Divecut is a new offline footage-review app for macOS and iPadOS. It shows Log footage in correct Rec.709 color without touching the original files. It reads each clip’s metadata, applies the matching Log-to-Rec.709 conversion on the GPU, and shows the footage correctly straight from the folder.
Divecut was developed by Takashi Saito, who makes DaVinci Resolve plugins and OpenFX for a living.
If you want to view material straight off a card or hard drive that was shot in Log without first importing it into an NLE, etc., you can only see that footage in Log. The purpose of Divecut was to rectify this.
Divecut supports 17 Log formats across ten manufacturers: Sony S-Log2/3, Canon Log/2/3, Panasonic V-Log and V-Log L, Fujifilm F-Log and F-Log2, Nikon N-Log, ARRI LogC3 and LogC4, RED Log3G10, Blackmagic Film Gen 5, DJI D-Log, Apple Log and Apple Log 2, plus HLG, which takes the same path to Rec.709. Fifteen of these are implemented from the manufacturers’ published transfer functions and gamut matrices. V-Log L shares V-Log’s curve; Apple Log 2 is currently approximated with Apple Log’s. DJI D-Log M has no published formula, so the app says so and lets you assign a LUT rather than guessing.
Where a file carries no colour metadata, which is quite common, you can assign the format once, and it is remembered, even across re-imports.
Divecut also features a workflow integration plugin that places your selected shots on a Resolve timeline as the original files, trimmed to your in/out points, with the viewing conversion attached as a color group rather than baked into the picture. This requires DaVinci Resolve Studio, because Workflow Integration is a Studio feature.
The final step of the color pipeline, the curve that compresses Log’s range into a viewable image, shipped with an exposure constant nobody had checked. Takashi utilized DaVinci Resolve through its scripting API, then rendered the same frame through Resolve’s own color management, and compared the two numerically. His picture was consistently brighter: an average ΔE76 of 12.1. Sony’s official conversion LUTs agreed with Resolve and not with him. Correcting the one constant brought the error to ΔE76 4.36, and the same constant proved correct for a second Log format.
Pricing & Availability
Every feature works in the free tier (up to 100 clips): color conversion, on-device search, keyboard culling, and the Resolve hand-off are all available without paying, and Pro has a 7-day free trial.
Divecut Pro is $6.99 USD /month or $49.99 USD /year.
