LONDON—International pay TV channel Da Vinci, which is already available in 70 million homes worldwide, is expanding into the U.S. with a free ad-supported streaming TV service (FAST).

Founder and COO, Estelle Lloyd, explained that the launches "are significant as they remove the biggest barrier, the paywall, and expose us to new and fresh audiences. We can reach so many more homes and devices and - for us - that’s significant in fulfilling our purpose. We’re delighted to work with Sling and TCL and very keen to partner with more FAST platforms.”

As part of the U.S. expansion, Da Vinci's newly launched FAST channel is now available for all Sling users to stream for free, without any payment or credit card required. The channel will continue its FAST rollout to streaming TV audiences across America on TCL Channel’s free streaming service available on TCL TVs, powered by Roku and Google smart TV systems.

The channel features popular, first-window and award-winning documentaries, series and TV shows that are all TV-G rated. Programming spans factual entertainment, scripted dramas, animation, comedy and more for learning-loving viewers. 

The titles cover a wide range of categories: science/ tech, nature/wildlife/pets, math/engineering, creativity/arts, society/culture, and adventure/exploration. 

With a special focus on STEM, creativity, critical thinking, and social-emotional learning across all genre categories, the channel celebrates these timely contemporary themes in fun monthly programming marathons like the recent Kindness Challenge and Go Green campaigns, the company said. 

Fremont, CA - August 13, 2018 - Blackmagic Design today announced that the full release of DaVinci Resolve 15, its professional editing, visual effects, motion graphics, color correction and audio post production software, is now available as a free download from the Blackmagic Design website.

Blackmagic Design would like to thank the customers that participated in the beta, tested the software in a wide variety of workflows, reported bugs and have helped make DaVinci Resolve 15 even more reliable. The excellent feedback and strong community has been a critically important part of the development process. Blackmagic Design is grateful to have such a large and talented group of people that care deeply about making DaVinci Resolve the world’s most powerful post-production solution.

DaVinci Resolve 15 is a massive update that fully integrates visual effects and motion graphics, making it the world’s first solution to combine professional offline and online editing, color correction, audio post production, multi user collaboration and now visual effects together in one software tool. DaVinci Resolve 15 adds an entirely new Fusion page with over 250 tools for compositing, paint, particles, animated titles and more. In addition, DaVinci Resolve 15 includes a major update to Fairlight audio, along with over 300 new features and improvements that professional editors and colorists have asked for.

DaVinci Resolve 15 continues to revolutionize post production by combining 4 extremely high end applications as different pages in one single piece of software. The edit page has all of the tools professional editors need for both offline and online editing, the color page features the world’s most advanced color correction tools, the Fairlight audio page is designed specifically for audio post production, and the new Fusion page gives visual effects and motion graphics artists everything they need to create feature film quality effects and animations. All it takes is a single click to instantly move between editing, color, effects and audio.

This gives individual users unlimited creative flexibility because they can learn and explore different toolsets. It also enables collaboration so people with different talents can work together on the same project at the same time. Because of these new features, DaVinci Resolve 15 Studio was awarded the prestigious 2018 Engineering Excellence Award by the Hollywood Professional Association (HPA). The awards are designed to highlight outstanding technical and creative ingenuity in media and content production. DaVinci Resolve 15 Studio is the only system that lets editors, colorists, visual effects artists, and audio engineers all work in the same project at the same time.

The DaVinci Resolve 15 collaborative workflow dramatically speeds up post production because customers no longer need to import, export or translate projects between different software applications, and work no longer needs to be conformed when changes are made. Everything is in the same software application.

The free version of DaVinci Resolve 15 can be used for professional work and has more features than virtually every other paid application for post production. DaVinci Resolve 15 Studio, which adds multi user collaboration, 3D, VR, dozens of additional filters and effects, unlimited network rendering and other advanced features such as temporal and spatial noise reduction, is available to own for only US$299. There are no annual subscription fees or ongoing licensing costs. DaVinci Resolve 15 Studio costs less than all other cloud based software subscriptions and it does not require an internet connection once the software has been activated. That means customers don’t have to worry about losing work in the middle of a job if there is no internet connection.

