Juank

It’s going to be like prohibition all over again.
The new B&H Photo branch will be a speakeasy selling smuggled camera bodies from Canada.
 

It also facilitates the opportunity to rob your clients behind their backs unless they scrutinise their bank statements on a regular basis and then if 'errors' are spotted, manage to not lose the patience that is required to actually bring this up with them.
Oh yes, it's that time of year when I need to get my books in order for my accountants and have to attempt to jump through these flaming hoops...
I am only into the 4th month of statements and already have complaints in with: Musicbed, Avast and Adobe.
A cynical person might think that some of these companies are cheeky robbing fuckers...

This AI stuff is great, it saves so much time, creating subs, remixing music, mixing the audio, soon it prolly will match log footage from different camera's perfectly. And then you can creatively focus on the overall grade.

I don’t object to that ie, ‘stuff I was going to do anyway’ that just makes my life easier, all good.
I already use it in fact in Lightroom, but it’s the wholesale image generation that I oppose.

I'm about 80% there with you, but if the so-called "AI" tools are also for things like making smarter masks/object tracking in Resolve, I'll gladly take it.  I have 0 interest in generating random lamp posts in my footage, but for my last short film, I spent a bunch of hours doing object tracking manually for somebody's eyes to turn them black when she gets possessed because when I tried the automatic tracking, the machine kept losing track of them.  When I looked online to see how to improve the hit rate for automatic tracking, the general advice seemed to be "adjust some parameters and try again and keep doing that until it's tolerable."
If there's some machine learning model that makes it track like super duper well, I'd even consider paying a small upcharge for it.  As it is, I'm probably going to pay more than that to have a real special effects person do it because my end results are a bit trash (though thankfully most people watching don't comment on how the blackened eyes are shifting on the face a little bit).

It doesn’t interest me either.
I’d rather see out whatever remains of my career being ‘authentic’ and even if this means stopping a year or two short, then so be it.
”Look what I made!”
What you mean is look at what AI made for you, but don’t kid yourself it was any talent that you had.
It is almost certainly the future but I want no part of that future.

"I'm getting too old for this shit.  I'm only two weeks away from my retirement."
I'm gonna be one of those craft people that refuses to use AI. Damn the consequences.  This all sucks.  
As a documentarian, even something supposedly innocuous like audio transcribing is causing more inadvertent issues than it's solving.  It's really getting in my way holistically -- although it "feels" like it's helping in the moment.
It divorces me from the nuances and intimacy of the material.  How can I be expected to make anything meaningful to the audience or to myself if I allow an algorithm to make crafting determinations, even the simplest ones?  Tools are tools, but when the tools diminish rather than enhance?
That's a recipe to being superficial.  I don't think I want to be superficial.  Unless I'm doing corporate bull shit for the pay day.  But then, the corporations using AI can now (or soon) cut me out of that calculus anyway.
Get off my lawn you damn machines.

That's the specific reason, though, that they are that different.
If BMD charge me $60 to upgrade to the latest major version every year and I am not interested in the new features that they added, I pay them $0.  If they go to a subscription model and charge me $5/month, I pay them $60 every year and if they add new features that I don't care about, I still have to pay them $60 for it or I can't use the existing features that I need.
Basically, a subscription model removes the impetus for innovation and for developing features that customers are interested in.  Like if the new feature is "we added a stock footage catalog that you can also pay to access," I wouldn't want or care about that new feature.  I haven't used stock footage before and don't expect to use it any time in the near future.
So yeah, there's a world of difference between a subscription and an optional yearly cost for extra features (and this is more or less how Luminar have been doing things and I'm here for it)

Anything is possible, but based on Grant's past remarks about subscription models as well as how things were phrased here, I'd bet the outcome will be in favor up license upgrades (which may end up being some tiered annual payment) vs monthly subscription. That might not be all that different but the key is that with subscription, they cut off your service if you don't pay. Upgrade models, you stay at what version you want and aren't punished for not paying for the service at any particular point.
Either way it may hurt the brand; A lot of what makes Resolve attractive is that is has been both freely accessible and stable for the most part. Even the more casual crowd that uses software like CapCut for social edits have found Resolve attractive after they moved to $10/mo subscription.
Yeah, perhaps it may be a la carte for the AI tools. We'll see.

If it's subscription, I think there will be rioting in the streets and a lot of users migrating to Final Cut... including me.
On the other hand, given that I paid like $200 for my license like 5-8 years ago and have been receiving free upgrades ever since then - and now I have a second license that came with my camera, if they were to ask for $50/year for license upgrades, I wouldn't be upset.
After all, if Resolve either makes no money or loses money, they have no incentive as a business to keep supporting it.  I'm not upset about that.  If, however, they want me to hand them $20/month to use it, I'm done.

