Neat Video is a GPU-accelerated denoising plug-in for NLEs, compositors and grading systems, including Premiere Pro, After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Motion and Baselight. It builds device specific noise profiles and applies spatial and temporal filtering inside the host application.

OFX plug in across Windows, macOS and Linux

Neat Video v6 is available as a plug in for OpenFX hosts on Windows, macOS and Linux. Version 6.1 of the Neat Video v6 plug in for OFX hosts adds support for Baselight 7. This extends compatibility for grading workflows using OpenFX on macOS and Linux in that host.

Expanded support in other hosts

According to the vendor, version 6.1 adds compatibility with the latest versions of several major host applications. These include Premiere Pro 2026 on Windows and macOS and After Effects 2026 on Windows and macOS. On macOS, version 6.1 supports Final Cut Pro 12 and Motion 6 from Apple. The plug-in is compatible with standalone versions purchased from the App Store as well as bundled versions of Final Cut Pro 12 and Motion 6 included in Apple Creator Studio. The vendor states that the Neat Video 6.1 plug in functions identically in both cases, allowing users to switch between those versions if required. Support for Baselight 7 has also been added, as noted above, via the OFX plug in.

Default Noise Profile and Filter Preset controls

A key update in version 6.1 is the introduction of new controls to simplify using a fixed noise profile and filter preset when working with a series of clips with the same noise. The stated aim is to speed up the overall setup process when applying multiple instances of the noise-reduction effect to similar materials.

Users can now set the Default Noise Profile using the current noise profile. This is implemented through a new button with a popup menu in the Device Noise Profile panel and through new commands in the main menu under Profile.

Similarly, users can set the Default Filter Preset using the current filter settings. This is available via a new button with a popup menu in the Filter Settings panel and through new commands in the main menu under Filter. When the filter is applied to additional clips in the same series, new instances automatically load the Default Noise Profile and Default Filter Preset.

The improved representation of the names of the current noise profile and current filter preset makes it clear when defaults are in use. Their names are displayed in the Device Noise Profile and Filter Settings panels.

The Input Data Gain section in Preferences is disabled when the Default Noise Profile is used. The vendor states that this is because the actually applied gain is determined by the Default Noise Profile in that case.

Reset controls and minor fixes

Version 6.1 adds a new Reset button in the Device Noise Profile panel and a corresponding command in the main menu under Profile to reset the current noise profile. A new Reset button with a popup menu has also been added to the Preferences dialog. This allows users to reset settings on the current page, reset settings on all pages, or re enable all optional messages and dialogs that were previously disabled.

Neat Video 6.1 is available as a free update for licensed users of version 6. Users of earlier major versions can upgrade with a discount. Demo editions are available for evaluation. As always, new tools and updates should be tested in a controlled environment before deployment in production.

// https://www.neatvideo.com/blog/post/neat-video-61-host-support-better-workflow
// https://www.neatvideo.com/download/history/ofx-plugin

The post Neat Video 6.1 updates OFX and host support first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

DaVinci Resolve (DR for short) had the Magic Mask function on board for quite a while, and some voiced their disappointment when it didn’t conjure up what greenscreen keying does. Well, Blackmagic Design (BM for short) never claimed it does, by concept it was rather aiming at secondary colour grading. While its capabilities are quite impressive, Magic Mask has some problems with backgrounds that are too close in colour and contrast to the foreground, or subjects with motion blur. And then, it needs very capable hardware and there are still quite a few reports of limited reliability of Magic Mask 2 in DR, caching in particular. While version 20.3.2 should have some improvements in that area, we wouldn’t bet the house (or the company) on it yet.

FxFactory to the rescue

So, good old greenscreen has not yet been obsoleted by AI, at least if you don’t shoot the whole scene in a virtual studio anyway. The authors, Rob Mackintosh and Gabriele de Simone, have obviously thought about facilitating boring tasks by blending in some AI with ‘classic’ greenscreening. They are the masterminds behind the Hawaiki Keyer (HK for short, even if not from China), which is supported and distributed by FxFactory. Version 5 of that keyer adds tracking by a neural engine, including face or object recognition. They also ported it to DR, while older versions were only available for Adobe’s video software and Final Cut Pro. Reason enough to have a closer look?

Test scenes

We have tested it with critical footage, like a too well-lit background lacking saturation, and another one with good saturation, but lighting issues. The latter one was even in ‘small’ HD out of a DVCPro camera (from Hollywood Camera Works). Of course, a perfectly lit greenscreen in 12K from a modern digital camera would hardly stress any of the keyers included by BM, like the 3D Keyer in DR Studio, or Cryptomatte and Delta Keyer in Fusion. HK rather aims at those fighting with not so perfect shots.

Tracking instead of boring

After watching the older tutorial you may be wondering about the shape of the window coming up for the secondary keyer, which is now rectangular. You can round it off if needed with its “Roundness” slider. This is now in its own menu under “Shape”, where you also define the tracking area. The secondary key is controlled by this adjustable shape, and this is where tracking comes into play. You can have it follow the initial content like any good tracker.

