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Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is Here!!! And it’s CHEAPER – YAY!!!

I just received word from BMD that the BMPC 4K is shipping as of today.  I checked B&H and a few other sites and they are still showing it as a pre-order item but the press release just hit a few hours ago.  Along with the terrific news of official shipping it is also making it’s debut at a lower price point $2995.  Down $1K from the original MSRP.  It is still shipping with a full copy of Resolve  and appears not to have lost anything in the process.  First thing I checked was the BMD site for the specs and everything still appears to be there so it’s all good.  Hopefully as the units start making their way into the market a few review units will drift into bloggers hands =)  I’ll keep you posted.  For now please see the full press release below and let me know your thoughts.

Fremont, CA – February 10, 2014 – Blackmagic Design today announced the Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is now shipping and with a new low price of US$2,995. This new low price will be available for all customers, including existing pre-orders. Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is available now from Blackmagic Design resellers worldwide for only US$2,995.

“The support from the creative community for the Blackmagic Cinema Camera and Production Camera 4K has been amazing,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “As with all of our products, we work hard in production to reduce costs so we can pass along the savings, even to our first Blackmagic Production Camera 4K customers. The Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is a perfect companion for ATEM Production 4K switchers and we hope the new low price will help more customers to expand their Ultra HD live production set ups with even more camera angles!”

Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is a super high resolution 4K digital production camera for Ultra HD television production. Featuring a large Super 35 sensor, professional global shutter as well as EF and ZE compatible lens mount, the Blackmagic Production Camera 4K captures high quality ProRes™ files, giving customers a complete solution to shoot amazing high resolution music videos, episodic television productions, television commercials, sport and documentaries.

The Blackmagic Production Camera 4K has everything customers need right out of the box including a built in SSD recorder, rechargeable battery and a large 5” LCD touchscreen. In addition to focusing and monitoring shots, the touchscreen also lets customers enter metadata and change camera settings all on a single easy to use interface. Customers also get a full copy of DaVinci Resolve for amazing quality color grading and finishing for Mac OS X and Windows computers.

  • Ultra HD 3840 x 2160 resolution
  • ProRes 422 (HQ)™ recording
  • Super 35 sensor
  • Global shutter
  • EF and ZE compatible lens mount
  • Built-in SSD recorder
  • 5” LCD touchscreen
  • Metadata entry
  • 6G-SDI output for 10-bit HD and Ultra HD
The Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is available now for US$2,995 from Blackmagic Design resellers worldwide.

Until next time, Good shooting

TDTrey

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Blackmagic Design has big announcements from IBC

Some really cool stuff coming from Blackmagic Design at this year’s IBC.  Looks like the new Beta 10 version of DaVinci Resolve is now available for download at Blackmagic Design Support.  This is the all new version that was originally announced at NAB earlier this year.  Some of the cool new features are:
  • Resolve Live-live grading of the incoming video signal from the camera
  • Enhanced editing features
  • Multitrack editing with support for up to 16 tracks of audio per clip
  • Expanded support for more NLE’s via XML and EDL
  • Support for OpenFX plugins
  • Support for mixed frame rates and media types
  • Fantastic updated to limiting, qualifiers and power windows
  • Outstanding workflow features for window burns, file naming overlay and audio syncing of secondary tracks to picture
  • and much more
Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design was quoted saying:

 “We are extremely excited to have this public beta of DaVinci Resolve 10 ready for download from the Blackmagic Design web site,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “This is an important update for all DaVinci Resolve customers and dramatically boosts the ease of workflow in the television industry. This new public beta is available for high end DaVinci Resolve systems as well as the exciting free of charge DaVinci Resolve Lite edition which now includes support for UHD timelines and rendering. This is an exciting moment for DaVinci Resolve because its the biggest update to a DaVinci product line in 30 years!”

Another cool announcement was regarding the new Desktop Video version 10.  With the onset of 4K coming faster and faster BMD felt it was time to completely revamp the Desktop Video architecture from the ground up. Aimed at helping the UltraStudio 4K and the DeckLink 4 products, this upgrade will make the ever changing job of managing signals around the edit bay, design center, paint and color correction rooms a breeze.

Please check out all the new goodies at BlackmagicDesign.com

Until next time, Good Shooting
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ATOMOS Samurai Blade