“The public beta of DaVinci Resolve 15 has been download more than any other release, customers have provided incredible feedback, and more high end editors are adopting it faster than ever before,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “Customers get an incredibly mature and fast set of editing and trimming tools that rivals all other systems, the world’s most advanced color correction tools, a completely integrated digital audio workstation, and now Fusion visual effects and motion graphics. It’s unlike any other software out there and is redefining professional multi user workflows in Hollywood and around the world! Now teams of editors, colorists, sound engineers and VFX artists can all collaborate and work together on the same project at the same time, all in the same software application!”

Throughout the beta program, Blackmagic Design engineers have worked hard to continue adding new features while addressing issues reported by customers via the DaVinci Resolve 15 beta feedback forum. New features added since NAB 2018 include:

• Improved performance when rendering H.264 clips.
• Clip names can be added as part of a window burn.
• Added support for HTML text formatting in subtitles.
• Added support for 2D and 3D title templates.
• Subclip extents can now be changed from the Edit timeline.
• Dynamic Trim icon has been added to the toolbar with slip and slide indicators.
• Audio automation data can now be edited on Fairlight page.
• FairlightFX now include presets and customers can now create their own.
• Sound libraries can now be created using DaVinci Resolve disk databases.
• Initial ResolveFX and OpenFX plugin support has been added to the Fusion page.
• New bypass Color and Fusion effects button has been added to all pages.
• Fusion compositions can now be copied and applied to additional clips.
• MediaIn nodes now let customers modify trim and media properties.
• Saver nodes have been added to the Fusion page.
• Clip level blanking output is now supported on the Color page.
• Nodes can now be assigned custom colors on the Color page.
• Compositing images with transparency has been improved.
• Optical flow performance has been dramatically improved.
• DCTL support has been extended and now supports ResolveFX.
• On-screen control for OpenFX and ResolveFX are now more responsive.
• Added support for encoding CEA-708 closed captions in MXF OP1a clips.
• Added support for encoding EXR clips with alpha channels.
• Added support for importing audio clip levels from AAF imports.
• New French and Portuguese language localization.
• Improved codec and format listing on the Deliver page.
• Simultaneous monitoring of SDR and HDR for DolbyVisionTM and HDR10+.
• New support for importing audio only AAF timelines.
• New support for Final Cut Pro X XML version 1.8.

In addition, Blackmagic Design has also announced that its official step by step training handbook, “The Definitive Guide to DaVinci Resolve 15” is now available for order on Amazon.

Availability and Price

DaVinci Resolve 15 is available today as a free download from the Blackmagic Design website for all current DaVinci Resolve and DaVinci Resolve Studio customers. DaVinci Resolve Studio is available for $299 from Blackmagic Design resellers worldwide.

DaVinci Resolve 15 Detailed Overview

DaVinci Resolve 15 features an entirely new Fusion page for feature film quality visual effects and motion graphics animation. Fusion was previously only available as a stand alone application and is the world’s most advanced visual effects and motion graphics software. It is now built into DaVinci Resolve 15. The new Fusion page gives customers a true 3D workspace with over 250 tools for compositing, vector paint, particles, keying, rotoscoping, text animation, tracking, stabilization and more. Adding Fusion to DaVinci Resolve has been a massive project that will be completed over the next 12-18 months. Customers can get started using Fusion today to complete nearly all of their visual effects and motion graphics work. The standalone version of Fusion will continue to be available for customers who need it.

In addition to bringing Fusion into DaVinci Resolve 15, Blackmagic Design has also added support for Apple Metal, multiple GPUs and CUDA acceleration, making Fusion in DaVinci Resolve faster than ever. To add visual effects or motion graphics, customers simply select a clip in the timeline on the Edit page and then click on the Fusion page where they can use Fusion’s dedicated node based interface, which is optimized for visual effects and motion graphics. Compositions created in the standalone version of Fusion can also be copied and pasted into DaVinci Resolve 15 projects.

DaVinci Resolve 15 also features a huge update to the Fairlight audio page. The Fairlight page now has a complete ADR toolset, static and variable audio retiming with pitch correction, audio normalization, 3D panners, audio and video scrollers, a fixed playhead with scrolling timeline, a preset library for equalizer, dynamics, plugins and global track properties, shared sound libraries, and built in cross platform plugins such as reverb, hum removal, vocal channel and de-esser. With DaVinci Resolve 15, customers no longer have to worry about audio plugins when moving between Mac, Windows and Linux because the FairlightFX plugins run natively on all three platforms.

