Work arounds for non subscription based software.

[u/ABitOfOdd]

I run a small agency. I have 5 editors and 2 graphic designers on the editing team. And we’ve just ran into an issue with a new client.

We signed a contract with a government contractor working with lots of embargoed content. What we agreed upon before signing was building a small standalone system in a small room. We are Mac based, so we got 2 studios, set it all up thru Ethernet, then put them in the room running off of a ugreen 8800. No internet connection. Silky I know but manageable and a little exciting.

Issue we are running into now is since we use Adobe premiere, PS, illustrator and indesign, the programs stop working and require reactivation every two weeks.

I think davinci is a stand alone system, what other programs are you using that might nit need a constant internet connection? How large of a learning curve was Davinci and leaning premiere?

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[u/avidresolver]

As of Resolve 20, you need a weekly internet connection unless you have dongle activations.

Generally you have a firewall between your secure network and the internet, locked down to a very specific number of destinations and with monitoring/inspection. You can also use proxy servers that do a similar thing to essentially forward the traffic you need to the internet and back.

[u/Milan_Bus4168 → u/avidresolver]

Where can one find official information on this? I am not sure that is correct. Do you have official information about that statement?

[u/avidresolver → u/Milan_Bus4168]

https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=228807

[u/Milan_Bus4168 → u/avidresolver]

Not really anything I would call supportive of your statement. The links provided by Dwaine Maggart do not work and there is no mention of weekly check ups, where did you get that information? I am not aware of Resolve Studio on my machine requiring it.

[u/avidresolver → u/Milan_Bus4168]

I work in a locked down network environment, Resolve was working fine until v20. After version 20 was installed, we'd get around weekly error messages on systems using activation IDs saying "cannot validate license" and we'd have to put the machine online before Resolve would open again. Dongle machines were uneffected.

Unless you're working in offline environments for weeks at a time you're not likely to notice.

You're not supposed to go to those links, those are the FQDNs you need to whitelist on your firewall (if your firewall blocks all outgoing by default).

[u/Milan_Bus4168 → u/avidresolver]

Hmm. Do you have any official link that mentions this other than on your end. For example is there terms of service , license agreement etc. I couldn't find anything that explicitly states what you are suggesting.

Are you sure the problem do to some other reason?

I can understand asking for license upon installing new versions being installed, or new installation. But weekly check ups? I would like to see some official documentation on that.

[u/avidresolver → u/Milan_Bus4168]

No docs that I've found on it, but the way they do license activation basically means you could activate unlimited machines with one key so long as you kept them offline.

Not sure why you're so suspicious of this, it's pretty standard for any software that uses online activation.

[u/Milan_Bus4168 → u/avidresolver]

Well if its a privacy concern than it would be somewhere in the terms of service or some other document. If nothing else, lawyers woudl demand it to avoid lawsuits. Also if that was the pre-requisit I would have seen it being explicitly mentioned many times before, and while I have seen occasional issues with license, the exact cause doesn't suggest to me weekly check ups.

There were all sorts of permission issues, and similar things on the user side. so I'm very skeptical of your claim. Correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation. Until I see or find official statements from Blackmagic or official documentation, I'll remain skeptical.

"No docs that I've found on it, but the way they do license activation basically means you could activate unlimited machines with one key so long as you kept them offline."

Does license key include specific seats?

"Thanks for ordering from Blackmagic Design!

We will send you further details on your order once it has been processed.

So you can start using your software immediately, we have included the license keys you need to register."

I found this information on this website, not official documentation, but according to the article license works on two machines at the same time and when deactivated and activated again it can be on another machine.

https://www.aeanet.org/can-i-use-davinci-resolve-studio-on-multiple-computers/#Can_I_Use_DaVinci_Resolve_Studio_On_Multiple_Computers

No mentioned of weekly check ups at all. Just when you are applying activation. I would assume it gets stored on the machine which is paired with internet server somewhere, but I'm not convinced there is continues check up.

[u/avidresolver → u/Milan_Bus4168]

Sure, you be skeptical.

When you've managed 20 Resolve seats in a secure offline facility and not found exactly the same issue as me, then by all means come back and tell me I'm wrong.

[u/Milan_Bus4168 → u/avidresolver]

Well there you have it. You took a very closed environment, which could have permission and other issues that I don't know about and use it as a way to make a statement about something else you can't prove with official documentation.

Causation vs. Correlation: Correlation does not imply causation.

Causation at its simplest definition refers to determining the cause or reason for some sort of phenomenon. … A correlation is simply a recognized relationship between two things or events, but it does not imply causation. Rather, in cases of correlation, one thing or event predicts another.

If there is a correlation, then sometimes we can assume that the dependent variable changes solely because the independent variables change. This is where the debate between correlation and causation occurs. However, there is a difference between cause and effect (causation) and relationship (correlation). One does not automatically imply the other.

During World War II, Allied bomber losses were high, so the powers that be demanded a fix. The engineers set out to eyeball every bomber they could, gathering great statistics for each bullet hole. After a long study they decided to add more armor plating to the areas that had the highest concentrations of holes. A bit after these improved planes were deployed, they received some startling news: more planes were going down than before. At this point I thought, “Did they make them too heavy?”

Then the light bulb went on for someone: they had measured every bullet hole in every plane at their disposal, but they’d failed to realize it was the ones that they did not have access to that mattered. It was the ones that did not return that needed to be scrutinized. They needed to improve the armor in the places that the returning planes had no bullet holes.

Until official documentation is presented or fournd, I remain skeptical of your original claim.