So, the afternoon that the Samurai Blade was first in stock at B&H, I ordered it.  I had been waiting a while for it to be available and was happy it was finally on it’s way.
At CineGear I was able to check out quite a few recorders including the Atomos Samurai Blade and the Convergent Design Odyssey 7.  Both are excellent recorders.  Both have terrific feature sets.  Both are priced at $1295 USD. 
I went with the Blade.
      • It’s 5.5″ screen makes it a nice tiny recorder to hang on any rig.
      • It has a non proprietary storage media solution. (the Odyssey uses Convergent Design’s own SSDs to ensure compatibility with the recorder)
      • With the Blade, you can use SSDs or spinning 2.5″ hard drives right from your local computer store (as long as they meet the specs required by Atomos)  The fact that you can use spinning drives is one of the main reasons I went with the blade.  I can use a 500 gig laptop drive for tripod shoots and it will only cost me $60 or so and yields almost 5 hours of ProRes HQ.  For “run and gun” I’ll probably want to use SSDs because of the risk of shock to the drives.
      • I can run all day on a couple Sony NP-F970 batteries.
      • The Blade works well with both my EX3’s SDI out and my 5D3’s HDMI out.  For the HDMI from the Canon 5D3 I use the Atomos H2S converter.  It converts HDMI to HD-SDI and does 3:2 pulldown removal in real time.
      • The focus assist features work like my Zacuto EVF and SmallHD AC7 monitor.  I can see the focal plan coming my way as I roll through focus.
      • The waveform feature is very handy and pretty much a necessity these days on DSLR shoots.
        One of the other things I’ve been waiting for in a recorder is the ability to delay the audio coming into the recorder to compensate for the 5 frame LAG the Canon 5D3 has on it’s clean HDMI output.  When feeding the recorder audio directly you’ll end up with your picture behind your audio 5 frames.  Those clips will then need to be slipped back into sync on the timeline during editing.  However, (this was great) I wrote Atomos about the LAG and asked if there was anything in the works at Atomos to help.  The next day (at 3:02 am) Tech support sent me an e-mail saying they had released a new firmware update that morning and added an audio delay function and way better audio meters.  I was stoked as those were really the last 2 minor things that disappointed me about the Blade.

        The Convergent Design Odyssey 7 and 7Q look like excellent recorders as well.  At the time I needed my recorder the Odyssey units weren’t shipping and did not yet offer ProRes.  They are projected to ship a little later this year.  The 7Q will be able to do up to 4K resolutions  and also record in camera raw formats.
        All in all I think the Atomos Samurai Blade is a great choice for a flexible external field recorder and one that I will be able to use for some time to come.  As we all move ever closer to the 4K world new technology is going to keep sneaking up on us.  But for now HD recorders are a great way to go.

        Until next time – Good shooting

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        Oops… I might have been wrong… FCPX??

        OK, so I might have been a little off in my speculation about Apple buying Adobe – or not – just backwards. What if instead of Apple trying to buy Adobe, Apple is thinking about selling it’s Pro Application Division? I didn’t come up with this – it’s been rumored on the web about Apple maybe wanting to sell it’s Pro App division. This would make sense then about the current state of FCPX.

        Lets just suppose Adobe were the intended buyer… FCP and Premier Pro are almost even on the playing field – you can’t have a company with two stellar editing platforms – one needs to be elevated and the other brought down a few pegs. Does Adobe have a prosumer editing package anymore? So now there would be iMovie Pro for the consumer / prosumer and Premier Pro for the full time editor. Audition to replace STP and After Effects for Motion. Color could stay around as a stand alone grading tool and compressor would / could get absorbed by Adobe Media Encoder. All at 64 bit.

        At least this would make more sense than the idea that Apple just didn’t follow though on the re-development of Final Cut at this stage. The re-design took a long time and they had input from industry professionals. There has to be another reason… Then again this is just all speculation. However, I am taking another look at Premier Pro CS 5.5… Could be fun.

        Just another thought

        TDTrey.com

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        Apple…Brain Fart??? FCP X ???

        OK. So I have to ask the same question that every other editor is asking – WTF???

        A quote from a director friend of mine:

        “        It looks like the Amiga Toaster Flyer mated with iMovie and gave birth to Vegas Prosumer.“
        –JL

        Not to be rude – Apple has always been a mile ahead of the rest of the world and maybe it is so this time as well… but, really. At first blush FCPX seems a little FCP’d Up. Too harsh… Sorry, I’ll tone it down.

        So, like everyone else, I have seen the footage from the “SuperMeet” at NAB and the speculation sites and finally the pieces starting to float up on the web by new owners. I have to say it looks very attractive at first but then you start to look at the list of missing features… These are things that everyday editors use – regularly… I just read another report of how Apple is working hard to add these features back into the next update — but I would ask, why weren’t they in there in the first place?

        As I said a minute ago, Apple is always ahead of the curve. So once the missing features get added back in this could be a pretty stomping app — but it looks a lot like “iMovie on steroids” right now.

        Lets keep our fingers crossed =) Go Apple

        —————ADD ON——————–

        OK, so I have to ask… Is Apple planning to buy Adobe?

        I’ve spent all morning reading various posts about a definite migration from FCP to either AVID or Premiere CS5.5. It started to dawn on me that one possible reason Apple would gut FCP so badly and call it “professional” is to create a stampead to another NLE — Premiere, their closest competitor. With a very similar history in development and timeline it would make since. When Premiere left MAC it was still clunky. Now after it’s return and apparent growth spurt it seems to be the new “BIG kid on the block”. I’m wondering if Apple realized it would take far too long to re-invent FCP 64bit from the ground up as a professional application and that it made more since to stake a claim in another company… So, Apple creates “iMovie Pro”, calls it FCPX for a legacy tie in. Then buys Adobe later in the year. Adopts CS5.5 as the new FCP studio collection. Adds Color and Sound Track Pro / Logic into the collection to round out the total production environment and poof… SMOKE for under $3000 bucks…

        Just a thought…

        TDTrey.com