Or you can activate “AI Track” and let it follow faces or objects, even multiple targets up to six. In our tests it was tracking very reliably, only some of the wildly shaken strains of blonde hair with high motion blur in one example were overshooting and needed minor adjustment. Such tracking capabilities are not only taking a lot of manual work out of garbage matting for scenes with a moving camera, but allow you to apply the secondary key to critical areas, like hair. A detailed tutorial is here.

Two for the price of one

Actually, even four, counting the extras. At first view, most of HK’s functions are set to “Auto” or quite decent presets, but all can be fine-tuned manually, if not to say infinitely. There is even a separate version for bluescreen, in case anybody, not even knowing where the heck that name originated, is confronted with optochemical footage. Now, either version is actually two keyers in one. If you have some experience with chroma keying, you will already know that one single key is often not enough to handle both delicate semi-transparencies and an uneven background at once. HK offers a primary and a secondary key, which both can be enabled and fine-tuned individually, as explained here. Most of the YouTube tutorials for HK were made by Simon Ubsdell, a very experienced compositing artist who also produced hundreds of other tutorials.

Clean the edges

“Denoise” is not exactly what you may assume. General denoising, if needed, should rather be done before using your incoming footage with HK. We would suggest NeatVideo for such tasks, which is still king in the lower price range. That function in HK is rather aiming at critical edges from weaker sources, like 4:2:2 subsampling, which can lead to stairstepping or even crawly contours. While it can’t perfectly cure our poor sample from DVCPro, it did a pretty good job improving it, considerably better than simply blurring the edges. There is a whole set of settings to improve the edges under “Edge Tool”, you can find that part of a tutorial by Simon here.

Clean your screen

And then there is “Screen Clean”, explained here. It does a better job than the standard sliders of other keyers at identifying and cleaning areas of uneven lighting of the background and preserving semi-transparent foreground areas at the same time. Screen Clean has a pretty decent “Auto” default, but can be fine-tuned and excluded from an active shape if needed. Of course, there’s “Despill”, which will not only base its effect on the keying color, but can accomodate the background image if you wish.

Grading included

HK even integrates a whole range of color grading functions. This may have you wondering why, if you are working inside one of the best grading applications on the planet. But anybody with some decent compositing experience will know how helpful it can be to do some corrections right in the keyer. Of course, you can also choose appropriate color space and gamma here. Most of these parameters were added in version 5, BTW. Like all the rest, those values can be animated.

If you have never used this keyer before, have a look at the tutorials for HK 4 and 4.5, they contain valuable explanations of the earlier improvements. Not all material is yet adapted to DR, but this tutorial is going over the use of the keyer in DR in general. In particular the use of the background for functions like the “Edge Tools”, e. g. light wrap. These can be a bit tricky in Resolve and will be easier with the help of a simple Fusion composition, clearly explained in that video.

Help is just a mouse-click away for all of the Hawaiki tools, both in the Inspector or the Open FX Overlay. The manual will show up in a separate window, which you can place on a second screen or next to DR on a superwide one, if DR is not set to full-frame.

DR with Fusion not enough?

Now, if seasoned Fusion specialists may claim that they could do most of what HK does with the tools already on board, that may be true to some degree. But that’s not easy for the average users of DR, who will probably see HK’s all-in-one concept as a godsend. They can discover a highly-specialised set of tools coming clearly from practical experience and not found anywhere else. And then, HK works in the free version of DR too, while many of the more advanced tools in DR don’t.

Being fully optimized for Apple silicon, the keyer is very fast, even on a humble Mac mini M4. The intelligent pipeline contributes to this: if you first crop the picture in for garbage matting, the outside areas are not processed any further by the tracker and all the rest to avoid the load. And then, whatever can be done by the neural engine will not put any load on the GPU cores. Finally, on limited hardware in particular it’s considerably more stable than Magic Mask 2.

Commentary

There might be only one minor flaw to disappoint a few of our readers: all FxFactory filters are MacOS only, with no plans to change that any time soon. But for all those using DaVinci Resolve, even the free version, on a modern Apple computer and needing greenscreening regularly, Hawaiki Keyer’s all-in-one approach should be quite appealing. Many of the other offers by FxFactory are worth a look as well.

The post Hawaiki Keyer – for those who don’t trust all the magic of AI first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Uli Plank.

Placement in the Pipeline and the Ecosystem: For those who don’t know the tool: Apple Creator Studio is Apple’s new subscription bundle for Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor and company. It collects the firm’s long-running apps under one roof, apparently to remind users they still exist.

Old tools, new subscription

Apple has announced Apple Creator Studio, a new subscription at 12.99 dollars per month (129 dollars per year) that combines the company’s creative and productivity apps into a single plan. The bundle launches on 28 January 2026 with a one-month free trial and discounted student pricing.

