Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

[Shirozina]

6 hours ago, Anaconda_ said:

Portability, reliability, size, not risk of damaging cables or ports, no risk of a cable snagging on your thumb as you reach to focus. Just a few reasons why many people might want to use card internally.

SSD's are hardly big so is portability really an issue? , reliability? - any experience of SSD vs CFAST vs SDXC failures with this camera? Size ( ee first point), Cables and ports can be protected by clamps if it's in a cage. 

[seanzzxx]

Just a quick question - in Davinci Resolve in Color Space Transform, Input Color Space still doesn't have a Pocket 4K FIlm option? Am I missing something? Thanks!

[Anaconda_]

5 hours ago, Shirozina said:

SSD's are hardly big so is portability really an issue? , reliability? - any experience of SSD vs CFAST vs SDXC failures with this camera? Size ( ee first point), Cables and ports can be protected by clamps if it's in a cage. 

Think about putting it in and out of bags, I wouldn't want to leave any cables plugged into the camera while packing down, with or without clamps. Which means you also need to rebuild the kit when you get to the next location. So portability is affected.

There have been many reports of SSDs not mounting on the camera once connected. I've never had that issue with the internal cards. The fix is easy, just a quick restart, but the problem is easy to avoid in the first place.

----

It's all about how you like to use the camera, but don't judge others for using it differently. In most cases, I want to keep my camera as small and cable free as possible, others like to rig it up until it's as big as their torso. I do have a T5, and the only time I used it was to test the workflow the day my camera arrived. While it was very easy to go from camera to editing, you need to backup the files anyway, and you need to clear the drive for a shoot the next day, so I found that advantage was lost in an instant. 

Now, I mostly use the T5 as a working project drive. After a shoot I instantly copy everything off my cards and format them in camera, so I know it's a fresh start every day. If I pick the camera up and see something on the card, I know it's not been backed up. I worry if I used the T5 to record, I would never know what's backed up and what's not. If anyone's interested, I use these very cheap C.fast 2.0 cards and they keep up very nicely with ProRes. I haven't tried RAW, but I'm sure they can at least handle 4:1.

https://www.mymemory.com/integral-128gb-ultimapro-x2-cfast-2-0-card-550mb-s.html

[drm]

2 hours ago, Anaconda_ said:

I use these very cheap C.fast 2.0 cards and they keep up very nicely with ProRes. I haven't tried RAW, but I'm sure they can at least handle 4:1.

https://www.mymemory.com/integral-128gb-ultimapro-x2-cfast-2-0-card-550mb-s.html

That card (if it runs as advertised) has specs that are faster than the T5 drive. The card lists 550MB/s read & 540MB/s write. The T5 lists 540MB/s read & 515MB/s write. Of course, the minimum speeds are what really matters. It is a shame they don't have higher capacity cards as 128GB doesn't last very long at the higher quality settings.

That is a crazy low price for that drive. The cheapest CFAST 128GB on B&H is $179. Thanks for sharing the find.

[kye]

8 hours ago, seanzzxx said:

Just a quick question - in Davinci Resolve in Color Space Transform, Input Color Space still doesn't have a Pocket 4K FIlm option? Am I missing something? Thanks!

I think it uses the Blackmagic Design Film colour and gamma spaces?  This would be for Prores clips.  If you're shooting RAW then you would be using the RAW Tab and you wouldn't have to specify what the inputs were.

I haven't used this though, so maybe someone can confirm?

6 hours ago, Anaconda_ said:

Think about putting it in and out of bags, I wouldn't want to leave any cables plugged into the camera while packing down, with or without clamps. Which means you also need to rebuild the kit when you get to the next location. So portability is affected.

There have been many reports of SSDs not mounting on the camera once connected. I've never had that issue with the internal cards. The fix is easy, just a quick restart, but the problem is easy to avoid in the first place.

----

It's all about how you like to use the camera, but don't judge others for using it differently. In most cases, I want to keep my camera as small and cable free as possible, others like to rig it up until it's as big as their torso. I do have a T5, and the only time I used it was to test the workflow the day my camera arrived. While it was very easy to go from camera to editing, you need to backup the files anyway, and you need to clear the drive for a shoot the next day, so I found that advantage was lost in an instant. 

