Blackmagic Forum

As the subject line implies, I am seeking to replace the desktop computer I use with Vegas. This, expressly to handle the heavier files of HD-content (I've been working in SD until now). Resolve is brand new to me (haven't even purchased it yet but am about to). This is what I'm considering . . .
Newegg deal for a gaming PC: https://tinyurl.com/yyqn8bfk
. . . and note, I am not a gamer in any shape, form, or fashion. I merely want a PC adequate for the job and have formed the opinion anything suited for gamers is also suited for editing.

Finally, if it's not obvious, I'm also wide open to suggestions regarding RAM (32, 64 instead of 16GB?), video card (step up to 3080 vs 2070?), CPU (AMD instead of Intel?), etc. Honestly, I know it won't stay in the top tier for long but I'd like two years of use before becoming dissatisfied and wanting to replace it. And while this is pre-configured, I'm not in the least bit fearful of assembling my own components if you folks have ideas regarding better bits.

Anyway, thanks in advance for your time and thoughts.

John, there are a number of threads in this forum talking about various builds. Although the PC from Newegg will work for Resolve, with the exception of the CPU, I recommend you look at something that would be better suited and give you less grief with Resolve.

Instead of the RTX 2070, I would go with a 3080 10Gb. Forget the VR Ready. That's irrelevant.
At least 32Gb of RAM. Adding 16Gb is cheap.
Resolve requires Window 10 Pro 64-bit.

Now for storage, I recommend having dedicated OS and Application drive, Cache drive, and Data drive, keeping them separate.

You can keep the 1 TB which probably will have the OS installed on it. This is where you will install Resolve as well.

Get another 1 TB SSD and use that for your Cache drive.

Get a 7500rpm HDD to store your source and rendered projects. This will depend on how much projects you'll be working on pre-archive, if you will be planning to archive them at all.

And thinking about archive, you can get a couple of external HDD, one to archive your completed projects and another for backing up your project files. This is just for safety.

Drives are cheap. Losing files and recovering them is very expensive.

This is my 2 cents for a starter working system but it is not necessarily the most ideal system. I'll have to say this because there will be others who would disagree and debate and I will not get on that bandwagon. I hope this helps somewhat.

It helps tremendously because you explain precisely the areas of concern, and offer solutions. Thanks!

Honestly, I am prepared to buy pretty much whatever is called for on the video card front, and if 32GB of RAM for the computer helps, is 64GB largely wasted? My intent is dealing with four camera editing, but almost 100% cuts only.

So my issue is not rendering 100 tracks for an elaborate bumper or complex color correction, but relatively simple stuff. Anyway, Vegas handled four track projects with aplomb, but that was SD footage. Now it's going to be HD (and rarely 4K). Also, presuming it does matter, the deliverable is 1080p rendered for YouTube. never say never with regard to 4K projects but honestly, I'll probably be dead before 4K is relevant for my market (how to videos).

So that's the thing, I don't know where Resolve wants resources, and for what purpose, but I'm willing to throw money at the problem within reason. Is $5k enough for the computer, or will this be overkill? I am just trying to get a feel for things, not nail you into a position. Finally, I especially appreciate the tip regarding separate drives. Does the discussion ever get to the recommended motherboard level? I don't need bleeding edge - but - I do like to be 'almost' there in terms of price versus performance.
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Cheers,

Resolve is pretty GPU intensive. So if you're looking at where to put your money at best, it's on the GPU. The RTX 3080 specs provides about 30% better performance that the 2080 Ti, which for a long time was the card to have for Resolve. Hence, I think the 3080 is a better buy. If you want to go a step up, then get the RTX 3090. As for CPU, having more cores is better than speed. I would also look at motherboards with more lanes. I have an older system (see my computer spec in my signature) but it has serve me pretty well. I have done projects with clips that has 12-14 nodes with a timeline of 110 minutes runtime and delivery in 4K DCI with no issues, even using the DCP feature to generate Digital Cinema Package files. I am going to replace my power hungry 2 x 390X cards with a RTX 3080 in a few weeks, just waiting for this mass scalping of 3080s to die down. Have a fast cache is very important. It's like night and day. For my cache, I use 2 SSD in a Raid 0 configuration.

