NAB 2019 Part 1 - A look at DaVinci Resolve 16 and Mystica Boutique

What I Learned (and Surprised Me) in 5 Hours at NAB 2019

April 20, 2019

At NAB 2019 with 5 hours of 'me time', in Part 1 learn what I though was significant in Resolve 16 and Mistika Boutique.


With a Game Plan, what can you learn touring NAB in 5 hours?

As usual, the National Association of Broadcaster industry trade show and conference was a whirlwind of activity. For Team Mixing Light, NAB 2019 was no exception. It started the way it usually does, preparing for and then executing the annual Colorist Mixer on the night before the show opens. But after that, the Show took a different turn for us.

This year, we had a presence on the floor in the South Lower Hall all week (more on that in a moment). By Wednesday at 1:30 pm I hadn’t had more than 10 minutes at any booth but ours. I am bummed. I LOVE walking the show floor. Luckily, I had a demo scheduled on Wednesday at 2 pm and was free for another hour after that.

Then, there were another 3 hours of ‘me time’ on Thursday morning before I had to be back at the booth, teaching, on Thursday afternoon. For a show like NAB, and a guy like me, that’s not much time! On Wednesday evening it concerned me that I wouldn’t have time to see anything. But then, at a small party, I had a great conversation that set up a solid game plan.

Wednesday evening I ran into Katie Hinsen, and we developed a game plan for my final 3 hours of show floor time

Since I already spent some time at the Blackmagic booth (more on that in a moment), I’d start Thursday morning in the North Hall, then work the Central Hall, and finally cruise the South Upper Hall. This game plan would take me off my typical beaten track and allow me to find interesting or unique solutions and products. This plan included specific booths I needed to hit along the way:

  • North Hall Main Destination: NHK. This Japanese broadcaster always has engaging presentations and technology demos that are future-facing. The NHK booth is also usually the centerpiece of a larger Future Technology pavilion, providing opportunities for interesting conversations.
  • Central Hall Main Destination: Sony. Their booth is always great not just for the high-end reference displays, but like NHK like they like to add wow factor to their booth (and 2019 did not disappoint).
  • Upper South Hall Destination: None. Just wander through the front half of the hall. That’s where all the cloud-based solutions congregate. Since Mixing Light uses a half-dozen cloud solutions, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), I agreed with Katie that would be my logical final destination.

While chatting, Katie suggested I keep on eye out for the term ‘distributed workflows.’ She said it seemed like every third vendor was touting some ‘cloud’ solution that allows creatives to integrate their crafts – worldwide. As you’ll see at the end of this travelog, I was hit smack in the face with one amazing example of this. It’s a solution I think I should have known about – but didn’t (more on that in Part 2 of this article).

Let’s begin at the beginning and set the table for my only 5 hours on the NAB 2019 show floor. Let’s start with the Mixing Light Presentation Theater.

The Mixing Light Presentation Theater:
Sponsored by Gaiamount and FSI

After preparing for the Presentation Theater for two months – Robbie, Dan, and I were thrilled by our corner of the South Lower Hall and FSI’s booth. Here’s what it looked like, in action:

Patrick Inhofer at the Mixing Light Presentation Theater at NAB 2019
Most sessions were very well attended. In this photo I’m talking about DaVinci Resolve Color Management (which will be recorded as an Insight).
Katie Hinsen at the Mixing Light Presentation Theater at NAB 2019
Mixing Light Contributor Katie Hinsen is discussing the likelihood of different technologies being implemented in the future.
Robbie Carman hosts a discussion about HDR and Dolby Vision at NAB 2019
Mixing Light’s Robbie Carman hosts a discussion about HDR and Dolby Vision with Rob Carroll (Dolby) and Bram Desmet (Flanders Scientific).

About Our Sponsors

Mixing Light’s booth presence was sponsored by Gaiamount – the Chinese training side of ZunZheng (developers and manufacturers of FSI displays). Gaiamount regularly flies out Western educators (including Robbie, Dan, and myself) to various events, including film competitions and BIRTV (the Chinese NAB) in Bejing. Gaiamount also translates some of Mixing Light’s training titles to Mandarin and are sold via the Gaiamount learning platform. We have a good relationship with them – and in conjunction with FSI’s support (redesigning their booth), Mixing Light had a floor presence!

Looking forward to NAB 2020

Are we doing this teaching again next year? In Magic 8 Ball terms, ‘Outlook good’ – but the decision is pending. This year, we spent so much time getting our teaching grid filled out, and all those logistics, that many other choices we should have made didn’t get made. This time we have a year to prepare. So if it happens again, our presence will be more holistic, from a business standpoint. Plus, we need to really promote and get the Mixing Light Meetup to happen, properly.

One thing Dan and I both commented upon: Having a booth presence means not having to chase down your friends, peers, and customers! We had people stopping by all week. Many just wanted to say Hi and were happy to know where our ‘home’ was. It was a NAB highlight for both of us.

Also, a booth highlight was the 4 or 5 people who found out about us while in Las Vegas and sat through every single presentation. They even stayed to watch several presentations, twice. It was a significant validation of the quality of content you can find in Mixing Light.

Now, what were my takeaways from NAB?

