Nobe OmniScope gets Live Pack for on-set and live monitoring

Well, this exhaustive set of visualisation tools for all kinds of technical parameters in video and audio could always be used for live sources. But until now, any DIT couldn’t get very far if he/she needed to do some real-time grading on a film set or for a live broadcast. Yes, there is Resolve Live, but it’s rather limited. Time in Pixels has recently added the „Live Pack“ to Nobe OmniScope (NOS for short), which integrates with Pomfort’s Livegrade 7, as reported by DP on March 11th. By now, we have driven it through its paces.

Why not Resolve Live?

Even the free version of Davinci Resolve (DR for short) has this feature, which allows some live grading. But it seems a bit like walking into a store and looking for a product that has not been asked for in a while. Some salesperson may say: „Oh, I remember, it must be somewhere in that lowest drawer down in the corner“. Resolve Live is limited to a single input device, even with more than one unit connected you can’t change that. So, for several cameras your (physical) desktop would soon have computers piling up.

And then, you need to set the timeline precisely to the right frame rate and resolution for both timeline and monitoring, i.e. both the input device and the monitoring one must support the same resolution. If not, you won’t see anything, DR will not tell you the parameters of the incoming signal. It’ll just tell you to match whatever there might be. If you want to work in UHD, for example, but monitor your colors on a calibrated screen in HD with a cheaper interface, that won’t happen with Resolve Live. It’s normally not a problem if you don’t use the live feature.

Once you have developed a LUT, save and export it, then move it to your LUT box or camera and load it there. Not really a smooth process in the heat of production, and Blackmagic Design (BM for short) doesn’t seem to care much about adding any features to Resolve Live recently. Nevertheless, NOS can connect to it and deliver the signal to its scopes with very low latency by direct GPU access, and you can feed a Rec. 709 signal, even to monitors which don’t load a LUT, while working on log sources from the DIT cart. Scaling the output for an HD device is easily achieved with NOS. Don’t forget to exit from Resolve Live when done, since most of Resolve’s non-grading features are disabled while it’s running.

Why Pomfort Livegrade?

The whole toolset by Pomfort is a well-establised suite of software for the film and broadcast business, and Livegrade is their solution for real-time grading and look preparation. While it always had its own scopes, they are not as sophisticated and flexible as those in NOS. Livegrade can work with multiple sources, both cameras or references. Live grading for up to 4 cameras can be handled directly, but more than 20 can be controlled by loading LUTs into external LUT boxes, or into some cameras via Ethernet. All of this can be handled right from the software (full details here).

Looks developed here can also be exported as a CDL for dailies or post. Integration with NOS is currently limited to two live slots, but Pomfort is encouraging users to contact them if they need more, so they may be working on extending this number. Quote: „For workflows that require more OmniScope streams, extended configurations can be evaluated on request.“ NOS lists the slots you have prepared just like any other source, while both apps run concurrently. No wiring or additional interfaces needed. So, no extra cost, bad connections or latency introduced, since Direct GPU access is also applied to the signals from Livegrade 7. 

Configuration and Performance

NOS is highly optimized and still running pretty well on older machines. We tried it on a 2017 iMac, which is based on Intel and can’t run any system newer than Ventura (MacOS 13). It can support 2 HD sources and 7 Instruments without fully saturating the GPU, an AMD Radeon Pro 580 (see title). The older interfaces for HD, the UltraStudio Mini Recorder and Monitor, can be found cheaply on the second-hand market and that large screen and its design are still looking good. Maybe you got one waiting for resurrection?

Of course, it’s no match for modern Apple silicon. We tortured a Mac mini M4 Pro with 15 instruments, one source in HD and the other in UHD, and it didn’t break a sweat. GPU load was no more than 60%, most CPU cores were idle, and it used less than 4 GB of RAM. It’s absolutely credible that a Mac mini M2 Pro with 16 GB, as recommended by the author, will be plenty. All of this was tested without scaling or any of the performance options activated, but all the demanding QC features were running. Without all of the latter and some of the performance optimisations, even a Mac mini M1 with 8 GB will do. Nevertheless, you may want a Mac Studio to get more Thunderbolt ports if you need to connect more interfaces. Now, why don’t we mention any PC here, when there is NOS for Windows? (see here for hardware needs).

Well, the other component of today’s review is Mac-only, even Apple Silicon, for that matter. Minimum OS is Sequoia (15) or Tahoe (26). And then, you’ll need the latest Desktop Video driver by BM (15.3.1) for any of their compatible interfaces. There were some reports of installation issues in the forums with recent versions on macOS, but we didn’t experience any of them. It seems that you just have to watch and follow the messages popping up to give the additional components access rights under Apple’s overprotective mother, called an operating system.