For anybody seeking this kind of info, I've performed a Google-search using - Resolve Studio editing build - and found these three very nice sources regarding computer builds:

Undated but mentions RTX3090, meaning it's been updated as Oct 2020: https://www.pugetsystems.com/recommende ... mendations

Updated June 2020: https://www.richardlackey.com/davinci-r ... uirements/

This one is out of the UK and dates to Oct 2019: https://www.workstationspecialist.com/r ... reloaded=1

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Meanwhile, regarding Envidia RTX30xx GPU boards - nobody has supply so I am not going to fret (late Oct 2020). I'll patiently await the filling of the pipeline.
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Ellory, in another thread you said in part . . . "Oh, about post work, well, I think investing in post equipment like a good workstation, Davinci Resolve Studio, Control panel, color calibrated reference monitor(s) and sound system is a good investment, assuming you've chosen Resolve as the NLE/color grading tools."

I've just purchased Resolve Studio (dongle version) from a reseller this morning (DVE Store) because I didn't notice the dongle option when I went to buy on BMD's site. Meanwhile, I use a special keyboard for Vegas and thus, buying one from BMD for Resolve seems like a no brainer. Moreover, my monitors are calibrated. But please elaborate regarding:

a) Life with the Control Panel.
b) Also, I'll be fascinated to hear your thoughts regarding audio.

Finally, Ellory, thank you sincerely for your time. You've been both generous and gracious to a fault (within several threads), thank you. Anyway, I hope to pay it forward some day. Finally, a milkshake or a pint is on me if we ever meet!

Seems purchasing a recent processor, mobo, and GPU card is a near fruitless exercise. I tried buying a pair of GTX3080 cards, no joy - no inventory. Tried purchasing 5950X CPU - again, no joy. On the CPU front, B&H 'did' take my money for a pre-order but I just got a message saying 'perhaps' they can fill my order 1st quarter . . . hmmm! And no luck finding GIGABYTE X570 AORUS XTREME at other than scalpers prices. So what did I do? Fed up with what seems to be Newegg playing tricks, I went to Amazon. This is what I purchased.

Case and power supply:
Corsair Carbide Series 678C Low Noise Tempered Glass ATX Case, Black - $185
Corsair AX Series, AX850 $256

Video card:
RTX 3090 24GB - $1868

Mobo, CPU, cooler, RAM, system drive:
AS Rock X570 Creator (the only one I found with Thunderbolt 3) - $489
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X - $710
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 Air Cooler - $90 (got this from B&H at the same time I purchased CPU)
128GB RAM - Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 128GB (4x32GB) DDR4 3600 (PC4-28800) - $590
Sabrent 2TB Rocket Q4 NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 Internal SSD - $320 (qty 2 so it can do RAID) - $640

Operating System:
W64-bit Pro - $150
Note: inadvertently bought this twice, one on DVD from B&H, and the other on memory stick via Amazon, planning on returning the one on DVD to B&H.

Folks, buying a PC has been an ordeal! Basically, I got tired of Newegg playing what I consider to be games and dirty tricks. For example, yesterday morning around 630AM I'm checking messages when an email arrives from Newegg stating the motherboard is in stock, so I immediately click to buy it, and no joy, now it's out of stock (like 15-seconds from when the message arrived in my inbox). Then not 10 minutes later, I get another message from Newegg that it's in stock - but wait - now it's $1270 instead of $700. Well screw that, they can keep it!

Anyway, more than a little ticked off I went on Amazon and bought all the stuff above. A bit over $5000 but no playing games with me. Heck, I've already received ship notices for everything including the RTX 3090 GPU board. Speaking of which, I'm a bit apprehensive because it's a name brand I've never heard of. I presume Envidia shares a reference design and these are all basically the same thing. We'll see. Anybody ever heard of ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Trinity 24GB

Last thing, and if this is the wrong place to ask, please advise . . . I'd like to monitor program preview on a separate 4K television instead of within a window of my computer. I 'think' I need something like an UltraStudio 4K Mini - but- honestly, I don't know. Is this the best way to go about it, or is there another approach? Yes, I know an OLED television is not a professional monitor suitable for color correction, etc. but for my how-tos going to YouTube I suspect it'll be fine. Thoughts?

jbeech wrote:Yes, I know an OLED television is not a professional monitor suitable for color correction, etc. but for my how-tos going to YouTube I suspect it'll be fine. Thoughts?

Calibrated OLED TVs are ubiquitous as client monitors in studio land. You have to spend a lot more to do better.