I’m breaking the rest of this travelogue into several parts. First, I’ll share my initial impressions about DaVinci Resolve 16 and SGO’s Mistika Boutique. I spent the last part of my Wednesday focused on those two booths. In Part 2 of this article series, we’ll follow my path through the North, Central, and South Upper halls. Part 2 will conclude where my travels actually ended – and where I walked away with my head spinning…

NAB Takeaways: The Keyboard, DaVinci Resolve, and SGO Mistika Boutique

The first day of the show, Monday, Dan whipped out his phone and showed me a picture he took. Of this:

The Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve Edit Controller
Hello 1995! I had to see this keyboard with my own eyes to believe it was true.

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Comments

Homepage Forums What I Learned (and Surprised Me) in 5 Hours at NAB 2019


  • Tim Whiting
    Guest

    I may be way off in what you’re asking but I’ll give it a shot:

    I believe the ‘move’ behaviour in the Bands tool shown in the Mistika video is the equivalent of using the luminance bar as as a ‘Y only’ adjustment in the Primaries Bars section of the colour page, as opposed to the luminance wheel ‘YRGB’ adjustment.

    By default Davinci Resolve processes colour in YRGB, very broadly this means that the luminance wheel controls will not only increase/decrease the brightness of the image, but will also attempt to maintain the perceptual colour bias between the channels in the image by increasing/decreasing saturation. So increasing brightness with the wheel will also raise the saturation the the R,G, and B sliders.

    The Primaries Bars section (and the resolve panel I believe) has a white bar available that will increase or decrease luminance while maintaining the same colour saturation value as viewed on a vectorscope. As far as I can tell that’s what they mean by affecting the luminance and chrominance separately.

    If you want to take it a step further and take luminance out of the equation all together, you can do this by setting the Luminance Mixer to zero in Resolve. This can be achieved by setting Lum Mix to zero in the colour page to affect individual nodes, or make it the project global default by selecting Project Settings – General Options – Color – Luminance mixer defaults to zero. This forced resolve to work in RGB mode and means you can adjust the Red Green and Blue channels without them affecting each other. However I don’t think that’s what they are talking about in this tool.


  • Pat Inhofer
    Guest

    Tim – You nailed it! I’ll email you on Monday to get your mailing address.

    Also – you may want to update your ‘Social Settings’ on this page so it doesn’t show your email address:
    https://mixinglight.com/my-profile/

    🙂

    To everyone else – No worries, we’ll be running these little mini-contests for a little bit. We’ve got more of those goodies to give away!

    My Social Profile


  • Jan K
    Guest

    Patrick – If it’s of interest, there is a lengthy thread on Mistika BT on LiftGammaGain which I’ve been contributing to heavily. I got intrigued by Mistika and over the last month have spend considerable time getting it to work and learning it in a MacPro setup in parallel to Resolve. I am finally at a point where I can start using it on some client jobs. It has a lot of promise, but it’s also a rocky road as Mistika is transitioning from a closed to an open platform. They’re extremely helpful and are working hard to make it a success, but it’s far from turn key. Happy to share more details.


  • Pat Inhofer
    Guest

    Jan – the Mistika threads on LGG are terrific. Thanks for mentioning them. I highly recommend reading and staying current on those threads if you’re interested in learning more about Mistika:

    Boutique Thread – https://liftgammagain.com/forum/index.php?threads/mistika-boutique.12268/

    Mistika Forum – https://liftgammagain.com/forum/index.php?forums/mistika.31/


  • Jeffrey S
    Guest

    Let’s see that grayscale!


  • Benedict B
    Guest

    The Tangent Arc would be a nice panel, but is it working with Resolve? The Tangent homepage doesn’t list Resolve, is it mainly because of the BM advanced panel? Or are there technical reasons for that? Or could you use the Arc with Resolve and simply get some unmapped buttons? Do you know anything about that Patrick?
    BTW: Nice to see a BVE 9100 on Mixing Light, we still use them as remote control for recording studio productions on XDCam decks


  • Marc Wielage
    Guest

    Blackmagic tightly controls what panels they support in Resolve, so from a competitive point of view, I think it’s doubtful they’ll include the Tangent Arc. I have to say, it has some advantages over the Advanced Panels, but a lot would depend on how it’s implemented.


  • Tim Whiting
    Guest

    I watched a video where a Tangent rep said they are developing an ofx plugin that would expand the functionality the panels but haven’t read anything beyond that.


  • Josh H
    Guest

    It was so awesome to be able to sit through the talks at the ML Theater. Really enjoyed meeting and chatting with all of you.

    Thank Ms. Inhofer for the studio decor ideas! The Ikea curtains are awesome.


  • Pat Inhofer
    Guest

    Thanks! We loved that you spent your NAB with us! I’ll let Pam know. Oh – and the curtains we used for the gray backdrop do NOT have the huge grommets in them (we double-checked when we got home). We use Ikea’s wire hanging system, and the wires thread through the curtains: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60075295/


  • Pat Inhofer
    Guest

    What Marc said. I do think if you’re trying to differentiate your grading business without spending entry-level BMW prices on a control surface, Mistika with the Arc may be something worth looking at… that’s the context of my Arc mention. Since to date, the BMD team has done all the programming on 3rd party panels, my pure speculation is: I’m not sure they’re inclined to tackle the Arc.

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