Bruno

Could these be the problematic cameras that people have been returning over the past year and BM is trying to rid of them?

 

The cameras they're selling for $495 are the same ones the stores were selling for $995 last week, they didn't ship new cameras specifically for this deal, so that doesn't make much sense.

 

It's likely they won't restock before the sale ends though, which will make the promotion limited to while stocks last, as they stated.

 

No idea if the price will ever go up, but at this price it's worth getting and keeping!

Ordered :)

Now what's the best way to use electronic aperture EF lenses with it?

"Blackmagic Design today announced an exciting Summer Special discount for the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera for the low price of US$495. With a normal recommended retail price of US$995, this Summer Special represents incredible value and is available for a limited time and will end on the 31st of August 2014...

 

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/press/pressdetails?releaseID=61418

The raw looking camera moves actually didn't bother me as much as the pretentious gimmicky concept, or the lack of one. They used all kinds of visual tricks that have been done many times before but with no story line or main concept to guide them, it's all kind of random, trying to be Michel Gondry but lacking his genius, since his visual gimmicks always serve and fit a story or concept.

But hey, it's got millions of views, so I guess it did the job!

Where is the advantage?

 

So you have a camera.

And you have a card.

All you need in theory...

But wait, you have no computer with you?

Shit out of luck then.

 

Personally I'd love not to need to carry a computer with me for every shoot, or being able to buy an extra hard drive if I need one and use it straight away to shoot more stuff, is it that hard to understand?

It's not very clear how it's supposed to work. Is it custom compositions or catalog based?

 

How would it compare with other offers such as The Music Bed or mobygratis?

Yes but someone has to manage and negotiate on behalf of the artists. Can you imagine the hassle that Google would have to go through negotiating rights with the individual artists by email!?

 

There's companies/websites in place to make the process simple to everyone looking to buy or sell music.

You can have your music available on all digital platforms by dealing with a single service, google will be no exception.

It's all relative and there's also big name TV shows offering nothing for new bands' music, just promising exposure, which can turn out to be good, but it's still a terrible system.

 

Record labels spent 10 years fighting the digital formats, now that they realized they should have embraced them instead, they're totally lost and have no clue what they're doing, the rules have completely changed, and no one knows exactly what the new rules are, because things are still rapidly evolving, and those guys are too slow to ever catch up.

 

Big record labels are like the big Hollywood studios, they're just interested on large blockbusters, and the small independents have to make do with no money, and they do, because they're not money driven in the first place.

 

This documentary shows how messed up things are with new media:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/generation-like/

 

The song that was used in that video that went viral, showing couples kissing for the first time, sold 1 million copies on iTunes that week... there's loads of new roads for musicians (and artists in general) to explore, just forget about the past, it's not coming back.

Not sure if this has been mentioned... seems like there's good improvements on the video side, with twice the bitrate, full sensor readout and ND filter!

 

http://***URL removed***/previews/sony-cybershot-dsc-rx100-m3

I think the vote system to relegate or delete comments is interesting but in practice it won't work because it would render a thread unreadable. It breaks the flow and may make a nonsense of the good posts that remain or cause them go out of context.

 

I've seen forums/comment sections where down-voted posts get collapsed and there's only a line saying "post hidden due to low ratings", but if you click on it you can still expand it and read it, this could be an option...

It still can be. I've never seen a genuine opinion shut down on this site, regardless of how far it strays from conventional wisdom. I have found respectful disagreements to be welcome if not encouraged. With that said, I have also seen rudeness, cockiness, malice, and ill-temper attempting to pass itself off as "just a genuine opinion what's the big deal," and on that I agree with the overall sentiment of this post wholeheartedly - it needs to stop because it detracts greatly from the benefit you can get from scrutiny among friends.

One thing that needs to be said is that Andrew is often the one to lose it and resort to name calling and belittling people with different opinions. Whether justified or not, this behaviour opens precedents and passes the message that it's fine to act like that around here. You shouldn't put yourself out there like this backed by a forum and a "click to comment" button if you can't handle a few harsh critics.

The "this is my blog I can do whatever I want" attitude needs to end for things to improve, or it will only snowball and get worse, that's actually why I've been here less and less, there's less and less relevant information amongst all the loud and uninformed crap talk.