DaVinci Resolve is the fastest growing nonlinear video editor in the industry. It’s also Hollywood’s favorite color corrector. Blackmagic Design has listened carefully to feedback from professional colorists and editors. DaVinci Resolve 15 includes over 300 new features and improvements that editors and colorists have asked for.

Colorists get an entirely new LUT browser for quickly previewing and applying LUTs, along with new shared nodes that are linked so when one is changed they all change, multiple playheads for quickly referencing different shots in a program, over 10x performance improvement for stabilization, improved noise reduction, and new Super Scale HD to 8K up-rezzing. DaVinci Resolve 15 also expands HDR support with GPU accelerated Dolby VisionTM metadata analysis and native HDR 10+ grading controls. In addition, new ResolveFX let customers quickly patch blemishes or remove unwanted elements in a shot using smart fill technology. There are also new ResolveFX for dust and scratch removal, lens and aperture diffraction effects, and more.

Professional editors will find new features in DaVinci Resolve 15 specifically designed to make cutting, trimming, organizing and working with large projects even better. DaVinci Resolve 15 has dramatically improved load times so that large projects with hundreds of timelines and thousands of clips now open instantly. New stacked timelines and timeline tabs let editors see multiple timelines at once so they can quickly cut, paste, copy and compare scenes between timelines. There are also new markers with on-screen annotations, subtitle and closed captioning tools, auto save with versioning, greatly improved keyboard customization tools, new 2D and 3D Fusion title templates, image stabilization on the Edit page, a floating timecode window, improved organization and metadata tools, along with IMF, H.264 and H.265 mastering presets.

For the ultimate high speed workflow, customers can add a DaVinci Resolve Micro Panel, DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel or a DaVinci Resolve Advanced Panel. All controls are logically placed near natural hand positions and are made out of the highest quality materials. Smooth, high resolution weighted trackballs and precision engineered knobs and dials feature the perfect amount of resistance for accurately adjusting any setting. The DaVinci Resolve control panels give colorists and editors fluid, hands on control over multiple parameters at the same time, allowing them to create looks that are simply impossible with a standard mouse.

For colorists, there are over 20 new Resolve FX filters that make it easy to remove dust, fix dead pixels, warp images and more. The amazing new face enhancement tool automatically recognizes and tracks facial features so colorists can quickly smooth skin, adjust skin tone, brighten eyes, and even change lip color, all without having to manually select or rotoscope any part of the image. The face enhancement tool is an indispensable feature that colorists will use every single day. In addition, there are new stabilization, match move, and other image processing tools that give colorists more creative options than ever before.

DaVinci Resolve 15 runs on all major platforms, including Mac, Windows and Linux, making it easy to integrate with existing systems and workflows. Customers running Red Hat or CentOS Linux can even build their own workstations using low cost motherboards, extremely fast processors, massive amounts of RAM and up to 8 GPUs for incredible real time performance.

Press Photography

Product photos of DaVinci Resolve 15, and all other Blackmagic Design products, are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D, Ultra HD and now 8K 60p workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com

Hollywood, CA - June 20, 2018 - Blackmagic Design announced today that Deadpool 2, the highly anticipated sequel in the 20th Century Fox/Marvel franchise, was colored by EFILM Senior Colorist Skip Kimball using DaVinci Resolve software. The irreverent series, starring Ryan Reynolds as a wisecracking reluctant superhero, is unique not only because of its main character, but also for the style of imagery used to depict the dark world surrounding Deadpool and his adventures.

Despite the fact that the Deadpool franchise exists in an adjacent world to the X-Men universe, the two have very different looks. With expansive visual effects and diverse shooting conditions, Kimball worked closely with cinematographer Jonathan Sela, to establish a straightforward approach to color.

“I’ve worked on several previous films with (Sela). It’s an absolute pleasure to work with him. Jonathan’s work is so even and straightforward, I’m able to get what he exposed on the screen fairly quickly, which is a testament to his craft,” Kimball said.

Sela was intent on creating a look of his own for the sequel, which lead Kimball to take an entirely new approach. “The look has less contrast,” said Kimball, “is a bit softer, and is not as saturated, which all serves Jonathan’s vision.”