The offer includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage, along with premium templates for Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. Freeform will join later this year. Family Sharing allows up to six users. For those who prefer traditional ownership, Apple confirmed that all pro apps will remain available as one-time Mac App Store purchases, a wise reassurance given that some of these apps see updates about as often as Halley’s Comet.

AI headlines, unclear substance

The bundle carries the usual 2026-era headline, F***** AI everywhere. But Apple’s newsroom announcement remains vague on technical details, and none of the tools appear to have been rebuilt or meaningfully modernised.

Final Cut Pro adds Beat Detection, which uses an AI model from Logic Pro to mark beats on a timeline. Editors can align cuts to music, though this feature has been available in competing NLEs for years. Montage Maker auto-edits footage based on the best visual moments, and Auto Crop reformats clips for vertical output. A Transcript Search and a Visual Search are supposed to help locate shots, though Apple did not explain how the algorithms evaluate content.

Logic Pro, MainStage, and Pixelmator Pro each receive AI-branded updates too, with Apple promising enhanced creative tools. No performance data, model types, or reproducible benchmarks have been published.

Motion and Compressor are included in the bundle as if they had recently evolved, but even the most charitable user would struggle to find significant updates from this decade. Their interfaces and functions remain nearly identical to releases from the late 2010s.

Pixelmator and productivity perks

The more active development clearly comes from Pixelmator Pro, which finally arrives on iPad with Apple Pencil support. It gains a Warp tool and cross-platform compatibility. Apple also introduces a Content Hub offering stock-style assets across its apps. Subscribers to Pages, Keynote, and Numbers gain access to premium templates and beta tools such as Magic Fill for spreadsheet completion and a text generator for presentation outlines. Apple calls these AI-powered, though again, details are thin.

The audience question

Creator Studio’s real target appears to be users deeply embedded in the Apple ecosystem, those who already own Apple hardware, sync files through iCloud, and occasionally edit or compose but do not rely on frequent software updates. For professional postproduction environments, the package’s low entry cost may seem attractive, yet its long-term reliability is uncertain. Update history for Motion and Compressor suggests Apple’s creative maintenance cycle is, at best, intermittent.

Services first, creatives second

Apple’s newsroom release ties Creator Studio to record-breaking 2025 services revenue. The company’s real strategy seems less about improving the apps and more about turning previously static tools into a recurring-revenue stream. The 13-dollar monthly price places it below Adobe Creative Cloud, though it is limited strictly to macOS and iPadOS devices. Some features require Apple Intelligence-capable hardware, further narrowing the audience. Apple has not disclosed regional rollout details or whether the AI models run on-device or in the cloud.

Verdict for production

Creator Studio simplifies access for hobbyists and educators who want Apple’s tools for occasional use. Working editors, compers, videeogrpahers and musicians expecting frequent feature releases or pipeline stability will likely stay with established platforms. As always, professionals should test any new Apple suite in a controlled environment before integrating it into live projects.

We’ll see when it is released, and how the update cycle will develop.

The post Apple Bundles Its Ageing Pro Apps in Subscription first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Very soon after making that big arctic wave with DaVinci Resolve (DR for short) version 20.2 supporting ProRes RAW, Blackmagic (BM for short) has fixed some of the most annoying bugs with 20.2.1. Now we can truly explore ProRes RAW from an iPhone 17 and other sources. Clips from an iPhone 17 were kindly supplied by Kurt Friis Hansen from Denmark, who shot some tests with all three lenses, carefully framed and exposed. These are night shots, so we have very high contrast and low-light. We are of course very curious when it comes to noise from that small sensor, and the influence of compression and pre-filtering (if any). So his footage should be perfect to check these – but there was one hurdle.

System requirements for MacOS

While DR is still running fine under MacOS Sonoma 14.8, you’ll not get access to all the advanced adjustments you may expect from a true RAW format. There’s simply no choice under the entry “Plugin” other than “Standard”, so you can only adjust exposure and white balance. After all, in many cases that may already be enough, if you don’t decide to stick to the camera metadata anyway. The decoding from RAW should be set to HLG, as this is the iPhone’s color space, at least it’s not labeled „none“ anymore. But you’ll have the option of decoding into Apple Log or Log 2 (yes, a new, flatter version).

But where is the rest? Well, it was obviously up to Apple to care for that, since it all showed up on a machine with MacOS Sequoia 15.7 installed. Even the current versions of Apple’s Compressor (4.11) and Final Cut Pro (11.2) need Sequoia to receive the updates. Final Cut Pro, or FCP in short, BTW has lost the “X”, just like the new MacOS naming. On a system with those already present and with DR updated to 20.2.1 we had access to all the parameters you’d expect from a serious RAW format. Now, this system had already receiced Apple’s recent Pro Video Formats update and was showing all new features right away. After receiving information from others, who were not as lucky, we needed to dig deeper.

