Grant Petty on the future of DaVinci Resolve Studio pricing: "We'll probably eventually charge some kind of upgrade for this."

[andrgl]

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.

[zerocool22]

8 minutes ago, andrgl said:

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.

Yeah If it becomes subscription based, and it is in the Adobe price range. I might jump ship, as photoshop and Lightroom would be nice to have. We will see. I really hate the adobe subscription model. 

[Davide DB]

1 hour ago, zerocool22 said:

adobe subscription model

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)

 

 

 

[Al Dolega]

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.

[eatstoomuchjam]

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.

[j_one]

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.

52 minutes ago, Al Dolega said:

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.

Yeah, perhaps it may be a la carte for the AI tools. We'll see.

[eatstoomuchjam]

1 hour ago, j_one said:

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.

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)

[fuzzynormal]

4 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

Yeah If it becomes subscription based, and it is in the Adobe price range. I might jump ship, as photoshop and Lightroom would be nice to have. We will see. I really hate the adobe subscription model. 

Man.  Think hard about that.

[fuzzynormal]

2 hours ago, j_one said:

perhaps it may be a la carte for the AI tools. We'll see.

"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.

[MrSMW]

33 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

I'm gonna be one of those craft people that refuses to use AI. Damn the consequences.  This all sucks.

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.

[eatstoomuchjam]

36 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

I'm gonna be one of those craft people that refuses to use AI. Damn the consequences.  This all sucks.  

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).

[newfoundmass]

It seemed inevitable that they'd eventually charge more for upgrades. And as long as it's a reasonable price, I don't see a huge problem with it. As a potential user though I definitely hope it's not a subscription. I already have to pay for a sub for Photoshop (the alternatives just weren't working for me) and that genuinely pains me. I'd like to avoid having to pay a subscription fee for my NLE, too!

As a Final Cut Pro user I keep expecting that Apple will charge for an upgrade, but I am guessing they're waiting for a major version update to do it.

[Clark Nikolai]

9 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

As a Final Cut Pro user I keep expecting that Apple will charge for an upgrade, but I am guessing they're waiting for a major version update to do it.

I wonder that too but so far it seems to be over ten years without having needed to pay again. Apple makes their money off hardware so the software helps sell the hardware. (You could say too that about BM in a way.)

The iOS version of Final Cut is a subscription. I don't know how that's doing. There are so many other NLEs for iOS out there that are a one time payment kind of thing that it's competing against, (including their own iMovie for iOS).

[MrSMW]

11 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

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 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.

[zerocool22]

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.

[fuzzynormal]

11 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

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.

Not sure if this is sarcasm or not, but the reason I don't want to indulge AI is exactly because of it's ability to divorce me from the minutia.

(even though what you're outlining here is not minutia.  Having AI do an audio mix?  Bleh.)

Hey, this may be completely stupid and stubborn, but I still believe that the craft of things is in the detail of things.  Always has been.   Don't know the details?  You won't know the craft.  Don't know the craft?  It's going to be hard to achieve one's voice in the art you practice.

Now, are you worried about the clock?  The time you're putting in?  Nothing wrong with that, but if you are worried, the chances are you're not making anything special, right?

Again, if your goal is to not create art, just push content, then you're eventually going to be replaced by AI totally anyway.  You got a small window, I guess.  Enjoy that while you can.

But, for me, it's not about making things look pristine or ideally technically proficient.  There's a deeper quality to things than that.  Wabi sabi

Here's an analogy litmus test for consideration:  Is music better when it's a little pitchy?

At the end of the day, I'm just one guy staying true to my goals.  I realize they're not other's goals.

[zerocool22]

2 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

Not sure if this is sarcasm or not, but the reason I don't want to indulge AI is exactly because of it's ability to divorce me from the minutia.

(even though what you're outlining here is not minutia.  Having AI do an audio mix?  Bleh.)

Hey, this may be completely stupid and stubborn, but I still believe that the craft of things is in the detail of things.  Always has been.   Don't know the details?  You won't know the craft.  Don't know the craft?  It's going to be hard to achieve one's voice in the art you practice.

Now, are you worried about the clock?  The time you're putting in?  Nothing wrong with that, but if you are worried, the chances are you're not making anything special, right?

Again, if your goal is to not create art, just push content, then you're eventually going to be replaced by AI totally anyway.  You got a small window, I guess.  Enjoy that while you can.

But, for me, it's not about making things look pristine or ideally technically proficient.  There's a deeper quality to things than that.  Wabi sabi

Here's an analogy litmus test for consideration:  Is music better when it's a little pitchy?

At the end of the day, I'm just one guy staying true to my goals.  I realize they're not other's goals.

Oh yeah, I just mean the day by day hustle corporate video's. Its just time I can spend with my family instead. 

If it is an passion project or art project it is different, then I will try everything by hand to get the best possible result. But in business its time I dont get paid extra for + all the AI applications are more or less aimed at repetitive tasks that dont require that much creativity.

[MrSMW]

10 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

Again, if your goal is to not create art, just push content, then you're eventually going to be replaced by AI totally anyway.  You got a small window, I guess.  Enjoy that while you can.

This as a fundamental choice.

Possibly…probably even, in some areas, it would be a case of fighting the tide, but I think too many people will use it to compensate for both their own lack of skill and in order to make a fast buck. While they still can. But short term gain and all that…

[MrSMW]

On 4/5/2025 at 8:20 PM, eatstoomuchjam said:

Basically, a subscription model removes the impetus for innovation and for developing features that customers are interested in.

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...