Blackmagic dropping something big at NAB?

[kye]

There's a bit of buzz building around BM announcing a new camera at NAB.

It started in this thread on the BM forums where the release history was outlined by Tim Buttner:

 

  UMP Announcements & Releases
  UM4K: April 13th 2015 - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0150413-05 
  UM4.6K: Announced April 13, 2015 & Released March 17, 2016 - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0150413-05 & https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0160317-01 
  UMP G1: March 2nd 2017 - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0170302-01 
  UMP G2: March 5th 2019 - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0190305-01 
  UMP 12K: July 16th 2020 - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0200716-01 

  Pocket Announcements & Releases
  Pocket 4K: April 9th 2018 - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0180409-02 
  Pocket 6K: August 6th 2019 - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0190808-01 
  Pocket 6K Pro: February 17th 2021 - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0210217-02 

  DaVinci Resolve Announcements & Releases
  Resolve 12: April 13th 2015 - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0150413-01 
  Resolve 12.5: April 18th, 2016 - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0160418-05 
  Resolve 14: April 24th 2017 - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0170424-01 
  Resolve 15: April 9th 2018 - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0180409-01 
  Resolve 16: April 8th 2019 - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0190408-05 
  Resolve 17: November 9th 2020 - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0201109-01 

 

..with the implication that BM have a relatively regular release schedule and that we are either due, or overdue, depending on how you read the timeline.

One aspect that was discussed was that BM haven't given any previous PR to anything, which is what they usually do / have done in the past.

Then @John Brawley created a new thread talking about how NAB will be the 10 year anniversary of the release of the first BM cinema camera.  It starts with this:

 

  It was about 10 years ago that Blackmagic truly shocked all by announcing that they had made a cinema camera.

  Some thought it was a joke.

  Some said it was a toy.

  It was announced the first day of NAB in 2012. There were no leaks. It dropped on the floor of NAB like a bomb.

 

This, to me, is an enormous wink and a nod at the idea that BM will announce something big.  

I have no idea what it would be, but to me there are a couple of key aspects that I think (hope) might play into things:

• BM discontinued the Micro Cinema Camera relatively recently, and currently have no camera aimed at drones or rigging
• RED released the Komodo, which seemed to be a GoPro replacement for the cinema industry, and seems to be a popular option (and makes spectacular images)
• There is chatter about BM putting the sensor from the UMP12K into a smaller form-factor

I have no idea if I'm on the right path or not, but it sure would be great if BM released a S35 12K box-style camera with more DR than their other cameras, and would definitely be grabbing the resolution headlines again.  Even if they limited the sensor to the 8K mode (which doesn't crop) it would still be a phenomenal camera.

But, it's BM, and they like to think big, and for their 10 year anniversary of making cameras, who knows what they'll have up their sleeve.

I'm excited! 

[Anaconda_]

There's a big Resolve update being announced in 9 hours. I wonder if there will be any hints or even a reveal today.

[Yannick Willox]

Considering the ump12k is quite cheap these days, I would expect a new flagship in a few hours ?

[Mr. Freeze]

Maybe a ump12k LF, I don´t really expect a Pocket 4K Pro anymore.

[MurtlandPhoto]

11 hours ago, kye said:

Then @John Brawley created a new thread talking about how NAB will be the 10 year anniversary of the release of the first BM cinema camera.  It starts with this:

 

  It was about 10 years ago that Blackmagic truly shocked all by announcing that they had made a cinema camera.

  Some thought it was a joke.

  Some said it was a toy.

  It was announced the first day of NAB in 2012. There were no leaks. It dropped on the floor of NAB like a bomb.

 

This, to me, is an enormous wink and a nod at the idea that BM will announce something big.  

 

Woah, this is a really good observation. It feels really likely BM would mark the anniversary with another disruptive camera. I've felt the Pocket 4K/6K/Pro cameras are the spiritual successors to the BMCC/4K and not really the OG Pocket. So maybe there's some room for a new, true pocket camera. Otherwise, maybe they're going to do some sort of Ursa Micro. Either way, I think there are holes in the "lower" end of their lineup.

On second thought, with it being NAB and with BM doing all sorts of amazing things with their ATEM line, maybe they're going to release a PTZ camera with some really nifty features... disrupting more of the broadcast space than the cinema one.

[TomTheDP]

A full frame "box" camera would sell great. Blackmagic doesn't seem to want to conform to what everyone else is doing though.

[MrSMW]

My money is on it being a new selection box.

[webrunner5]

Davinci Resolve 18 is out in Beta, and a Cloud Service they got going also.

[Oliver Daniel]

I love the BM image and I’ve been so close to pulling the trigger many a time. 

There’s always been a caveat that’s got in the way, like poor battery life or the bodies (Ursa) being a bit too bulky and heavy for my shooting style. 

Maybe this one will be it. 

I’m playfully predicting a “Blackmagic Cinema Camera 10”….. a more box style C70 form factor as though a pocket and Ursa made a baby….

Can be configured to fit your shooting style, so you can remove the grip and screen to easily use on a gimbal. Maybe a ToF module. Super35, 8k res (Ursa 12k sensor). Crazy price point. 😁

[kye]

17 hours ago, Anaconda_ said:

There's a big Resolve update being announced in 9 hours. I wonder if there will be any hints or even a reveal today.

Well, JBs comment was about it dropping on the first day of NAB.  Repeating the same thing, and becoming the buzz of the whole show, seems like a pretty good strategy, and quite fitting since they did it the first time around.

