Blackmagic respond to EOSHD about supporting existing cameras - audio levels and histograms on the way!

[Andrew Reid]

Above: Prospect, a short film shot on the 2.5k Blackmagic Cinema Camera

The Blackmagic Cinema Camera was the first foray for the company into the camera market and was announced 2 years ago this month. I know many users were expecting more from firmware updates in the meantime to add basic features and also features promised by Blackmagic themselves. Many were expecting these to be announced this week at NAB. Instead Blackmagic revealed new cameras, one in particular the URSA being packed with new features.

So I asked Blackmagic some tough questions and here are the answers...

Read the full article here

[xenogears]

There's something I really would like to know, when the Active 4/3 studio camera will be release? has been announces since the Pocket launch, but no sight yet.

[Andrew Reid]

By studio camera do you actually mean Cinema Camera (2.5K)?

[TBEagle2]

By studio camera do you actually mean Cinema Camera (2.5K)?

If the blackmagic production camera does get all the things they said it would, how would you compare it to the gh4. The gh4 has a more complete package but if they actually update them how far closer would it close the gap?

[Andrew Reid]

If the blackmagic production camera does get all the things they said it would, how would you compare it to the gh4. The gh4 has a more complete package but if they actually update them how far closer would it close the gap?

 

I loved the image from the Production Camera, though it was limiting to have ISO 400 native and the fixed pattern noise above that when the image is lifted.

 

For my kind of work, the form factor of the Production Camera isn't as suitable as the GH4, because it's just a sensor in a box. It really needed a lot of extra bits adding, which is why Blackmagic noticed everyone rigging their Pocket and Cinema cameras up, and responded by bringing out the URSA.

 

I don't need to rig up the GH4. It already has everything I need built in. I really cannot be bothered with rigging stuff up crazily. Gets in the way.

 

I also prefer the lens mount to the EF mount on the Production Camera. More versatile. The smaller sensor doesn't bother me because when I want the Super 35mm look, I get it out of my bag and attach it. Speed Booster.

[Escapist]

Blackmagic responding directly is a good step in restoring confidence. Canon would never do such a thing.

[mzo]

Where's 60p on the more compact models? The Studio offers 1080@60 on the $2K mark, so they now have the technology to offer that frame rate at this price range. I don't believe any of the cinema cameras do (beside from the URSA). Why is that? Am I the only one who was hoping from Black Magic a camera with similar specs to the new KineMini or at least an upgraded Cinema Camera able to reach 60p?

[CaptainHook]

Andrew, could you please remove the photos of Johns from your article? I spoke to John and he said you didn't ask permission and would like them taken off.

 

Also, you mention you spoke to BMD and got some answers, but it appears just to be a copy and paste with some slight alterations to what Kris already posted prior on the official BMD forum himself. Seems a little disingenuous to claim the response was because of your prompting (it wasn't), especially compared to say the way nofilmschool also covered the announcements by Kris.

[jurgen]

I'm still sort of baffled as to how they designed three cameras without the ability for format/delete clips and view remaining space. That's not a small oversight ... it'd be like if they left the locking mechanism off the lens mount three separate times. Sure, you can use it, but ... why isn't it there?

[SleepyWill]

 

While it does beg the question, why use FAT 32, a file system literally designed to deal with fragmentation efficiently if you are only going to write segments- at least we know that this mean the cameras are wringing every drop of performance out of the hardware they can - the process to write continuously over several fragments is less than a single percentage of writing a single frame, which means that the cameras do not have that much processing resource free. Nice in a world where most people sandbag their hardware and you pay for significantly more than you actually get.

 

I wonder if the answer is something along the lines of allowing you to delete clips but that space can't be utilised by the camera until you "defrag" the card - so if you have a 64Gb card, and you have three clips recorded - a 10Gb file (1) a 30Gb file (2) and a 5 Gb file (3) - you have 11Gb left, give or take but if you delete clip 1 or 2, you continue to have 11Gb left until you press the defrag option - it ties up the camera for a few minutes, but then you have that extra space available, though this approach is hardly the most battery friendly approach!

[Oliver Daniel]

Andrew, could you please remove the photos of Johns from your article? I spoke to John and he said you didn't ask permission and would like them taken off.

 

Also, you mention you spoke to BMD and got some answers, but it appears just to be a copy and paste with some slight alterations to what Kris already posted prior on the official BMD forum himself. Seems a little disingenuous to claim the response was because of your prompting (it wasn't), especially compared to say the way nofilmschool also covered the announcements by Kris.

 

 

These announcements were made 2-3 days ago on the Blackmagic Forum, followed by NoFilmSchool. Hmmm, I will stay out of that one!

 

Kinefinity have released an add-on to the BMCC which gives you a removable battery and some other stuff. They call it Kine+. Smart move by Kinefinity to get publicity for their cameras!

[jambredz]

Dude as 2 posters have pointed out.. This news was already posted to the official forums long before. By Kristian himself. Why are you literally copy and pasting his words and representing it as an interview you did? Did you actually interview him? Seems extremely suspect. Im hoping for your sake you did actually interview him.

[sunyata]

It's possible that blackmagic just responded to Andrew's questions with boilerplate responses, in other words, they are the ones copying and pasting..  just playing devils advocate.