With his experience in a wide range of formats, Kimball felt comfortable with the diverse material he had to combine and match from the Deadpool 2 production. “The biggest challenge in balancing the look of Deadpool 2 was to seamlessly integrate a high volume of visual effects shots that came in from many different vendors,” said Kimball. “The footage was shot over many weeks at various stages and locations so my aim was to make sure everything was kept fluid and cohesive. For example, the convoy scene is 10-minutes of action, but elements were shot on bluescreen and on location during different times of day.”

The convoy became his favorite scene, and he embraced the challenge to create a flow to the sequence. “It took many external mattes combined with Power Windows, along with Resolve plugins like camera shake, blurs and many tricks to make it all come together.”

Kimball relied on DaVinci Resolve to create a straightforward workflow that accommodated the variety of material coming in. “With DaVinci Resolve, I have the ability to work with the camera raw footage as well as VFX delivered in EXRs in numerous resolutions. Also, I find the DaVinci plug-ins very beneficial for creating looks; the open FX plug-ins provide creative starting points for countless looks.”

W dupes,” said Kimball. “I was also a driver. I learned how to transfer dailies on a RCA TK35 film projector and a Ikegami video camera. Then dailies were transferred to beta and VHS 3/4 inch U-matic tapes.”

Each new task was a chance to learn, and when his first opportunity with a color system appeared, he jumped at it. “I saw the Rank Cintel and thought it was great. I learned color grading on my own time, because it looked really creative, fun, and interesting.”

After starting his career as a colorist at Anderson, Kimball has since worked with many of the industry's top directors and cinematographers, and served as a colorist on a myriad of acclaimed films such as Gone Baby Gone, Nebraska, The Fault in Our Stars, Logan, and Downsizing; all colored in DaVinci Resolve, which he has used since 1989.

Throughout his career, Kimball has enjoyed moving seamlessly between series, feature and short form. He loves working on diversely different projects, such as Netflix’ popular series, Stranger Things and the industry-shaking Avatar for James Cameron. But despite the wide range of projects he likes to embrace, he still feels learning the basics is critical to learning the trade. “My advice (to young colorists) is to learn your tools, learn how to read the scopes, and learn how to work with film before digital. To be able to work with film on a Telecine is much more informative than today’s workflows.”

Despite all his tools, Kimball insists he doesn’t have a bag of tricks up his sleeve. “I basically start from scratch as I look at the footage, and color grade based on instinct. I try to start off with being able to show the cinematographer what they exposed, and from there we build on it.” The rest, he insists, is patience. “If I get stuck on a shot, I walk away from it, then come back. The scene is not done until you can play all the way through without stopping.”

Press Photography

Product photos of DaVinci Resolve Studio and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com

Press Contact

Terry Frechette

+1 408 954 0500 Ext. 321

pr-usa@blackmagicdesign.com

Tokyo, Japan — June 15, 2018 - Blackmagic Design announced today that Japanese post production company Upside rebuilt their studio around Blackmagic Design 12G-SDI technology. As part of their upgrade from HD to 4K60p support, the company installed DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel, DaVinci Resolve Micro Panel, Teranex Express, DeckLink 4K Extreme 12G, Smart Videohub 12G 40x40 and Videohub Smart Control.

Upside is a post production company founded in 2012, specializing in editing and color grading for dramas and short films. It also has departments for shooting and lighting, and supports the complete workflow from shooting to post production. To meet the demand for more 4K60p content, Upside decided to upgrade their existing HD studio to support 4K60p in September last year. There are three audio engineering rooms, seven editing rooms and one grading room. Many Blackmagic 12G-SDI products were installed in the machine rooms, as well as in the editing and grading rooms.

“We already had DaVinci Resolve Advanced Panel in the grading room. Online editors can apply color correction, now that we installed DaVinci Resolve Studio and Mini Panels in every online editing room. It eliminated the necessity to go to the grading room and has made the workflow more efficient. We sometimes produce a project simultaneously with DaVinci Resolve Studio, grading the material in a grading room and applying effects in an editing room. It makes the workflow enormously more smooth since you can work on a project at the same time. We also installed DaVinci Resolve Micro Panels and because you can carry around DaVinci Resolve Micro Panels, we sometimes use them for color correction on location,” said Kazunari Kurusu, a director of the post production department.