Yes, but is the UltraStudio 4K Mini the right tool for getting video out of the computer and onto the television?

It depends what connectors and what monitoring formats you need. For UHD SDR up 30fps to the DeckLink Mini Monitor 4K is fine.

jbeech wrote:... But please elaborate regarding:
a) Life with the Control Panel.
b) Also, I'll be fascinated to hear your thoughts regarding audio.

Hey John, I don't own the BMD control panel... I will one day. That's because I am comfortable with a make shift Android tablet running the Tangent Element android software which is free. I have had it since using Resolve 12. You can see what it is like in this very old YouTube post I did years ago (). Control panels are convenient for color grading. You can do everything with a keyboard and a mouse (I prefer trackball) but you can only adjust tone color wheel at a time. With a control panel, I can work on all the wheels simultaneously, and as I said the knobs and buttons gives quick access to functions in Resolve. I'm so use to the Tangent now but if you decide on a control panel, look into one of the micro or mini panels from BMD as they are exclusively made for Resolve. BTW, the recent announcement from BMD is that if you buy the Resolve Studio, it comes with a free Resolve Speed Editor. I think this is a more indispensable tool to have. While the control panels work with the color page, the Speed Editor works with the cut page (and probably with the edit page). Since you just purchase Resolve, you might want to look at this promotion asap.

As for Audio, I don't know what it is you want me to elaborate. I have a guy that does audio work for me and he uses a different setup. I'm a novice Fairlight user and I use it to just do the finishing audio from the files that my audio guy gives me. Others here can give you better feedback. I have an audio interface from Behringer and a portable DAW, and a 5 channel JBL monitor setup. But this will be overkill for YouTube projects. So I wouldn't recommend spending the money until you need it. Others here may disagree with me but to each his/her own.

Hope this helps. Milkshake or pint - both my favorites.

1. Jack says in part . . . on spending a lot more money than a calibrated OLED 4K television for UHD 30fps.

A. Calibrated how? I have a Datacolor SpyderX Pro . . . is this suitable? I'm all ears!
B. What other ways come to mind for program-out than via an UltraStudio 4K Mini to TV?
. . . the larger point being I don't want to find myself sad because just a bit more foresight (or experience) would have seen me sidestepping the UltraStudio 4K Mini approach, for another.

2. Ellory . . . regarding the Speed Editor, thanks for making this observation!

3. Ellory, you wrote in part . . . about drives and for cache using 2 SSD in a Raid 0.

Regarding the drives . . .
A. System drive (C:) - here's the thing, I haven't bought the system drive (Windows C:) because a Samsung 860 EVO 500GB 2.5 Inch SATA III new in box but am I going to be better off buying another NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 Internal SSD for optimal performance? Is 500GB or 1TB plenty?

The mobo I purchased accepts three M.2 drives, one direct to the CPU via PCIe 4.0 x16, and the other two to the X570 chipset at x8. So going to an M.2 for the system drive is smarter, agreed? Computer nerd input greatly appreciated.

Anyway, I would think 512GB is ample for the system and apps (C: drive), of which there are just a few creation types, e.g. Resolve, Photoshop, Illustrator, Solidworks, and what not. And if not 512GB, then ITB is surely ample - agreed, also?

B. Cache drive (D:), for this purpose I purchased two 2TB PCIe4 NVMe M.2 drives planning to follow Ellory's advice and having them in RAID 0, e.g. total capacity 2TB. The pair should be fast and voluminous enough for pretty much anything, or are there nevertheless tings, which will bring playback to a stuttering mess despite this? I'm not 100% regarding if Resolve does rendering and playback from the cache drive whilst pulling uncorrected media files from an array or other media-dedicated drive. And FWIW, I haven't been sitting on my axx waiting for help but have been digging around. For example, is this information still valid? Dates back a few years, but . . .
viewtopic.php?t=56187

C. Media drives - speaking of these, I'm undecided but right now I'm thinking instead of a Synology disk array composed of rotating 7500rpm drives, to maybe just get a BMD Multidock 10G which accepts four SSD for this purpose . . . or am missing something about using a separate array for media? Experience will resolve all my questions but I'm not there as I've not so much as assembled the new edit bay yet so guidance is very humbly appreciated.

