Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Its official - Black Magic 4k Cinema Camera

Hey Guys,

What is the current situation with the OLPFs of the BMCC 4K and the PocketCam? Will the pocketcam be without olpf like the original BMCC?

ALso, ISO... what is the native ISO of the 4K? I am assuming that it is 640ish (being a slight decrease from the original cam). Given that, is this ISO respective to RAW or to log mode?

Cheers,

Ivan
 
None of the Blackmagic cameras will have an OLPF.

Native ISO of the 4k BMPC is indeed anticipated to be a slight decrease from BMCC.
 
Ivan Kovax said:
How do you know this (regarding the OLPF)?
Click to expand...

I heard that too. That (plus rolling shutter... plus no frame rates >30p... plus lack of genlock :) is one reason I haven't ordered the Pocket Cam yet.

Mosaic Engineering is theoretically working on OLPFs.

I am strongly for an OLPF on a 1080p sensor (pocket cam). But when you get to 4K... things get a little trickier. Personally I feel that Red's OLPF is a little on the strong side so it would be fun to see some zero-OLPF 4K footage. Run it through a good raw processing app that fights Moire and we'll see. It won't always be perfect but it quite possibly will be very sharp. Though that depends on the sensor, of course! A lot of variables...

Oh yeah - and Blackmagic mentioned in one interview that they may raise the maximum frame rate in a later firmware update.

Fun times! Now for GoPro's turn :) Looking forward to 2014 / 2015!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Bruce Allen said:
I heard that too. That (plus rolling shutter... plus no frame rates >30p... plus lack of genlock :) is one reason I haven't ordered the Pocket Cam yet.

Mosaic Engineering is theoretically working on OLPFs.

I am strongly for an OLPF on a 1080p sensor (pocket cam). But when you get to 4K... things get a little trickier. Personally I feel that Red's OLPF is a little on the strong side so it would be fun to see some zero-OLPF 4K footage. Run it through a good raw processing app that fights Moire and we'll see. It won't always be perfect but it quite possibly will be very sharp. Though that depends on the sensor, of course! A lot of variables...

Oh yeah - and Blackmagic mentioned in one interview that they may raise the maximum frame rate in a later firmware update.

Fun times! Now for GoPro's turn :) Looking forward to 2014 / 2015!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Click to expand...

If it is in fact true that it has no OLPF I think we will see mosaic engineering making a cusom olpf pretty fucking fast. And they will sell like hotcakes. So I am not too worried. I am just very surprised that they decided to not include an OLPF... I know 4K moire/alias' less than HD, but still... it will moire and alias... ANy reason why they have not included an OLPF at all?

Software worries me Bruce.... "FIx it in post" :)
 
Well, I am one of the few owners of the original 2.5k BMCC over here in Austria since February - afaik delivery is still slow.

The lack of an OLPF is no problem for me. With some special treatment in post I can even remove almost all of aliasing artifacts when they occur.
The footage is shockingly sharp - a real pleasure.
There are some issues with the firmware - at one time I couldn't change the aperture on the lenses anymore, but a quick restart brought the functionality back.
When shooting ProRes into extremely bright lights like LED PARs - there is a black dot in the middle of the lights - I remember a similar problem with the early RED ONE.
Some more functionality should be build in like a real white balance not presets for shooting compressed modes. And improved clip/storage management.

But in general I am very happy with the camera I got. After investing in some more gear like cage, rig, external power and monitoring, follow focus and mattebox - the camera is a friendly beast to work with.

My first reaction to the latest BM announcements of the 4k BMC and Pocket BMC was WTF? But after reading the specs I saw that there is nothing I am really missing with my 2.5k BMCC. For my use case it has the perfect crop factor, I like its EF-mount, I like the dynamic range and the image quality.
 
Bruce Allen said:
Oh yeah - and Blackmagic mentioned in one interview that they may raise the maximum frame rate in a later firmware update.
Click to expand...

