Resolve is absolutely optimized for best performance on this control surface, and anything else is a compromise. It still works, but you're not going to be nearly as fast... at least in my opinion. And I've used anything: the old Tangent CP100, the CP200, the original Wave, the Elements, the Avid MC Color, the little Tangent Ripple, the small BMD Micro, the medium-sized BMD Mini, and the advanced panel. And I've used 10 other control panels for the original Topsy, Amigo, Dubner, Pogle, Arcas, daVinci 888, Renaissance, Lustre, Blackboard 1, you name it. The DaVinci Advanced Panel is -- hands-down -- the best color panel I've ever used in more than 30 years of post. It's a brilliant design in many ways.

Having said that: I have yet to use the Blackboard 2 with Baselight, and that looks like an amazing, well-designed control surface. But it's not cheap, nor is Baselight.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying: the big panels are expensive because it's a limited market, they take time and a lot of thought to design, good things cost money, and because they're worth it.
marc wielage, csi • VP/color & workflow • chroma | hollywood
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JPOwens

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Re: why are (the bigger) color grading panels so expensive?

PostTue Oct 09, 2018 7:53 pm

Marc Wielage wrote:good things cost money


I had heard it said that the rollerballs in the original 4:4:4 daVinci panels were something like an order of magnitude smoother and more spherical than a standard billiard ball.

Also for fun:

https://ourplnt.com/earth-smooth-billiard-ball/ which touches on the difference between "smoothness" and "roundness" -- but if you're a stylus or mouse controller, we're into a different sphere.


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Marc Wielage

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Re: why are (the bigger) color grading panels so expensive?

PostWed Oct 10, 2018 7:23 am

JPOwens wrote:I had heard it said that the rollerballs in the original 4:4:4 daVinci panels were something like an order of magnitude smoother and more spherical than a standard billiard ball.

No question, it takes balls to survive in post-production for many years. Smoother and more spherical helps.
marc wielage, csi • VP/color & workflow • chroma | hollywood
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Craig Marshall

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Re: why are (the bigger) color grading panels so expensive?

PostWed Oct 10, 2018 8:30 am

Rick van den Berg wrote:...i know there are some very basic jog wheels/mouse combinations and such, but wouldnt it be great to have full control on trimming/adding media, selecting audio/videotracks, making cuts etc with a single panel which is fully designed with editing in mind? sometimes i feel like it can be much more ergonomic then just my keyboard....


Yes, it's called the Lightworks 'Console' and has been around for nearly thirty years cutting major Features but if you cannot afford one of those, try an 'X-Keys 64 Jog/Shuttle' - the perfect Editor's friend.

console.jpg
Lightworks Console Edit controller
console.jpg (6.24 KiB) Viewed 2068 times


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