D. Resolve Studio - finally, other than with their cameras, does anybody know whether the Resolve Studio is included with any of their other products, which I intend on purchasing? E.g. their keyboard, an UltraStudio 4K Mini (or similar), or perhaps the Console, which has also been recommended?

Last thing; I was just reflecting with my wife how my editing has changed from 3-deck suite (2 playback decks to an edit deck all synchronized with pre-roll to get everything spot on for the edit) using Matrox Studio card within a PC, to my first NLE, a FAST Video machine, before moving to Sony's Vegas, and now to Resolve Studio . . . I'm closing on 30 years of this! While the vast majority of what I plan to be outputting is 1080p60 footage for upload to YouTube, because the cameras are 4K RAW capable and will record 240fps in bursts, then who knows what I'll be inputting to Resolve? Not me! Anyway, I'm new to Resolve but I'm still having fun and nowhere near ready to be planted!
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Many thanks for the help, guidance, and advice!

jbeech wrote:Yes, but is there another, or perhaps better, way of getting program video out other than using an UltraStudio 4K Mini?

I use the DeckLink Mini Monitor 4K PCI card to send video out to my reference monitor. This is $195 and connects via HDMI to the monitor. I been working years on narrative film work and I have not had the need for anything more than that (so far) to monitor while color correcting/grading.

jbeech wrote:Regarding the Fast Editor, I haven't so much as opened the box from DVE with DaVinci Resolve Studio because I don't have the computer components on hand, yet. I will investigate whether I need to call for an RMA and begin from scratch, or if this offer is applicable to me because it's not been installed/registered.

The Speed Editor comes free for the promotion BMD is having now if you purchase DVR Studio 17. I don't know how long the promo will last (see the announcement about DVR 17 from Grant on their website). So that is a good deal because you'll save $295 and have both the DVR 17 software and the Speed Editor device. BTW, this promo is if you buy DVR 17 but it does not work the other way around (buying the Speed Editor and expecting DVR 17 to come with it).

jbeech wrote:Finally, other than cameras, does anybody know whether the Resolve Studio is included with any of their other products, which I intend on purchasing? E.g. like their keyboard, the UltraStudio 4K Mini (or similar), or perhaps the Console which has also been recommended?

DVR Studio 17 comes with the purchase of any of the Control Panels (Micro, Mini, and Advance Panels) and the Pocket cameras (4K or 6K), the URSA cameras (UMP 4.6K G2 and UMP 12K). It does not come with the capture and playback devices and cards (Ultrastudio and Decklink), and does not come with the DVR keyboard or the Speed Editor. However the Speed Editor has a promo right now and comes free if you buy DVR Studio 17 (as mentioned above). I'm not sure about the Fairlight console if it comes with DVR Studio.

jbeech wrote:B. Cache drive (D:), for this purpose I purchased two 2TB PCIe4 NVMe M.2 drives planning to follow Ellory's advice and having them in RAID 0, e.g. total capacity 2TB. The pair should be fast and voluminous enough for pretty much anything...

Should be more than enough. Now keep in mind that RAID 0 does not provide data redundancy or protection. If one drive crashes, the data is not recoverable. This is okay if you're purely going to use it as a "cache" drive. Also, two 2TB RAID 0 will give you 4TB of total cache storage - so more than enough!

jbeech wrote:C. Media drives - speaking of these, I'm undecided but right now I'm thinking instead of a Synology disk array composed of rotating 7500rpm drives, to maybe just get a BMD Multidock 10G which accepts four SSD for this purpose . . . or am missing something about using a separate array for media? Experience will resolve all my questions but I'm not there as I've not so much as assembled the new edit bay yet so guidance is very humbly appreciated.

I can't comment on the BMD Multidock 10G since I don't have it. I have just upgraded my system with 2 x 16TB 7500rpm internal drives that I use for media. It's not an array as I just back them up to an external drive that's of the same capacity. It's plenty for projects that are very large (usually the narrative feature project would be between 12TB ~ 14TB of files. This gives me at least up to 4 or 5 projects that I can simultaneously have on the system.

I do have a hot swap rack if I want to edit right off a 2.5" SSD. This is rare - only had to do it a couple of times. I have a 6 x 2.5" hot swap bays for this purpose that I build into one of the 5.25" drive bay on my system. This is what I use. It's a lot cheaper than the Multidock 10G and I think serves the same purpose.

https://www.amazon.com/ICY-DOCK-Mobile- ... 416&sr=8-1

DISCLAIMER: This is my setup that works for me. It is by no means the only setup. Others may have different solution that works for them as well.