Problems upgrading projects

To check things, we made a virgin installation of Sequoia 15.7, adding only Apple’s video codecs and DR. When trying to copy and open one of our existing projects, we were back to square one: no RAW parameters. We carefully went through many iterations of installing fresh systems, and combinations of DR installed first or after Apple’s codec pack. What worked in the end was starting a fresh project in DR, importing PRR clips and voilá – all parameters availble! We got confirmation that it should work from Sequoia 15.6.1 upwards. But an existing project doesn’t show these when simply adding PRR clips, you need an empty project and import some PRR footage first. After that, you can also import timelines from other projects. Having test clips shot open gate, we configured our project for DCI 4K at 25 fps and scaled full with crop

True RAW, finally

Now it’s all there, even if there’s a minor cosmetic error: as long as Demosaic is set to Standard you can’t really use the three sliders on top of the right side. They should be greyed out, since they only become workable after switching Demosaic to Custom, and they only work on clips from an iPhone 17. What’s more annoying: you still can’t define RAW presets for PRR under Camera RAW in the project settings, so you’ll need to change them one by one. At least, they get copied by using gallery stills. We found all information about those three sliders in the help files for FCP, but not yet in DR.

Color Noise will not increase it, but reduce – of course. The other two are doing pretty much what the name implies: enhance only edges, and/or apply sharpening. As usual, use with discretion, and they can also slow down playback in high resolutions. On our very noisy test shots at night they are pretty useless, color noise didn’t do much and the other two look ugly, as you’d expect. There is another option in Compressor, which Apple seems to keep for themselves: ML Denoise (yes, machine learning) at three levels. It’s not even in FCP 11.2, but Compressor is not expensive, and we’ll do further testing.

The hardware

There’s not really much in the metadata, just the camera, its manufacturer, plus location and date of the shot. You don’t even see which lens was used in the metadata in DR or the shutter angle, even if the latter exists in the file. A bit depth of 16 for video seems slightly exaggerated, even Nikon is just claiming 12 bit for all three of the codecs offered in their new ZR.

Audio in the iPhone is limited to 16 bit and ProRes RAW internally to the standard version, HQ needs external recording. Some claim that you can trick it into using that, by setting up with an external SSD and then removing it. But do you really want such massive data inside the phone? Even if our noisy night shots may be at the upper limit, while ProRes RAW is quite variable, see here.

The data rate for video in our test samples in ProRes RAW open gate (4224 by 3024) is quite high at around 1200 mbps, recording at 25 fps. The best news here: this is constant frame rate! True, there is a beta version of Mavis Camera with CFR, even on older iPhones. But only for the iPhone 17 it’s officially announced. And before you start bothering BM: no, that will not come to older iPhones, you need extra hardware in the phone for this. We got that ‘straight from the horse’s mouth’, as they say. Now, that hardware also allows BM to add their Camera ProDock, which offers the connections needed for professional work, like timecode and genlock. Only SDI output is missing, you’ll need to use HDMI. But for a price of 325,- US$ that’s still impressive.

Image quality

Right from the start, the samples taken don’t look all the same quality wise, even if taken under identical conditions and all set to ISO 5000 in the RAW tab. According to Apple, all the sensors now have 48 megasensels. Yes, I refuse to call them pixels, since this is RAW and pixels only exist after debayering (aka demosaicing) anyway. While the new wide and tele shots have far better resolution than the 12 ‘mpx’ ones in older models, at closer inspection they are slightly worse than from the 24mm f equivalent still called the main camera for good reason.

The wide, a 13mm equivalent, has about 120 degrees of view and one would expect serious distortion from such a tiny ultrawide. It’s actually there, but automatically corrected when Processing is set to “iPhone ProRes RAW”. The correction and the resulting cropping nevertheless result in some loss of resolution, since it can’t use all the sensels at open gate. At f 2.2 it’s a bit slower too, but that does not result in much more noise. If raised from log to good contrast in post, it also vignettes.

Photographers, like Lux Camera, are pretty impressed with the tele, a 100mm equivalent. They even enjoy it when zoomed in further by what Apple calls “optical” zoom quality, while that is not of much interest when filming. Since the stabilization in the iPhone is not working when shooting PRR, a 200mm equivalent would need a tripod made of concrete. Even at its true resolution, the tele is softer than the main lens. Our clip at dark night is also clearly showing the fact that this lens is more than one stop slower at f 2.8.

Conclusion

We don’t expect anybody to replace an Arri Alexa with an iPhone for a major production. But for the first time a smartphone can be teamed-up in a professional environment with reliable synchronisation and serious grading options. No more fiddling with asynchronous sound, no more guesswork where a shot belongs in time or fighting compression artefacts. You can get into really small spaces, hand that phone to actors, or hang it on a pretty small drone. Heck, for that price you can even risk to crash it, if needed to get that perfect shot.