All excellent news. If they can get it p50 at least, you will have a mode compatible with official HDTV and bluray modes (1080i50, 1080p50, 720p50 downres, thought they could do that now for sports shooting). If a product can just handle p50 but not p60 they might scrap doing both, but p50 would be better than nothing.. Now all we need is a bit more Res out of the sensor to help with the screen door affect. I'm happy for them.

Bruce, where did you hear that they were going to increase frame rate, was that the pocket?


Thanks.
 
M Most said:
Well, I would point out that 5K Epic at 5:1 (a common compression ratio for high end work) is almost 400GB per hour. So the storage requirements are roughly the same.
Click to expand...

M, have you counted the extra resolution had bit rate?
 
Wayne Morellini said:
All excellent news. If they can get it p50 at least, you will have a mode compatible with official HDTV and bluray modes (1080i50, 1080p50, 720p50 downres, thought they could do that now for sports shooting). If a product can just handle p50 but not p60 they might scrap doing both, but p50 would be better than nothing.. Now all we need is a bit more Res out of the sensor to help with the screen door affect. I'm happy for them.

Bruce, where did you hear that they were going to increase frame rate, was that the pocket?
Click to expand...

In one of the approx. 10 interviews I watched on YouTube / Vimeo! I'll try to find it again. Sorry.

It was in reference to the 4K one actually - as in "we might be able to have a firmware update that increases frame rates: we'll see what we can do later after it's released."

But it might be an across-the-range thing, no?

Since the 4K one probably uses that >90fps CMOSIS sensor, I'd guess they could increase quite a lot.

A side thought: if the 30fps bottleneck is somewhere within the camera (ASIC-related or SSD write speed-related), couldn't they just pipe out the raw data via the Thunderbolt port or the 6G-HD-SDI port?

I'd think they could maybe get 60fps of 3840x2160x12bit raw via 6G and maybe even more over Thunderbolt.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
The BMCC is certainly not a toy! It has a nice build quality/ feel to it. But to each their own!

Red cameras are certainly built like tanks, but they weigh like tanks too! What amazes me is how small, light, and quiet the BMCC is...that is the draw for me. Hard drives are inevitable no matter what 4K RAW camera you are shooting on. You either embrace the file sizes now or stick to shooting 1080p. Build the price of hard drives into your pricing for client projects and you won't ever notice. Not a big deal unless you are paying for everything out of your pocket...in that case you wont be happy regardless of the format!
 
Adam Johnson said:
The BMCC is certainly not a toy! It has a nice build quality/ feel to it. But to each their own!

Red cameras are certainly built like tanks, but they weigh like tanks too! What amazes me is how small, light, and quiet the BMCC is...that is the draw for me. Hard drives are inevitable no matter what 4K RAW camera you are shooting on. You either embrace the file sizes now or stick to shooting 1080p. Build the price of hard drives into your pricing for client projects and you won't ever notice. Not a big deal unless you are paying for everything out of your pocket...in that case you wont be happy regardless of the format!
Click to expand...

Having an engineering background I must say in general you can have any two of cheap, light and strong, rarely all 3.
 
:)

.
 
Bruce Allen said:
In one of the approx. 10 interviews I watched on YouTube / Vimeo! I'll try to find it again. Sorry.

It was in reference to the 4K one actually - as in "we might be able to have a firmware update that increases frame rates: we'll see what we can do later after it's released."

But it might be an across-the-range thing, no?

Since the 4K one probably uses that >90fps CMOSIS sensor, I'd guess they could increase quite a lot.

A side thought: if the 30fps bottleneck is somewhere within the camera (ASIC-related or SSD write speed-related), couldn't they just pipe out the raw data via the Thunderbolt port or the 6G-HD-SDI port?

I'd think they could maybe get 60fps of 3840x2160x12bit raw via 6G and maybe even more over Thunderbolt.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Click to expand...

I'm more interested in increasing the pocket, as far as marketability goes. The data rate increase on the pocket would still be modest, but up to 4 times more data increase to be archived on the 4k camera. Both are good to have though.

