Updates for Catalyst Browse and Resolve 18.5 Beta

This is just a quick heads up as I’m on the road right now.

Sony have released a major update for Catalyst Browse and Catalyst prepare that is packed full of bug fixes.  https://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/catalystbrowse
 

In addition Black Magic design have just release the public beta of DaVinci Resolve 18.5. With this update you can now use the Raw controls in the Grading room to control the ISO/White Balance/Tint etc of S-Log3 footage from the FX series cameras. This makes it so easy to adjust for any exposure offsets.  https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/family/davinci-resolve-and-fusion

460x150_xdcam_150dpi Updates for Catalyst Browse and Resolve 18.5 Beta

13 thoughts on “Updates for Catalyst Browse and Resolve 18.5 Beta”

  1. I’ve been testing the latest version of Prepare plug-in for the stabilisation tool and I’m finding if I apply a Catalyst effect to a clip, Premiere immediately crashes to desktop whenever the app is launched. This is on a M1 Studio Max.

  2. Black Magic design have just release the public beta of DaVinci Resolve 18.5. With this update you can now use the Raw controls in the Grading room to control the ISO/White Balance/Tint etc of S-Log3 footage from the FX series cameras. This makes it so easy to adjust for any exposure offsets…

    Hmmm.. I tried, it dose show the control but nothing changes.. may be i am missing something or there is a bug

  3. Bug fixes or no fixes, it is completely outrageous and unacceptable that Sony’s ‘update’ has now made it so that one can not re-render out interlaced clips that one stabilizes with this ‘update’ in Catalyst Browse. This is an absurd step BACKWARD. Had Sony not wildly touted Catalyst Browse from the time they released FX9, one might not be incensed. But as it currently stands, Sony is attempting to FORCE purchasers of its very pricey pro cameras and lenses now to sign up for the stupidly expensive annual subsrciption version, something that was never required with prior version. Smoke emits swifly from mine ears. I hope that Sony gets an appropriate earful – and will be encouraged to actually produce the DAW plug in for Resolve that it never has made, despite suggesting that it would support various DAWs.

    1. AFAIK, previous versions allowed rendering in all-I, but while the container was 10-bit, the footage was actually limited to 8-bit.

      I have to agree with you. Sony has done something very odd with touting Catalyst Browse to stabilize clips. I never found Browse to be good enough to actually rely upon, with no good transcoding option for 10-bit Log to 10-bit Log with stabilization. And, I’m not about to subscribe just for that feature.

  4. Does the 18.5 update apply only to FX series (e.g. excludes any A7 series S-log 3 10-bit capable camera)? And I’m assuming this is essentially a UI improvement–the math would be the same as a correctly-color-managed exposure adjustment on the HDR Global Controls? Thanks Alister.

    1. Yes, it is just a UI improvement, but it is a nice feature to have. As you point out, it’s already possible to make these adjustments natively in Resolve. s well as exposure using HDR Global, the chromatic adaptation effect can be used to change the temperature if round tripping to linear gamma.

      My experience is that this only works with MXF-wrapped footage which has the required metadata tags. I’m basing that on testing with XAVC-I from the FX6 and XAVC-S-I from the FX3. I think it’s theoretically possible to wrap the FX3 footage and manually add the required metadata tags so that the Sony Raw panel recognizes it in Resolve.

  5. Regarding – “With this update you can now use the Raw controls in the Grading room to control the ISO/White Balance/Tint etc of S-Log3 footage from the FX series cameras.”

    I’ve tried this, but can’t see this new Raw function in Resolve 18.5 for Sony FX6 S-Log3 XAVC-I clips.

    Did it make it into 18.5?

    Thank you,
    Gary

  6. Alister, can you explain what this means in a bit more detail? I am confused how the implementation of this control differs from traditional raw. The ability to alter ISO by stop and white balance by exact kelvin temperature is a fantastic help, but I had always thought this was only possible in raw files, where that information was all encoded as metadata. It seems that Resolve can now read and alter that data from the FX cameras, so is it essentially the same, except with a lower bit rate?

    1. The S-Log3 MXF files contain just as much metadata as a raw file and in some cases a lot more. And as it is known exactly how the S-Log3 relates to the light the camera captured you can make the very same adjustments as you can with raw. There is a general misconception that only raw can be accurately adjusted in post to mimic in camera changes. In reality almost any high quality recording format can be adjusted in the same way provided you know the maths that was used at the time the file was recorded.

      1. Thanks for the quick reply, Alister! If that is the case, a few questions:
        1) why hasn’t this been implemented previously?
        2) why aren’t similar controls available for all cameras?
        3) what makes raw “better?’

        1. Catalyst has been able to make ISO and WB changes to S-Log content since it was released.

          It is then down to the grading software vendors to implement this and it may be that their software isn’t flexible enough to include this. In addition as the maths is different for every gamma it can only be done when sufficient metadata in the file to correctly describes how the camera was set at the time of recording, not every camera stores enough metadata. Plus, the camera manufacturer has to provide details about how the camera behaves at different white balances etc to the software writers. But this is the way S-Log3 has always meant to work.

          The main thing that can make raw better is the bit depth. Raw files are very efficient. It isn’t inflated from the single RGGB bayer raw bitmap to the 3 bitmaps of R, G and B (or Y, Cb, Cr) found in a component recording. As a result the raw data is around 1/2 to 1/3rd of the size. The smaller data size allows you to more easily use an increased bit depth without the recording data rate becoming excessive. A 12 bit log raw file will grade better than a similarly compressed 10 bit log component file simply because one is 12 bit and the other 10 bit.

          BUT there are so many other factors that matter such as the compression used, the quality of the encoding and decoding, the quality of the software used. So it is never certain that raw will be better. Log gets a very bad rap. It’s actually highly gradable.

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