Ellory Yu reminds me regarding RAID 0 . . . "two 2TB RAID 0 will give you 4TB of total cache storage."

Yes, I would rather have RAID 1, mirroring, for the safety rather than the added capacity of another 2TB drive. 2TB should be both plenty fast and enough capacity (I can always revisit cache disk capacity later). However, in the eventuality of some momentary drive glitch resulting in data loss, I'd regret adding capacity versus safety. After all, drives will only get larger and faster. What am I missing?

UPDATE on the edit computer. I bought an 1T M.2 for the system drive. Same kind but less capacity as the Rocket SSD drives for the cache-drive. Suspect it'll make an appreciable difference in the consumption of the grains of sand in my hourglass each time it boots. Too bad I can't RAID 1 the system drive c: also. I'd happily fork over the dough of another 1T Rocket to mirror it, too. Anyway, I hope to never see the operating system giving me a 'drive's gone teats up' warning!

Meanwhile, faster booting and program loading time will probably one of the best uses of money in terms of technology wasting my life each time I boot. Should be as close to instant as I've ever experienced. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the assembly once the power supply and video card make their appearance.

Speaking of my power supply, I had a strange thing happen. Recall B&H informed me the CPU I'd purchased wouldn't be delivered until 1st quarter - I canceled, no huhu on their part. Anyway, I purchased a power supply off Amazon. A few days later, the seller canceled it - and - immediately relisted $50 higher. Thought that was a crappy business practice. Don't remember the supplier (and too disinterested to look it up), but Karma can be difficult and I hope she extracts a small piece of flesh on my behalf some day. Why? For their lack of honor regarding the price at the time they took my money! Amazon should be ashamed of permitting it!

Anyway, after my power supply experience (and CPU experience with B&H), I wondered about the video card but am relieved to say I have a shipping notice (arrival in a couple of weeks from only God knows where).

Finally, I purchased a Teranex AV as well as SmartScope Duo 4K. Planning on upscaling some NTSC and you can't live without scopes. Don't know if having them outboard is better than within the program but cheap enough and more versatile in my view. For example, this lets me route signals in from tape decks.

Re: NTSC and upscaling: (https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=125397)

Speaking of tape decks. I have a rack for Betacam SP, DVCPro, S-VHS, and Hi-8 and I'm thinking all I need is an UltraStudio 4K Mini in the rack. Then I go in component video and analog audio to create a file suitable for Resolve Studio (SDI with the DVCPro). From there route the signal through the Ternanex to upscale, or try Super Size in Resolve. Or maybe interpose the Teranex before recording to the Mini 4K. Not sure which will work out better. Be interesting.

My deliverable is YouTube, and new material will be recorded in HD while old material will be upscaled from NTSC. What am I missing? I am predisposed to 'want' to buy an UltraStudio 4K Extreme version instead of the mini, but I'm not sure I can reasonably make the use case. Anybody have thoughts?

jbeech wrote:UPDATE on the edit computer. I bought an 1T M.2 for the system drive. Same kind but less capacity as the Rocket SSD drives for the cache-drive. Suspect it'll make an appreciable difference in the consumption of the grains of sand in my hourglass each time it boots. Too bad I can't RAID 1 the system drive c: also. I'd happily fork over the dough of another 1T Rocket to mirror it, too. Anyway, I hope to never see the operating system giving me a 'drive's gone teats up' warning!

John, I'm not sure if I understood you here as going to RAID 1 your cache drive. If my understanding is correct, DO NOT RAID 1 your cache drive at all. Either you RAID 0 it for performance reason or not at all. The cache is for scratch write and read purposes only so loosing data there is inconsequential. It's not data you will need to persist. Setting your cache drive with RAID other than 0 will impact performance. You want the cache to be very fast.

Ahhhhh!

Hello, I am new on this site. I use DaVinci Resolve - free version many years ago. Now, I bought and have BMD Micro speed Editor and I must my practice put away, because I worked mainly na Edit Page - now of course on Cut Page.
My question is about assignment the sources to for example "cameras".
On my timeline are many videos from camera (first "cam"), from phone (perhaps second "cam"), pictures from SLR (3rd "cam") and from phone (4 th "cam") too. How can I work with Speed Editor like switching between these sources?