I suspect they are using a niche commodity processing solution in the shuttle, cameras and other products, probably setup for recording video with some set functionality. So flexibility might be limited and the functionality peaks out before p50, but can't be rearranged to handle it. The ssd data rate is another issue, and getting reliable data rates has proven tricky, so getting a single ssd to do 600MB/s is an issue. A memory frame buffer irons out some of this, but having a dual ssd solution in case probably also is better. If some sort of Santa splitter is possible, an extra drive can be put outside the case and the camera programmed (or hacked, to Handel it). Somebody could do this, or run the cable to a raid, with the external drive/drives in an case under the camera, allowing a extra charging battery to be reinserted into the drive any with a cable running to power the internal battery (or somebody can make the internal battery hot swapable). I should work at bmd. You are literally now left waiting for a fast enough ssd to come to market, or arranging one to be made (literally a lot of people will have a need for this in various markets, including servers, so a manufacturer might be interested in servicing this market).

If it is the processing solution, it could be the prores or the raw section that is maxing out. Bayer should be able to do lossless at 4:1, I know from discussions with a top engineer, what they are claiming is pretty light and they don't have processing power to go burgher, but why not just do what you can do and put the rest of the data in uncompressed at p50. However, some minimal tricks might get 1.5:1, then compressed that. One proposal is frame to frame comparison, then compress the difference. If you intelligently clean sensir noise from the frames, maybe you will get more. Using a frame buffer to smooth out all the data surges and scene changes, with these techniques you might simply get above 2:1.

As I mentioned in a post I can't seem to find either. It might simply be a case that because it can't do raw and prores or p50 and p60, they dint want to do either, but I, and most of us would, say something, even external thunderbolt and hdmi recording, is better than nothing.

I've talked about all the options before, thunderbolt to raid or computer easily, but just did a big search and can't seem to find the post, but got this one you should see, including recording Bayer over hdmi:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...Cinema-Camera&p=1186238&viewfull=1#post118623
 
Adam Johnson said:
Red cameras are certainly built like tanks, but they weigh like tanks too!!
Click to expand...
Indeed, what means to rule out 50% of shooting setups, it doesn't matter how good will we have :-)
 
Ivan Kovax said:
If it is in fact true that it has no OLPF I think we will see mosaic engineering making a cusom olpf pretty fucking fast. And they will sell like hotcakes. So I am not too worried.
Click to expand...
So, another reduser going on the BMD wagon too? :P
 
Steve Das said:
Unlike Gravity...its goes the other way too.

Quite a few BMD waitlisters jumped ship and jumped on
the Scarlet and Red One Battle Tested deals.
Click to expand...
Anyway, there is market for a light RED camera. It seems Jim had mentioned it already. I didn't read the quote directly, so no idea if it really existed. But read someone quoting some supposed quote of him. I hope this may pop up and end in the streets one of these days : )

I guess Jim/Jarred don't like to see customers getting outside when they could afford into the inner circle ;-)
 
Yup here too, but I've been around the camera block quite a bit! And I'll always be where the cutting edge meets competitive pricing. And for my needs & wants as a cinematographer, Blackmagic is killing it right now, and yes, we have Red to thank for that!

Having owned a Scarlet and as a current BT Red One MX owner it's all about what makes sense today...and hopefully for at least a year or two. I love my Red camera as it meets my important needs extremely well. But it's massive size, lack of Canon EF support, and expensive SSD media make me want more. But that will always be the case no matter what camera I have ;)

As far as the BMCC goes, I know the issues to date and the high likelihood of many more to come, but that is no different from Red in the beginning. And with soooo many different flavors that taste so damn good right no it's really all about what best meets your needs today and what you comfortably want to pay for a piece of tech that will be replaced or upgraded in at least 18 months. That doesn't mean you couldn't use the camera for several years, but it means that camera technology is a revolving door and it is not exactly a great investment.

Emanuel A. said:
So, another reduser going on the BMD wagon too? :P
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top