And other cameras, like the BMPCC or the Nikon ZR? We are seeing a shift of paradigm here, away from clunky external solutions, to recording compressed RAW in cameras. Red’s monopoly seems to be gone, and it’s good to have choices! Of course, we’ll have a closer look at BRAW vs. PRR and also at denoising those extreme night shots above.

Hell Froze Over – ProRes RAW for Resolve

The post ProRes RAW News – Fresh from the Freezer first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Uli Plank.

Ultimately, the Mac mini is recommended for serious video production, whereas the iPad suits H.264, H.265 and ProRes users. The first part of our review has shown some disadvantages of the iPad Pro over using the Mac mini Pro for DaVinci Resolve 19, in particular when it comes to memory management of the limited 16 GB of RAM. Well, Apple should know their hardware better than anybody else (even if they tend to demo new hardware with Blackmagic software too).

So, we have a closer look at FCP-X on either device this time and then, a second look at the fresh version 20 of DaVinci Resolve (DR for short). Finally, we’ll try to reach a final verdict regarding the usefulness of the iPad Pro and the Mac mini Pro for video professionals.

Video sources

This time, we run the software under Sequoia 15.5 on the Mac mini and iPadOS 18.5 on the tablet. Not much has changed regarding compatibility of the tablet software with raw video formats. Neither DR 20 nor FCP-X (2.2.1) accept any professional sources, like Canon, Sony, or Red. With one notable exception: either one is reading their own family’s RAW.

DR for iPad can handle BRAW, and FCP-X does Apple’s ProRes RAW. The latter is even supported by specialised hardware in the M4 Pro. Under MacOS, DR is reading clips from just about every camera in general use, while FCP-X is quite limited. Canon RAW at least is accepted by Apple’s Compressor for conversion, but neither Sony’s OCN nor Nikon’s R3D is read. So, you may need to run DR too, just for conversions (the free version should suffice).

While BRAW Toolbox by Chris Hocking makes FCP-X compatible with BRAW under MacOS, no such solution is available for the iPad. Blackmagic (BM for short) still refuses to support ProRes RAW in DR version 20. Consequently, we can’t directly compare speed and reliability of these in the two video apps. For a detailed comparison, there’s an excellent article by Adam Wilt.

There’s also no widely established benchmark for either app on the tablet, like Puget Systems’ one for DR (now on MacOS too) or the one by Team2Films (T2F for short) we used last time. Instead, we have layered several clips in ProRes RAW and also tried some very high resolution sources from BM’s new cinema cameras after conversion to ProRes 422 HQ.

Stability and speed

Of course, we were most curious about the stability with the limited RAM of 16 GB, the maximum you can get in the iPadPro. In DR, with the converted T2F benchmark on the iPad (see here), version 20 crashed just like 19, so no news here. But we didn’t get any such crash in FCP-X, even if trying with insane source resolutions. The worst was a 12K ProRes clip stacked in a small, rotated picture over a 17K (!) clip in an UHD timeline.

This gave us an out-of-memory error even with the integrated RAM technology of Apple silicon when trying to play it back. Nevertheless, we could render this timeline into H.265 without stalls or artefacts. Even 17K alone worked in UHD, but playback was not 100% smooth. Obviously, Apple knows very well how to handle such challenges.

Three clips of ProRes RAW stacked for picture-in-picture played without any hiccups, of course, and rendered just as fast as non-RAW clips. For comparison, we moved the projects to the Mac mini too. As you may expect, the poor thing with just 24 GB of RAM went into massive swapping to SSD with 17K in a 17K timeline (!) under DR, but didn’t crash.

Trying 17K, cut into an 8K timeline in DR 20 with 5 simple color correction nodes (two of them with a Power Window) played at 17 to 18 fps. 8K output is getting rendered with massive swapping, but no stall. FCP-X is also showing swapping with a 17K source, but a bit less than DR on the Mac mini Pro. Rendering to UHD in H.265 was nearly twice as fast than on the iPad with FCP-X.

Finally, they don’t force you to have the sources on internal storage any more (which was a limitation we critisized in our first review). Any good SSD with a known good cable will do now, so you don’t need to pay their massive premium for 2 TB. Unfortunately, you’ll still need to go for 1 TB to get 16 GB of RAM in the tablet. The Mac mini Pro is available with up to 64 GB and you can still choose any size for the internal SSD.

Multicam

While both DR and FCP-X offer multicam editing of recorded footage, only FCP-X on the iPad can do it with up to four wireless live streams as highly compressed proxies. This function is limited to sources running Final Cut Camera (free), so you’ll have to stay in the Apple ecosphere with iPhones or other iPads. But with the remarkable quality of recent iPhones (see here), you’ll have the smallest live studio one can imagine today.

To avoid misunderstandings: switching does not send a live stream out into the world. But, of course, FCP-X can be used to correct edits or add effects after live recording. For full quality, you’ll need to transfer the clips from the phones to the iPad after recording. But you can start editing immediately, based on the proxies, while the transfer happens in the background.