 

But I saw an interview where the president admitted that formatting a disk in the camera was way down on his list of to-do's and the response gives a false sense of "almost being ready".

 

My general sense is that blackmagic is a little far over their skiis on products and firmware updates will be far from satisfying for most little glitches with older, less important stuff.

[Andrew Reid]

Dude as 2 posters have pointed out.. This news was already posted to the official forums long before. By Kristian himself. Why are you literally copy and pasting his words and representing it as an interview you did? Did you actually interview him? Seems extremely suspect. Im hoping for your sake you did actually interview him.

 

Seems I need to clear up some bullshit with a big broom... yet again after leaping to the defence of Blackmagic.

 

I wonder why I am not on a beach somewhere and instead bothering to provide a free source of info about their cameras.

 

First off.... Kristian posted the update yesterday not 2-3 days ago as Olly P suggested.

 

http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21179

 

Look at the date and time stamp.

 

I believe Olly has in mind the very first update about the 4 fixes in the firmware, none of the other details were in that first update last week.

 

I did not report on that first update like nofilmschool - instead I pushed Blackmagic for more details by email all during NAB because I wasn't satisfied that the original update had enough info in it.

 

This discussion by email with Blackmagic started a few hours after the new camera announcements at NAB. Yesterday the reply this article was based on came to me as a personal reply from Patrick at Blackmagic directly, fitting like a glove to all the points I'd raised.

 

I am not trying to take credit for anything I didn't initiate... that's the way it happened and there were other emails following up to it. I am putting the info I had in the email out there. I'm not cutting and pasting it from their forum. To hear some people speak about me with minimal respect is very saddening. To hear them you'd think I was a PR hungry prick grandstanding like Tony Abbott tweeting pictures of himself on the phone to air force commanders or something.

 

I had not seen that they'd also posted it on their forum. I don't follow nofilmschool either. I really don't care who should take the credit for the update or whether Patrick was emailing me a cut and paste job.

 

Important thing is I got put the info in your hands and it came to me direct from the source.

[Andrew Reid]

Here is the proof.

 

 

Maybe I should not be so vocal about defending the interests of people who, in fact, absolutely hate my guts like a small minority of Blackmagic forum users.

[xenogears]

By studio camera do you actually mean Cinema Camera (2.5K)?

Yes, i'm talking about the Cinema Camera not the Pocket, because the last year they announced a Active M4/3 mount on the Cinema Camera but this has been banished on the time; to me was the perfect version for this camera i never understand why they release this camera with a passive mount and few moths later release the Pocket with the Active one.

[Andrew Reid]

Yes, i'm talking about the Cinema Camera not the Pocket, because the last year they announced a Active M4/3 mount on the Cinema Camera but this has been banished on the time; to me was the perfect version for this camera i never understand why they release this camera with a passive mount and few moths later release the Pocket with the Active one.

 

It is likely that the unified firmware is needed first before that can happen. No point modding the hardware when the firmware to support active mount on the 2.5K isn't ready yet.

[Oliver Daniel]

Seems I need to clear up some bullshit with a big broom... yet again after leaping to the defence of Blackmagic.

 

I wonder why I am not on a beach somewhere and instead bothering to provide a free source of info about their cameras.

 

First off.... Kristian posted the update yesterday not 2-3 days ago as Olly P suggested.

 

http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21179

 

Look at the date and time stamp.

 

I believe Olly has in mind the very first update about the 4 fixes in the firmware, none of the other details were in that first update last week.

 

I did not report on that first update like nofilmschool - instead I pushed Blackmagic for more details by email all during NAB because I wasn't satisfied that the original update had enough info in it.

 

This discussion by email with Blackmagic started a few hours after the new camera announcements at NAB. Yesterday the reply this article was based on came to me as a personal reply from Patrick at Blackmagic directly, fitting like a glove to all the points I'd raised.

 

I am not trying to take credit for anything I didn't initiate... that's the way it happened and there were other emails following up to it. I am putting the info I had in the email out there. I'm not cutting and pasting it from their forum. To hear some people speak about me with minimal respect is very saddening. To hear them you'd think I was a PR hungry prick grandstanding like Tony Abbott tweeting pictures of himself on the phone to air force commanders or something.

 

I had not seen that they'd also posted it on their forum. I don't follow nofilmschool either. I really don't care who should take the credit for the update or whether Patrick was emailing me a cut and paste job.

 

Important thing is I got put the info in your hands and it came to me direct from the source.

 

 

Thanks for that. 

 

As my post says, I saw the info on the forum and nofilmschool, but never suggested you had plagiarised.  It happens all over, some sites report news that may have been read elsewhere word for word. Glad you cleared it up for Mr. Hook anyway!

 

I once had an issue with a person who said they'd report me (to who was unspecified), because they thought none of my portfolio was my own work, and that I'd stolen it all off Youtube. I just laughed! Can't be wasting time on complete rubbish!

 

Onto the topic though.... people seem to forget that Blackmagic have only been making cameras for 2 years. Shit happens. ;) 

[Andrew Reid]

GH3 firmware discussion is completely off topic. Deleted. If you want to discuss that then feel free to open a new thread.

[jambredz]

Thanks for the clarification Andrew. As i said it did seem pretty suspect to present the article in such a way.