Now, I mostly use the T5 as a working project drive. After a shoot I instantly copy everything off my cards and format them in camera, so I know it's a fresh start every day. If I pick the camera up and see something on the card, I know it's not been backed up. I worry if I used the T5 to record, I would never know what's backed up and what's not. If anyone's interested, I use these very cheap C.fast 2.0 cards and they keep up very nicely with ProRes. I haven't tried RAW, but I'm sure they can at least handle 4:1.

https://www.mymemory.com/integral-128gb-ultimapro-x2-cfast-2-0-card-550mb-s.html

BM could have a major win with some tools that let you transfer files between media sources in the field.  I'm not sure if that's possible, but if you could record to an internal card and then periodically download that card to a HDD to free up the card again that would be great.  This would allow small fast cards to work with large slow HDDs and get the best of both worlds.

In the absence of the camera doing it, I recall @BTM_Pix was talking about such a device for transferring files from any media to and other media in the field?

[kye]

Dave Dugdale with thoughts on HDMI cables.  Not really any strong conclusions, but might be useful to some?

 

[Anaconda_]

6 hours ago, drm said:

The card lists 550MB/s read & 540MB/s write. The T5 lists 540MB/s read & 515MB/s write. Of course, the minimum speeds are what really matters. It is a shame they don't have higher capacity cards as 128GB doesn't last very long at the higher quality settings.

Well, as with all theses things, those speeds seem to be a bit of an exaggeration. I only have a C.Fast 1.0 reader, but these are the speeds I can get through USB 3.0 - maybe a 2.0 reader through USBc would give faster results? Either way, this is still more than adequate for most situations.

3 hours ago, kye said:

BM could have a major win with some tools that let you transfer files between media sources in the field.  I'm not sure if that's possible, but if you could record to an internal card and then periodically download that card to a HDD to free up the card again that would be great.  This would allow small fast cards to work with large slow HDDs and get the best of both worlds.

In the absence of the camera doing it, I recall @BTM_Pix was talking about such a device for transferring files from any media to and other media in the field?

I fear that would be very slow, and also drain the battery, which is no help in the field. Having a coffee stop and a laptop is much more preferable to me (or even an assistant to do that part haha) I do have this WD drive that has a longish battery, USB in, SD card slot, and a 3tb hard drive. It auto backs up the SD card and any USB drive to it's internal storage. It also works as a USB charger for anything that can charge with USB. It can be very useful to back things up without a computer, but I've always found it hard to trust that everything's copied correctly. I don't like to format the cards until I'm 100% sure, so I rarely actually use it for it's intended purpose. 

[Shirozina]

Don't rely on manufacturers published write speeds for video. Data transfer to a computer or device is not the same as uninterrupted data streams for recording video real time without frame drops ( hence the need for the  V rating). Always test it on your camera.....

[BTM_Pix]

3 hours ago, Anaconda_ said:

I only have a C.Fast 1.0 reader.

If you are looking for a 2.0 reader then I use one of these Roketek ones.

The additonal trick it has is that it is also has a sata port that works simultaneously so you can connect bare SSDs to it to do backups.

They are about £15 on Amazon.

[BTM_Pix]

7 hours ago, kye said:

In the absence of the camera doing it, I recall @BTM_Pix was talking about such a device for transferring files from any media to and other media in the field?

Yes.

The Rock64, for example, is an SBC that has a USB3 port on it and has the same form factor as a Raspberry Pi so it can use all the same shields (in this case one of the cheap 3.5" touch screens) and can run Open Media Vault for file handling.

Combined with the cfast/sata dual reader/writer that I mentioned above you can make a backup device with decent copy speed and an easy interface that will fit in your pocket for less than £100.

[Newway12]

I’m trying to update my firmware, but for some reason my computer isn’t recognizing my usb device (the camera) anyone have any suggestions?