The whole experience with Live Multicam in FCP-X is really smooth, with step-by-step instructions and the ease of use you’d expect from Apple (there’s a free tutorial by Ripple Training). Live Multicam supports the full potential of these cameras, including log or HDR recording and the ProRes codec with recent models. You can even control camera settings remotely.

BM is offering live switching possibilities too with their ATEM line of products, and recording an editable version for DR while going out live. This is not limited to their own cameras, but you’ll need more gear to lug around. Wiring up a studio with ATEM or anything comparable is considerably more complex and expensive than the iPad’s Live Multicam, but needed for professional broadcasting.

Screens

All of this is supported by the excellent screen of the iPad Pro with impressive contrast by a tandem OLED. You can get very quite close to the established standards with its reference modes. And we shouldn’t blame Apple for issues with shifts of color and contrast on other devices and software – it’s a general lack of standards in the industry. The iPad will recognise the tags for different modes and switch accordingly (read here for further details and adjustments).

Other uses

We’ve already had a close look at the iPad for monitoring with CineMon (see here). It’s out of beta now, working very well on the iPad Pro and getting faster and more efficient with every update. The author is even planning a record function. We made one weird observation, though: the capture interface for HDMI input with the best balance of image quality, price and size is the Acasis VC-003 (see here).

But it doesn’t work the same way under iPadOS as it did in our review under MacOS. While we could choose 4:2:2 for color subsampling on the Mac, there are only two versions of 4:2:0 on the tablet. OTOH, we couldn’t get 24 or 25 fps on the Mac, while the iPad offers a broader range of all usual frame rates, even including the ones for NTSC.

This is not a bug in CineMon, since other software like CamX shows the same limitations and options. The drivers for the UVC standard used for such devices are part of the OS, so these differences seem to point to Apple’s responsibility.

The Fairlight page is still not officially supported by DR 20 on the iPad. While you can activate that page by your own key settings via the usual hack by option-command-k, you can’t yet rely on its stability. But Apple offers their very capable audio app called Logic Pro for the iPad as well. And then, there are all the possibilities of the touch screen, which are not only used for intuitive operation of FCP-X, but even more so for artwork with Apple’s Pencil Pro.

Conclusion

Both the iPad M4 and the Mac mini M4 Pro are very capable devices, and have been very reliable in our tests if not overwhelmed by insane resolutions. But which one is the right choice?

I’d recommend the Mac mini (or any of its bigger brothers) for DaVinci Resolve if you have to work with sources like the high-end cameras from Arri, Blackmagic, Canon, Red/Nikon or Sony. Needing conversion of your footage before editing on the iPad is just too tedious. This would also be an argument against Final Cut Pro. Another feature you’ll be missing is the new keyframe editor in DR 20. Even worse, the old one is gone on the iPad.

Of course, if you want an integrated keyboard and screen, one of the MacBooks M4 will do just as well. But don’t get any Mac with only the basic RAM if you have source resolutions beyond 4K/UHD, rather get as much as you can afford. You can rather save on internal storage, which will never suffice for professional video production anyway.

But if your camera is recording one of the flavours of H.264 or H.265 or ProRes RAW, the iPad is a serious alternative. Today, a log recording in 10 bit 4:2:2 with a good data rate can give you nearly as much flexibility and quality as the raw recordings. You can cover full post-production for these formats on the tablet, and get the additional possibilities of drawing on the screen with the Pencil Pro if you are an artist.

The post Final Cut Pro:Mac mini or iPad M4? first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Uli Plank.

Serious video work has been possible on an iPad for quite a while now, with apps like DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro, or even Luma Fusion (see here). But until now, most professionals would consider the tablet for preparation while being off-base and not for finishing in a complete workflow. With the arrival of the M4 processors, which blow away most of the competition in the Mac mini or MacBook Pro, we’d like to have another look at the iPad Pro with such a processor.

Reviewed hardware and its OS

Apple kindly lent us a well-equipped iPad Pro M4 with 16 GB of RAM and 2 TB of solid state storage. We have been running it under iOS 18.4.1. For comparison, we use a Mac mini M4 Pro with 24 GB, 12‑Core CPU, and 16‑Core GPU. While we still like macOS Sonoma better, this one can only be operated under MacOS Sequoia, (currently in version 15.4.1). Our first part will be focused on their use for DaVinci Resolve.

DaVinci Resolve

Blackmagic Design (BM for short) already has a public beta for version 20 of DaVinci Resolve (DR), but not on the tablet. While beta testing under iOS is possible with Apple’s TestFlight, they obviously didn’t care to go through the hassle of registration. So, version 20 will probably only show up on the tablet once it’s final. Accordingly, our comparison will take place primarily on version 19, 19.1.4 Studio to be precise. BM mentions that projects (.drp files) or archives (.dra) are fully compatible, but now there’s one caveat: those out of version 20 are not backward compatible.

