Re: BMD support for Resolve

Hi Dennis,

I want to start by saying that I think the Blackmagic guys are good guys, and they work hard, but I have been quite disappointed in Blackmagic support.

Currently there are 3 avenues of support. There is a general email address, a phone number, and the Creative Cow. All support is free. I have used all 3, and none of them are all that efficient. Usually it takes a day or two to receive an email response. But there have been a few times when I never got a response. The phone support is not bad, but a few times I was not able to get an answer to my question or help for my problem (They told me they didn't know much about that part of the software and I should try to Post on the COW to see if someone could help me. Wow, really???). I am a paying customer, and I expect more from the support department.

Again I don't blame the individuals, I think they work really hard. I think it's a corporate thing, and a lack of support for the Customer Service part of the company. I also blame the fact that I'm sure the support guys are getting hammered with support requests from people who download the Free Resolve software and ask for help.

I think there really needs to be a separate area for paying customers. As bad as support was before they released the Free Resolve, now it's even worse (again I blame the company, and not the support guys).

I am coming from the Avid world as well. And it's great to be able to get professional level support when you need it. Avid takes that seriously and does not disappoint (at least in my experience). Contrast that with Blackmagic... I have been in a real jam with Resolve (found some bugs in the software and some workflow things that were just not working) and when I reached out to Blackmagic, they were not able to solve my problem. I needed to make a delivery deadline and I was on my own (with the help of the COW). So basically you have to support yourself. Find your own work-arounds. Hope someone on the COW will help you or has had the same problem and figured out a solution.

I guess you can't have it all. You pay $0 or even $1000 and I guess professional level support is too much to ask (although I wouldn't expect to get support with Free software). I know I wish Blackmagic would have kept the price a bit higher so they could have built a real professional support department. This was my fear with the dirt cheap software model.

Well that is just my experience. Maybe it will improve in the future, although I have my doubts since we will have even more users coming online from the Blackmagic Cinema Camera and their free copy of Resolve.

-Peter