12 hours ago, Yannick Willox said:

Considering the ump12k is quite cheap these days, I would expect a new flagship in a few hours ?

I did wonder if they'd go the ARRI / RED direction and splice a few of those sensors together perhaps.  The 8K readout mode is very fast, so they could do either two or three of them in that mode, making an URSA LF.  

If they kept the 12K resolution and had three sensors, it would be 19440x12288 (12288×6480 sensors x 3)...  19K!!  and have a crop factor similar to the ARRI LF.  Release it in ARRI's (open source) LPL mount and you'd have complete lens compatibility with ARRI LF.  

11 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Maybe a ump12k LF, I don´t really expect a Pocket 4K Pro anymore.

I wouldn't either.

But a box camera isn't out of the question...

[IronFilm]

Any "schedules" companies have had, got thrown out the window when covid hit (and kept on hitting, and hitting, and hitting). 

[majoraxis]

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/whatsnew

 

I'm looking forward to many of the new AI masking features in Resolve 18.  I imagine Resolve 18 will be at a level where many people who are on the fence about switching will not be able to resist the power of 18!

 

[kye]

3 hours ago, majoraxis said:

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/whatsnew

I'm looking forward to many of the new AI masking features in Resolve 18.  I imagine Resolve 18 will be at a level where many people who are on the fence about switching will not be able to resist the power of 18!

I thought this was interesting:

One significant point he makes is that because DR hasn't got any new huge headline features that they'll spend time consolidating what they have, making more incremental improvements, and that it's a sign that the package is maturing.

To be clear, for anyone that isn't familiar with Resolve, in the last 5 or so years when they make a huge upgrade it's on a level that is completely beyond what the other NLE's would ever do - one year they added an editor, another year they added Fusion, another year they added Fairlight, etc.

Think of Resolve as more like the entire Adobe video suite but just in tabs 🙂 

However.....

Resolve 18 is not what I was hinting at for this thread.

The rumour is that they'll drop a new camera on the first day of the show.  Which is still in a few days time.

[majoraxis]

Looks like not new cameras from Blackmagic at NAB 2022...

I installed Resolve 18 beta and it seems pretty stable (at least for audio processing). I did have it crash when I was trying to drag and drop an audio plugin from one buss to another buss, so I restarted it and copied the plugin settings, instantiated the same plugin on a difference track and pasted the plugin settings and it worked fine.  Also, the same session opened up and played back the same audio plugin combination so it seem the there are not adding processing overhead to audio plugin in Resolve 18, which is not expected to be a problem, but it nice to see that it is not an issue.

Does anyone know if it is $5 per month to host your projects on the Blackmagic Cloud or is it $5 per project... it seems like it is per project by I have not taken the plunge yet...  Thanks!

[kye]

4 hours ago, majoraxis said:

Looks like not new cameras from Blackmagic at NAB 2022...

Yeah.  The overall impressions are that BM only releases cameras when they've got stock ready to go, and with COVID that is a challenge, so likely delayed by the supply chain challenges.  Who knows.

[majoraxis]

Besides the Kinefinity MAVO Edge 6K Digital Cinema I am not aware of any other professional video cameras being released at NAB 2022. It used to be companies would book purchases with manufactures for the next TV season at NAB. This does not seem like a thing anymore, but I could be wrong.

It really makes sense for there to be a $5k URSA 8k box camera with the same 12k sensor just with limited resolution and maybe a Canon RF mount and on sensor electronic ND. And at the same time release the 12k G2 with on sensor electronic ND audio for $6,995.  There would be lots of people willing to upgrade for electronic ND's... maybe a late summer camera line refresh highlighting an electronic ND management system the always keeps the video signal under peaking and has meta data for smooth exposure ramping post.

[kye]

3 hours ago, majoraxis said:

Besides the Kinefinity MAVO Edge 6K Digital Cinema I am not aware of any other professional video cameras being released at NAB 2022. It used to be companies would book purchases with manufactures for the next TV season at NAB. This does not seem like a thing anymore, but I could be wrong.

It really makes sense for there to be a $5k URSA 8k box camera with the same 12k sensor just with limited resolution and maybe a Canon RF mount and on sensor electronic ND. And at the same time release the 12k G2 with on sensor electronic ND audio for $6,995.  There would be lots of people willing to upgrade for electronic ND's... maybe a late summer camera line refresh highlighting an electronic ND management system the always keeps the video signal under peaking and has meta data for smooth exposure ramping post.

Actually, I think now is the perfect time for manufacturers to separate AF from face-recognition.  On my GH5 it keeps the two together and so if you have AE on and enable AF then face-recognition turns on, sees the face, then adjusts the exposure to properly expose the skin-tones, but then if you turn AF off then it goes back to exposing the scene like a landscape in some generic way.  Yet another way to say "if you use auto then you don't care about quality".

If we're going to have the camera do something automatically then it should do it how we would do it - which is to expose the skintones correctly.  If you want to adjust for a particular situation then that's what Exposure Compensation is for, right?

If BM were to release a box-style camera then I'm not sure if I'd lean to the 12K sensor, or the 6K sensor from the P6K due to its much better low-light and dual-native ISO (the UMP12K is limited to 3200 ISO in firmware I believe).  If they were to expand their range, it would make sense to me that they'd go MF/LF by splicing 2 or 3 of the 12K sensors together to go head-to-head with the Alexa LF, and that for the second one they'd go small and put the P6K sensor in a small box camera for drones / vehicle mounts / gimbals / light or b-camera duties.