There are other limitations when trying to get serious: no RAW formats other than BM’s own BRAW are read by DR on the iPad. Since we wanted to try a widely available benchmark on either hardware, we used the one by Team 2 Films, which you can download here. To seriously challenge the hardware (and DR), it’s using several other RAW formats in resolutions up to 8K. Puget Systems now has a version of their popular PugetBench for Creators under MacOS too, but not for the tablet. A basic score of 8811 for the Mac mini Pro in that test is remarkable, in particular in relation to its low power consumption.

Benchmarking M4 against M1 Pro

Nevertheless, we also wanted to know how much faster a Mac mini M4 Pro would be compared to a trusty old MacBook Pro M1. The Puget benchmark yielded a score of 4962 in a tad under 16 minutes on the M1 Pro, but the new Mac mini gave us a score of 8811 in less than 4 minutes. This is better than a Windows laptop with the mobile version of the RTX 4090, but less than an Apple M3 Max or a desktop PC with a 4090 (according to Puget Systems’ ranking). Not bad for such a tiny computer! Under full load the fan became audible, but it was not an aggressive sound and could be held well under control with TG Pro.

PugetBench is running DR under external control, while the one by Team 2 Films is just a DR project with demanding source files and complex operations. Rendering it in its original format on the MBP M1 Pro took just short of 12 minutes, and the 32 GB RAM in that machine were enough to avoid swapping to the SSD. We also took the times under Sequoia and for DR 20 beta 2, but they were identical within a reasonable margin of error. The Mac mini M4 Pro needed 10:35, but was faster at 9:46 with DR 20b2, which seems to have some optimisations for M4.

Our machine has only 24 GB, the standard for this model, and it went into occasional swapping with R3D in 8K, but not with 6K. The decoder is grabbing quite a chunk of RAM too. So, if you regularly need to work in 8K and are eying this little machine, you may want to go higher. It’s not offered in 32, though, you’ll need to go for 48 GB to be on the safe side. OTOH, a bit of swapping won’t kill your SSD right away, just make rendering a bit slower. And then, there are even ways to replace the SSD in the Mac mini now.

Benchmarking the iPad Pro

Our first step to make it run on the iPad was converting and relinking all incompatible clips to ProRes 422HQ in their original resolution. CineForm would be accepted too, but now that DR can export ProRes under Windows as well, this point doesn’t really matter. For reference, we tested this version of the project on the Mac mini M4 too. It got rendered just a tad faster than the original version at 9 minutes and 26 seconds. After all, those Macs have hardware for ProRes too, while most RAW formats are quite CPU-heavy and needed a little bit longer.

Trying to run that version on the iPad was a disappointment. Rendering stalled in various places, after which we got false offline messages for some clips. This is a typical problem in DR 19, where you can’t always take such messages literally, if the sources are still connected and should be compatible. Even if complex processes at high resolution with that benchmark occasionally provoked some swapping to SSD, MacOS never showed any such errors. Trying to render in shorter chunks, after opening up the hidden Deliver page to see where it failed, didn’t really solve the issue on the tablet.

The iPad is not available with more than 16 GB of RAM, and even that only in the expensive 1 TB or 2 TB version. So we downscaled all the 8K clips to half their resolution, but 6K and below were kept at their size. Now, finally, the iPad got through with the rendering and needed 10:19. Not bad for a machine with passive cooling only, but even a MacBook M1 Pro finished the downscaled and converted project in 8:02, the Mac mini M4 needed 6:34. The iPad consumed 8% of a full charge during that render, so it should run up to two hours without needing external power. SSD speed is more balanced than in older models, with over 2.8 gbps read speed and close to 2.8 write according to Jazz Disk Pro.

Preliminary conclusion

All of this points to a memory issue with higher resolutions, even if the iPad Pro supports playing 8K over HDMI. There is no app for iOS directly comparable to the Activity Monitor under MacOS, but using Device Monitor² we could see that the iPad was getting close to 99% of memory in use when rendering stalled. Obviously, we have a memory management issue here for production in DR, even if the iPad Pro supports playing 8K over HDMI.

Our MacBook M1 Pro with 32 GB RAM didn’t even start swapping, the Mac mini with only 24 GB got into occasional swapping to the SSD, for example with 8K REDcode footage. But it was still perfectly stable when doing this, there were no stalls or any other render issues. So, either the memory management of iOS for the iPad Pro is not as good, or the issue is on Blackmagic’s side. Next we’ll test the tablet with Apple’s Final Cut Pro X.

The post Mac mini or iPad Pro M4 for Post? first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Uli Plank.

Apple has released an updated version of its video editing software, Final Cut Pro 11.1. This iteration includes the introduction of adjustment clips, which allow users to apply color corrections and effects to multiple clips efficiently. This feature simplifies the editing process by letting users modify a group of clips collectively instead of adjusting each one individually.