By building the machine room with Blackmagic 12G-SDI products, they were able to reduce cables and make connections simpler. There are 4K and HD monitors in the grading and online editing rooms, where Teranex Express is used to convert 4K signals to HD and which are also used in the online editing rooms.

In the company’s machine room, they have installed two units of Smart Videohub 12G 40x40 routers, one for HD and the other for 4K. These are at the center of the whole post production system, with signals switched on Videohub Smart Controls installed in each editing and grading room. Multiple units of DeckLink 4K Extreme 12G are used for inputs and outputs on every machine in the editing and grading rooms.

“There were no other possible choices for us when we planned to build this machine room other than using Blackmagic products, many of which support 12G-SDI. We had been using Blackmagic products for five years with no problem so we find them reliable and trustworthy. Not only are they affordable, the performance of every product is wonderful,” he concluded.

Press Photography

Product photos of DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel, DaVinci Resolve Micro Panel, Teranex Express, DeckLink 4K Extreme 12G, Smart Videohub 12G 40x40, Videohub Smart Control and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.

Press Contact

Nick Govoni
Zazil Media Group
(e) nick@zazilmediagroup.com
(p) +1 (978) 866 7354

CHICAGO—When it came to bringing my latest project—the thriller film “My Daughter Was Stolen,” which premiered on the Lifetime Movie Network March 9 after a run in select theaters—to life, I knew I could rely on Blackmagic Design for my production and post-production needs.

For this project, I relied on the DaVinci Resolve 14 Studio editing, color correction and audio post application and Fusion 9 Studio visual effects (VFX) software.

EDIT WHILE YOU WORK

As the post supervisor and colorist for the project, the team and I used DaVinci Resolve Studio for color grading, editing and sound design. In post, DaVinci Resolve Studio truly shined, allowing us to switch back and forth between editing and color grading via the collaboration mode.

We edited the film while it was still being shot, so this feature was a standout. For example, we would copy the previous day’s footage to the server via the clone tool and then our assistant editor would edit the metadata and label the clips by scene and take, all while our editor was editing the clips already finished. DaVinci Resolve Studio handles 4K RAW footage, so we never had to downgrade the quality. Saving time on things like this allowed the assembly edit to be completed in a day or two after filming wrapped and allowed me to color grade simultaneously.

I also relied on several of DaVinci Resolve Studio’s new features like the Match Move filter, which helped me replace pictures and videos on television screens and cellphones. The advanced trimming tool was also very intuitive, allowing me to be very precise and quick.

[Read: The Helm Creative Grades Budweiser’s ‘One Last Ride’ Spot With DaVinci Resolve 14 Studio]

Our dialogue editor, who was in charge of adding sound effects, music and creating the final mix, used a combination of DaVinci Resolve Studio’s edit page for audio editing, as well as moved to the Fairlight Audio Interface page for setting up sub groups, main outs, dynamic filtration and final delivery stems. The addition of Fairlight audio to DaVinci Resolve 14 has really made a difference, as we can deliver projects the way we want without having to use other programs. Not only do we have advanced color grading and editing in one program, but we also can set up subs and mains and route everything accordingly, output the master and separate left, center and right surround channels all in one step.

THAT SPECIAL VFX

The only thing not done in DaVinci Resolve Studio was specific VFX, which was done in Fusion 9 Studio (all the green screen compositing was still done in DaVinci Resolve Studio), as well as some sound effects and foley editing, but we brought that into the program later as stems. While working on VFX, our artist relied on Fusion Studio’s planar tracking options and superb roto tools to isolate tracking areas. Some scenes that stand out include enhancing smoke and fire inside a burning room, creating a bullet that impacted a subject’s body with blood coming out of the wound and a cigarette bursting into flames that was on the floor.

The ease of use and how each product works so seamlessly with each other makes any creative’s job a dream. Blackmagic Design is truly reliable and allows you to do what you do best—create.

Ari Golan is an award-winning director and cinematographer and president and CEO of Atomic Imaging, Inc., and Golan Studios/GPI. He can be contacted atari@atomicimaging.com.

For more information, visit www.blackmagicdesign.com or call 408-954-0500.