I remember Grant saying the same thing in these presentations in years previous. And I remember looking for anything that explicitly stated "free upgrades for life included" and could never find it. People just assume this because that's how it's been so far.
I would hate a subscription model. Paying per major version would be fine, I would most likely skip a generation or two before feeling a need to upgrade. Same as I did with Adobe before their switch to subscription.
Assuming the AI stuff is the major cost driver that would cause a switch to a different model, it would seem fairer to attach the cost more to the AI stuff- you get basic models/capabilities with the regular Studio purchase, then can pay to add-on better models or faster processing etc.

How to make someone addicted to drugs: first I will gift you drugs and then when you can't do without them I will ask you for money.
Another clear example of enshittification (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification)
 
 
 

02:37:32 "We'll probably eventually charge some kind of upgrade for this."
Looks like we can expect to pay for major version upgrades in the future. Still better than a subscription, thankfully.

What a ride this was.
Episode 3 especially... Peak TV. Direction, writing, acting, sound design, everything just falls into place. 

 

Just watched the first episode.
Very good stuff.
The single take is extraordinary but almost seamlessly unnoticed at same time.

Everyone is talking about how they used the Ronin 4D on the "Adolescence" and how well it did. I bet they only used it in like 4 shots though.

Watched the whole thing in one sitting, really remarkable. Really solid acting from everyone involved and the 'one take" episodes were very well done. I almost want to watch again and just focus on the camera the whole time. There were  some interesting choices with where to have the various episodes take place and to have to think about the limitations of space and time that come with this style of storytelling. It's normally easy to manipulate these elements in traditional filming and editing so here it's fun to see the creative use of transitions and blocking. 

This is a longer piece that shows the handoffs including the one to a drone that’s quite remarkable.
These handoffs remind me of the demos of the first units such as the Moví and the original Ronin which featured them quite a lot and made some extremely inspiring examples of what could be done with these new fangled devices.
Sad really that the majority of use that they now get is in “like, subscribe and buy my LUT pack” fluff of the backs of young ladies as they walk through cornfields, forests and assorted tourist streets.
Adolescence reminds us of them offering so many more creative possibilities than just being stabilisers although, no doubt, it will inspire a million copycats and we will be sick of it again in a year !
With regard to the actual film itself, if you haven’t watched it then it’s a compelling but disturbing watch.
Doubly so if you have teenagers.
 

They practiced each episode for two weeks and then filmed it twice a day for one week, so 10+ takes for each episode. They then selected the best version of each episode.

On the BTS shots it's impressive to see how the operators hand the machine to each other on the fly during filming

The whole time I watch it, I'm going to scream "but the rolling shutterrrrrrrrrrrrr" at my screen.  What a bunch of incompetent filmmakers, using a camera which has either 16, 20, or 32ms readout speeds depending on which model and mode is being used!  They ruined the whole show for everybody watching!!  It's all anybody is going to be able to talk about!!!  😉

Interesting and will add it to my list.
Thanks 

Regarding technique and creativity, has anyone seen Adolescence on Netflix?
Among the most viewed TV series on Netflix is Adolescence, a four-episode British miniseries that is receiving rave reviews from audiences and critics just about everywhere. The praise is partly about the story it tells, and partly about the way the series was written, performed, and, above all, directed: each episode is in fact shot in a single, very long take, that is, all at once, with no cuts between shots and therefore no breaks for the actors and crew, and no editing required.
Adolescence was written by Englishmen Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham. In addition to contributing to the screenplay, the latter also plays Eddie Miller, the protagonist's father and one of the main characters. The director, on the other hand, is compatriot Philip Barantini, who four years ago had directed Graham himself in the film Boiling Point - Disaster is Served, a thriller that was a good success in the United Kingdom and which, just like Adolescence, was shot with a single long take.
Adolescence centers on the story of Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old student who is arrested on charges of committing murder. However, the detective plot is set aside fairly early on because the point of the series is not so much to get to the resolution of a case, but to analyze the motives behind the actions of a teenager in our times, and to place them in the social and cultural context in which he lives.
For me, who has a 13-year-old son, the first two episodes were a punch in the gut. Perhaps the absence of editing also helps to give you no respite and lower you even more into the story. Truly a peculiar product.
Two scenes in particular struck me. For the first, at the beginning of the first episode, I had thought of a crane being moved on a trolley or truck. The second one is even more peculiar because the camera goes through the window and flies high above the houses. Netflix has released a BTS showing both scenes. (Spoiler: they used a drone)
Sorry, I couldn't find a YT link:
https://x.com/NetflixUK/status/1901617851192033326
It was entirely shot on the Ronin 4D:
Spoiler alert:
https://variety.com/2025/artisans/news/adolescence-one-take-episodes-netflix-1236339292/
 

All I want to know is if the presentation has finished yet?

It is the S5ii as far as I’m aware.
I’ve pulled this from a demo of the new functionality and shows switchable contrast and phase detect in the UI.


Full video is here 
 
Yeah I think it will become clearer what BM’s intentions actually are for the 12K when they are doing demos and interviews at the show itself.