Additionally, the update incorporates enhanced AI-driven features designed to assist in various editing tasks. Noteworthy among these is the Magnetic Mask feature, which automatically generates masks that follow subjects in motion, providing greater accuracy when isolating elements in a scene. This functionality can save time and enhance the overall quality of a project.

Another practical addition is the Transcribe to Captions tool, which automates the creation of captions from dialogue. This feature not only streamlines the editing process but also ensures that content is more accessible to wider audiences.

Lastly, Final Cut Pro 11.1 introduces a new Image Playground, allowing for the import and manipulation of images directly within the software (even from within Motion), further enhancing the creative capabilities available to video editors.

As always, be sure to verify that any new features align with your current projects and workflows, as the effectiveness of these tools may vary based on individual project needs.

The post Final Cut Pro 11.1: Subtle Updates first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

This upcoming mini-series will focus on proper color monitoring with minimal cost. It will mainly be demonstrated in DaVinci Resolve (in short: DR) on MacOS, but most of the steps for calibration are just the same under Windows or Linux. The first part, though, deals with the difficulties some user are experiencing with driver software for Blackmagic’s I/O devices and their compatibility with M-series Macs.

Hardware

An important part of the business model run by Blackmagic Design (in short: BM) from Australia is giving away very capable software for free, or for a really decent price in the Studio version, and making money with hardware. While they are now also manufacturing a whole ecosphere of cameras and live recording gear, one mainstay always were I/O devices that circumvent the potential issues from the operating system interfering with color management. These devices are made to connect directly to the editing and grading software and should show the image as it is, without any unknown alterations.

While some users rely on direct output from the GPU (at least on a Mac), using a proper interface is still the sure approach. Unfortunately, not all older devices by BM are compatible with those quite capable machines with Apple’s own silicon, the M-series. It’s not really easy to find out which ones are not compatible by consulting their website, since the current “Read more” link is only listing all devices that work with Intel-based Macs and Apple Silicon alike. But if you are trying to save money by looking for something second-hand, they don’t list the older devices that will work only with Intel Macs.

Among the DeckLink series, which would need a Mac Pro or an external enclosure anyway, these are the Mini Monitor, the HD Extreme 3 and 3D, and also the DeckLink SDI, Duo, Quad and Studio models. The older Intensity Pro is also limited to Intel Macs, as are all the external Thunderbolt 2 devices: the UltraStudio Express, Intensity Shuttle Thunderbolt, Mini Monitor (the Recorder too). If you own an Intel Mac, these can still be a solution for small money, even if they are limited to HD. You will need older drivers, though, since the current Desktop Video version 14.5 needs Sonoma (macOS 14) or Sequoia (15).

BM is offering all older software on their support site. So you can still use e.g. an Intel iMac 2017 (non-Pro), which is limited to Ventura, with version 12.9. After all, DR 19 is still officially supported under Ventura. They should all work under Windows 10 or 11, but for the Thunderbolt (in short: TB) devices you’ll need the right port, of course. On a Mac, those machines we would still consider usable for DR 19 usually have a TB 3 port, but those older devices have TB 2. Don’t get the wrong adapter: those very cheap ones that may look right are just connecting to Mini DisplayPort. You’ll need the expensive original by Apple, if you don’t find the cheaper AKiTiO T3T second-hand.

Of course, you may say that it’s easier to buy one of the new, compatible UltraStudio devices, if you don’t have one of the older interfaces and some cables lying around. But there’s no 4K/UHD version of those small, less expensive interfaces in a self-contained form. The UltraStudio 4K Mini (see header) carries a hefty price tag, if all you need is output to a screen. We don’t expect many users to buy the expensive Mac Pro just for its card slots, when the equally capable Mac Studio is not much more than half the price. But for all those with a recent Mac, there’s an alternative: while you can’t use an eGPU with Apple silicon, PCIe cards for I/O, like the DeckLink Mini Monitor 4K, will work in a ThunderBolt enclosure.

Software

On a PC you’ll need to install Desktop Video as an admin, and you should uninstall any older versions first. The latter is also advisable on a Mac, but the tight security measures by Apple can make things a bit more tricky. Watch carefully any message that is popping up while installing, even if you usually tend to click all that boring stuff away. Check if none of them is hidden by other windows or a second screen. With any version of 14 before 14.5, you should see two messages, as below. Make sure to follow the advice!

With these settings under Sequoia (aka MacOS 15.3.1), we had no problems seeing the video output from DR (19.1.3), Premiere Pro (25.1), After Effects (25 beta), Final Cut Pro X (11.0.1) and even Sony Catalyst Browse (2024.1.1), but we didn’t try Avid yet. Of course, you will still be looking at a screen that is unknown to the whole system, so that screen has to be calibrated. See our next post!

The post Color Monitoring for Cheapskates?Part 1 first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Uli Plank.