[seanzzxx]

3 hours ago, Newway12 said:

I’m trying to update my firmware, but for some reason my computer isn’t recognizing my usb device (the camera) anyone have any suggestions?

Right now it only works with USB 2.0 on Windows, that might be it?

[Davide Roveri]

Hello everybody!

 

So, I've attended the Blackmagic Raw seminar held at CVP here in London yesterday and I thought I'd share some impressions:

Let's start with the bad news first: unfortunately there is no official release date for BRAW on the PCC4K yet.. They confirmed it is coming to the camera 100% but they want to make absolutely sure that the update is safe and won't brick the camera (which sounds like a sensible plan indeed!) ?

That been said I can't wait to have the option to use BRAW, it's such a clever and well implemented solution and i reckon it will be the best choice on the PCC4K for 90% of the occasions. What really impressed me is how good the performance is in Resolve compared to CNDG, it is entirely possile to edit BRAW on a laptop without creating optimised media and/or dropping the resolution. To drive the point home even more they worked on a grading project that was hosted on a USB 3.0 spinning drive and it worked flawlessly, i was quite shocked when I saw a clip with a speed ramp set in optical flow playing at 24fps at full quality on an entry level MBP!

Another super clever feature of BRAW is the ability to shoot with any dynamic range preset and being able to revert back to film mode afterwards, that is pretty awesome for dailies or things like that.

I also very appreciated the fact that they were totally sincere in showing us the difference in visual quality between BRAW and CDNG and, although there is a slight difference in quality with CDNG being a bit sharper, said difference is only visible in extreme magnification (pixel peeping basically) so in real life BRAW is perfectly adequate especially considering the many advantages it offers in terms of workflow. The Blackmagic guys reckoned that CDNG would be the best choice only in very specific situations where having the best quality possible is paramount (like VFX for istance).

Overall it's been a very interesting demonstration and i think BRAW will make the PCC4K even better value for money, exciting times ahead!

 

[majoraxis]

@Davide Roveri  Thanks for providing your BRAW update post!  It is great to hear that it is 100%.    It would be hard to imagine BRAW will not being released by NAB, hopefully much sooner.

Did they talk about BRAW de-mosaic filtering adding a half-stop of dynamic range to the footage as compared CDMG?  I understand that Pro Res on the Pocket 4K already uses the BRAW de-mosaic...

Thanks!

Mark

[Davide Roveri]

@majoraxis you're very welcome and yes, hopefully it'll be soon! ?

Hmm.. they showed us some farly detailed technical slides but i don't recall hearing anything about an increase in dynamic range, sorry!

 

[photographer-at-large]

Upcoming 4/3 sensor from Fairchild:

https://www.fairchildimaging.com/products/scmos-sensors/mst4323

[thebrothersthre3]

1 hour ago, photographer-at-large said:

Upcoming 4/3 sensor from Fairchild:

https://www.fairchildimaging.com/products/scmos-sensors/mst4323

GH6 sensor maybe. I foresee 4k 120fps 

[CaptainHook]

On 2/20/2019 at 5:37 AM, seanzzxx said:

Just a quick question - in Davinci Resolve in Color Space Transform, Input Color Space still doesn't have a Pocket 4K FIlm option? Am I missing something? Thanks!

Gen 4 uses a common defined gamut so you can use Broadcast Film for space (Broadcast Film gamut is the same as Pocket4K/UMP/etc Gen 4 gamut) and Pocket 4K Film for gamma. Hopefully this will be cleaned up a little in a future update.

[Newway12]

Does anyone else get a flickering histogram?

[deezid]

10 hours ago, CaptainHook said:

Gen 4 uses a common defined gamut so you can use Broadcast Film for space (Broadcast Film gamut is the same as Pocket4K/UMP/etc Gen 4 gamut) and Pocket 4K Film for gamma. Hopefully this will be cleaned up a little in a future update.

hey!
Do you know if there will be any fix for the red channel going beyond gamut limits and clipping quite easily?
There are many workarounds atm (using CST with saturation mapping, gamut limiter etc) but they only really work when working with RAW footage. The issue seems to be baked into ProRes files.

 

Thanks