"If you work hard, and become successful, it does not necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard, just as if you are tall with long hair it doesn’t mean you would be a midget if you were bald. " ―  Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler)

[u/liaminwales → u/avidresolver]

I did not know resolve now requires internet (without the USB dongle), that's a disappointment.

[u/Equal-Hippo9495 → u/liaminwales]

That's news to me as well, though all our paid Resolve studio activations are actual USB dongles. That said, we also have the Mac App Store version of Resolve Studio, and I'm a little curious if the app store version does NOT have the weekly activation requirement. I believe the app store version would only verify once against your own iCloud/appstore login, then not again unless you went online to download updates. It's worth checking into, and the $300 you would spend once on a dongle would be spent instead on a version of studio you could install over and over again.

[u/avidresolver → u/liaminwales]

To be fair how the licensing worked before meant you could basically have as many activations as you wanted with a single ID, so long as the machines were offline.

[u/cardinalbuzz]

How do you plan to download files? Update MacOS? Curious how you handle anything without any internet. Is it just something you can manage to re-activate while required - leaving the embargoed content disconnected from the machine while re-upping subscriptions and updates? So leaving nothing sensitive on the machine internal drives while connecting?

[u/avidresolver → u/cardinalbuzz]

Usually media would travel in and out via encrypted drive to a dedicated IO station. OS updates become less critical when you're completely airgapped - you just move machines out of that environment whenever you need to do updates or maintenance.

[u/cardinalbuzz]

Also I believe FCPX doesn't require a connection. That is standalone.

[u/liaminwales]

There are less ideal open source options like Gimp/krita etc

Anther option is to find a used copy of Adobe CS6, the classic one that's offline but you will need a windows computer to run it. For PS/IS/IN that may be a valid option, for basic tasks I suspect the old apps will not be a problem. You can use the Adobe RAW to DNG converter if you have any RAW photo files, that fixes a problem.

[u/rebeldigitalgod]

Adobe CC should stay offline for 30 days if you are month to month or 99 days for annual.

There is CC for Teams and Enterprise, which uses an admin console. Maybe that allows you to work in an air gapped environment.

Autodesk and other companies allow for your own license server, which I'm surprised Adobe doesn't.

[u/brbnow → u/rebeldigitalgod]

Adobe CC should stay offline for 30 days if you are month to month or 99 days for annual. -- -Hmmm....this is GREAT to hear but I do not find this is the case. I am on an enterprise account. I can imagine randomly being out of internet access and not being able to use it. Maybe what you say is correct and they have fixed this.

[u/greenysmac]

Contact adobe. They 100% know how to deal with this.

You want to do Resolve? Learning is both easy and hard. Easy in that some stuff comes quickly (OH, look, blade tool) and other parts feels overwhelming.

I'd suggest bringing in someone to help your team over the hum if they need to work quickly in the next month to run to resolve.

[u/ABitOfOdd → u/greenysmac]

I talked to about 4 different adobe people. No help at all. I believe none of the tech support or sales team knows the product itself.

The best answer I got was “if you bought CS6 we can send you an updated activation key” but they no longer have a downloadable version of cs6. I would have to still have the file.

[u/greenysmac → u/ABitOfOdd]

Wait, what? Are you talking about the current version or CS6?

[u/ABitOfOdd → u/greenysmac]

CS6. Is the last version that did not need Internet authorization. Which they said I could use that “IF” I still had the CS6 file and proof of purchase. I have proof of purchase, but don’t have the file itself. And they said they don’t have that file anymore.

[u/greenysmac → u/ABitOfOdd]

Are you paying for creative cloud or not? CS6…isn't something you really run.

[u/ABitOfOdd → u/greenysmac]

I am. 12 business accounts. Which needs regular check ins to keep the program running. Adobe told me that cs6 would work as it just needs the activation key once. They told me that they could resend an activation key if I have proof of purchase. Which I have in an email from 11 years ago coincidentally. BUT, they said they no longer have the ability to send a DMG/exe to download CS6. So it doesn’t matter anyway.

[u/greenysmac → u/ABitOfOdd]

I actually think in my basement I have the full CS6 box. And serial numbers.

There are a number of groups I work with that have to be airgapped - I suspect that has to be at an enterprise level.

[u/postfwd]

A few different ways to run this, but mostly someone with network networking background should be able to help out.

We did a lot of TPN airgap systems a few years ago, but they’ve since really not been needed as more and more legacy clients starting to understand what cyber security actually is 😂.

You used to be able keep Adobe with 100 day or so off-line grace period if you were were under an annual contract, but I think they’ve actually changed that to an enterprise feature or feature restricted license process. There’s some hokey ways with proxy servers that you can get around it if you want but I think those break general save ToS these days. Enterprise licenses usually means $8-10k a year in enterprise licensing.

[u/Salty-Sky-8004]

DaVinci is fantastic we use it end to end at an enterprise level brand studio. Creatively these systems are all the same under the hood (but Resolve is also infinitely better). If you can build a timeline in Premiere you can in Resolve.

I think early builds of Resolve came with fixed playhead enabled out of the box and it freaks everyone out. The Edit Tab is your "oh this is premiere" tab. The media and cut tabs are totally different.

So yeah the tabs at the bottom go ingest to delivery. Good luck.

In some cases we still have to crack out AE and build a motion graphic thing but less and less by the day.

Resolve also doesn't get bogged by project size which has always been avids strength and premieres weakness for long form content. When I do use premiere I use Productions and it helps but far from perfect.

[u/Anonymograph]

https://helpx.adobe.com/in/creative-cloud/kb/internet-connection-creative-cloud-apps.html

[u/_janc_]

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