Davinci Resolve and Apple Color: which is “better”? +PVC

Walter Biscardi has been doing a series on installing and working with Davinci Resolve, and has folks asking a lot of questions about it and Apple Color, especially "which one is better?"

Here's an excerpt; see also the recent Resolve is our Alexa by Scott Simmons on PVC:

'Which one is better depends on your particular application and how you like to work. If you work with Avid or Adobe Premiere, well then right now Resolve is your best choice because it has an easier workflow to / from the application because it’s a third party app, not a proprietary Apple app. If you work with Final Cut Pro, well then you can go either way.

Color works with traditional color wheels and rooms. Resolve works with curves and nodes. Color can operate very well with just a mouse and a keyboard. Resolve requires a control surface such as a Tangent Wave panel to work efficiently. Color has a ColorFX room that can utilize third party plug-ins. Resolve does not have an FX room. Color has a one point motion tracker. Resolve has a motion tracker I have termed “Ludicrous Tracker” (look up “Spaceballs The Movie”) because it’s just ridiculously good.

Color uses an XML workflow that supports speed changes, graphics and multiple video tracks from FCP. Resolve currently uses EDL and AAF using a single video track only. Resolve has better controls over Luminance and the Node architecture can make it easier to alter a scene after it’s been graded. And the comparison list goes on and on….'

Update: Scott Simmons "kicks the tires" with some DaVinci workflow tests, and [later] Oliver Peters has a First Look: Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve for the Mac.

Update 2: At Postworld Mike Most looks at DaVinci 2K, DaVinci Resolve, Autodesk’s Lustre, Filmlight’s Baselight, Digital Vision’s Film Master, Quantel’s Pablo, Assimilate’s Scratch, and Iridas’ Speedgrade in Grading The Graders, Part 1 and Grading the Graders: The Long Awaited Part 2.