Free Update Includes FCPX XML Roundtrip Editing and IIF-ACES Support

Blackmagic Design has updated DaVinci Resolve, its software-based grading platform that works with off-the-shelf control panels, to version 8.1. The upgrade is free to all existing users and is available for download from Blackmagic’s online Support Center.

Version 8.1 features improvements to roundtrip editing for both Final Cut and Avid users, as well as support for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s new ACES IIF colorspace file format. The format, first tested during the post workflow on FX’s Justified earlier this year, includes support for a range of IDTs, ODTs and also for 3D shaper LUTs.

Users of FCPX can now import their timelines to Resolve v8.1 and back again via FCPX’s rich XML format, which Apple suggested in its 10.0.1 update last month. Final Cut Pro 7 users can similarly roundtrip to and from Resolve v8.1 with improved access, clip by clip, of sizing and position data. Media Composer editors get improved AAF import/export support with effects like dip to color, oval and diamond iris wipe, overlay composite and more. Imported AAFs also retain pan, tilt, zoom and rotate (PTZR) controls to size them as one would in MC.

The software’s node-based image processing features new layer node compositing that should give colorists the ability-with controls to add, subtract, overlay, darken or lighten effects-to make more subtlety realized grading decisions. Copying grades between nodes and editing in general also gets faster in this version, due to some added copy-and-paste editing operations in the metadata layer.

As expected, the update works seamlessly with the company’s UltraStudio 3D for Thunderbolt, which lets colorists monitor images on any newer iMac and MacBook Pro that supports Thunderbolt.

For more information: www.blackmagic-design.com