All together now …

Once everything is up and running, both apps coexist nicely on our single machine, with Livegrade also just sipping on system resources, both regarding cores and RAM at about 500 MB. Finally, the installer for NOS is quite sleek at not much over 400 MB. The highly flexible and easily configured GUI of NOS can even co-exist nicely with Livegrade on one ultrawide screen like ours. Of course, you can also move the apps to two separate ones. And then, other than by DR, the parameters of incoming signals are detected by either app automatically once you have chosen the interface. You can even get an output in HD from UHD by NOS, so it’s a software issue in DR.

Latency

We measured latency using a 100 fps recording of a TC display, with 50 fps over the whole chain from the lens to the source display in Resolve Live or NOS, so the precision should be +/- 10 milliseconds. After slowing the recording down to 50 fps, we were stepping through the footage and observed the change of the frame numbers. The camera’s LCD was already about 40-50 ms late, but at that point, we don’t know if this is caused by processing in the camera or the display.

Display in Resolve Live was some 80-90 ms late, which includes hardware latency in the DeckLink card, of course. The value via Livegrade was a tad slower, like around 90 ms. The display in NOS via direct GPU access appeared about 10 ms later than in Livegrade, demonstrating the efficiency of that approach. The new focusing aids by coloured or isolated edges felt quite usable, not at all as if wading through molasses, like on systems with too much latency.

Recently Added Features

Support for multiple sources and the helpful Input Strip were already celebrated in DP last year, but now you can also record sources to disk in 720 or 1080 HD, either as H.264 or H.265 in an MP4 wrapper, or the two lighter versions of ProRes in MOV. These recordings are perfect for generating proxies for later editing. Most video speeds are already recorded correctly at constant frame rates; only those pesky fractional rates for the NTSC world are still showing VFR. But the author is aware and working on a fix. Even with 3 recordings running in the background, the GPU load didn’t climb to more than 70%.

New Instruments

There is even a new instrument, the Hectorscope, named after colourist Hector Berrebi. It enables you to examine your shot in 3D, with two dimensions representing the image and the third showing brightness. This is great for checking your shadows for noise or color casts. Loudness metering for the two established broadcast standards in audio, namely EBU R128 and ATSC A/85, is another recent addition. While SDI or HDMI output is already on board, recently the author has added Web Remote output as a very early alpha demo preview. The list of smaller, but nevertheless useful features added would literally fill several pages. Does that guy ever sleep?

Any Shortcomings?

There are only minor issues, like LiveGrade not being able to switch between SDI and HDMI sources. You’ll need to use BM’s Desktop Video Setup to do that, while NOS is handling such tasks in its own GUI. The GUI of Livegrade is less flexible than that of NOS, and it has rather coarse tooltips, whereas those by NOS are very detailed. When disconnecting a source in Livegrade, it’s still not available elsewhere; you’ll need to quit the software first. Both apps recognise and display incoming formats, but you’ll need to switch shortly between sources in Livegrade to see the new values if the source’s parameters have changed. Finally, if you quit only one of the apps and start it again, things can get messed up.

Documentation

Both apps have complete online manuals, including video tutorials. Some of the tutorials for Time in Pixels were made together with Daria Fissoun, who is also a specialist for DaVinci Resolve and explains the use of most of those scopes very well here. And then, the changelog for NOS is excellent, far better than many others; it leaves nothing unclear. If you’d like to dig even deeper, head over to Tektronix and read about the basics and scopes as artistic tools. Their hardware scopes, which used to be expensive marvels of engineering, can be found for a few hundred Euro second-hand now, left far behind by software like NOS. Their learning resources are still valid, though.

Commentary

Nobe OmniScope is getting better with every update and works fine both with LiveGrade and Resolve Live. Unfortunately, while being free, the latter is quite limited and not even really stable. We have experienced stalls when simply trying to add a node while Resolve Live was running.

Livegrade 7 is not cheap at over 1.000 € per year, but it’s stable and does what it promises. You can get a 10-day temporary license for 179,- € if you just need it for a single project.

OTOH, the Live Pack for NOS is a steal at its introductory price of 85,- € if you already own OmniScope Pro, and it’s a lifetime license. After the introduction ends, it is 128 €, which still is cheap for a tool of that magnitude. NOS itself is a subscription, but a fair one: it won’t stop functioning; you just won’t get updates anymore if you stop paying. You can even reactivate your subscription later.

The post Nobe OmniScope is a Live Act now! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Uli Plank.