Many respected DPs run their own sites and forums themselves and I don't see this nonsense going on in there!

Get a voting system, something simple like "useful or garbage", after a few "garbage" votes the post gets hidden, or goes towards the end and useful replies would stay on top... do the same for forum threads and within threads.

 

The downside to an "elitist" system is that new "members", no matter how serious or helpful, would be locked out, and if the ones included start losing interest, it might become a very lonely place.

The large LCD should be detachable, and with a cable you could mount it somewhere else or take it off for shoulder usage when you'd rather have an EVF.

 

Simple.

 

They should just add support for iPad and other tablets, they're cheaper and more versatile than dedicated displays, plus it would make the cameras cheaper.

Isn't the right camera for any individual entirely subjective? What's good for you may be terrible for him and vice versa?

 

Sure, but that was not the point, was it?

Seriously the form factor and quality of my 550d are way better than this, PLUS an articulating screen and MAGIC LANTERN. duh 550d > URSA

 

The scary thing is that you might actually believe this!

Let's put it this way , majority of the Cine market could not afford this

 

Seriously? 99% of what's on the screen these days (either TV or Theaters) is shot on much more expensive cameras, what do you mean???

But the size and weight are throwbacks to a bygone era.

 

And yet it will be considered compact by many types of production who had to kit out cameras in order to get all that functionality from different add-on devices. This is not a bad or expensive camera, it's just not a camera for "us", why waste time wishing it was something else?

Indeed. I thought Blackmagic had a nice unique product line going, providing for a genuine market that existed and needed the products... and then suddenly here they are putting all they R&D and best software features into a couple of high end cameras aimed at Arri and Sony, at a price tag too low for pros and too high for 90% of the previous user base.

 

For BMD as a company, releasing those first few cameras is what could be seen as a risk, considering the kind of non-camera products they make, those first "cheap" "low end" cameras could have alienated their user base.

 

It looks like they're now catering for their original user base with higher end cameras, more suited to their needs. Nothing wrong with that, the URSA sounds like an amazing concept, just not something I'd be interested in shooting with, and probably neither will the DSLR crowd.

 

I just wish they'd take a moment to finish what they started and make some proper improvements on the first cameras' firmware, I'm sure it's still holding back a lot of people from buying them.

 

I also wonder if these cameras's success could dictate a shift in their priorities again.

Final Cut Pro X is pretty damn good, and going back to FCP7 or Premiere after using it feels like going back to the Amiga days or something... It suffered a huge blow in popularity when it was released unfinished, but it's come a long way since.

 

As an alternative, Lightworks beta is coming out for Mac soon.

They seem to be using a New sensor for the Studio camera 4K 13.056x7.344mm

 

I guess they had to since it comes with an MFT mount.

I can guarantee this announcement will not please any of Blackmagic's existing user base...

Actually, if you take a look at their product line-up, you'll realize these are the first BMD cameras that might please their user base! :)

Their previous cameras were aimed at the DSLR video crowd, but that doesn't really represent their user base.
I do agree they need to step up and finish those damn cameras properly. The original 4k camera is still the one I'm most interested in, but I'm not getting it until they finish that firmware properly.

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicstudiocamera

Noise.

Lights.

I doubt the kids that might use this in Shimokitazawa, Görlitzer Park, Shoreditch, or Silver Lake have the capability of looking threatening...

 

Some guy was recently killed because the police thought he was carrying a gun. It was a wii remote.

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/georgia-teen-holding-wii-remote-shot-cops-front-door-family-lawyer-article-1.1619842

These sensors are <$100 probably, they may not even be the most expensive part in these cameras. The digital bolex sensor is somewhere around $60, you can call the manufacturer up and buy them in any quantity you want.

 

Yeah, but a product's price is determined more by what consumers are willing to pay for it than what it actually costs to make.

 

They can choose to sell less units at a higher profit or more units at a lower profit, and use this to control not only how much money they make but the size of the distribution channels, personnel teams, etc.

 

But it depends a lot on the market and how much people would be willing to pay for such product, and the 4k Camera reality now is not the same as it was back in May.