Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

[graphicnatured 153]

11 hours ago, mercer said:

That’s unbelievable. I wonder how many cameras are actually out in the wild... for all we know there could only be a hundred cameras shipped and the preorders are paying for each manufacturing run. 

If that's the case I'm a very lucky man. 😁

[Shirozina 434]

18 hours ago, drm said:

According to the specs, even V90 cards should not be able to record the highest resolution/bit rates. We use the T5 1TB disks and have not had any trouble recording to them. Best of luck!

It's a 'no brainer' - why waste your money on very expensive internal cards when there is a faster, larger capacity and vastly cheaper external solution. 

[Anaconda_ 646]

11 minutes ago, Shirozina said:

It's a 'no brainer' - why waste your money on very expensive internal cards when there is a faster, larger capacity and vastly cheaper external solution. 

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.

[xzobinx 81]

20 hours ago, Jonesy Jones said:

So my client decided to go over and above and buy the 256GB sandisk sd's instead of the 128 ones that I recommended. Thoughts or experience with the 256 cards? Think there will be stability issues? Should we return them and just go with the 128 ones?

@Jim Giberti @Emanuel @xzobinx

sorry mate. I have no experience with the 256gb card. I shoot ssd only for faster editing workflow and sometime same day edit. 

[BTM_Pix 4,309]

Oh hello...

 

[drm 144]

4 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.

I much prefer internal cards and media as well. Having things sticking out from the camera is just an opportunity for problems.

One of my cameras had to be sent out for repair a couple of months ago because the HDMI cable got bumped somehow and broke the HDMI port on the camera. The bad thing is that I was carrying the camera from one location to the next on a shoot and I broke the camera but I have no idea how it happened. I don't remember anything touching the camera hard enough to break something. Now, I have HDMI clamps on all of my camera.

[Emanuel 1,738]

On 2/18/2019 at 12:01 PM, Jonesy Jones said:

So my client decided to go over and above and buy the 256GB sandisk sd's instead of the 128 ones that I recommended. Thoughts or experience with the 256 cards? Think there will be stability issues? Should we return them and just go with the 128 ones?

@Jim Giberti @Emanuel @xzobinx

Just read now. I stand drm's input : )

 

18 hours ago, Kisaha said:

I asked the BM importer again today, and he told me that if I pre order now, I may have the camera in autumn, but he can not even guarantee October!

This is kind of ridiculous..on the other hand, this camera is a bigger success than most people believe.

Makes no sense at all. Reason why I've struggled from past with these BMD guys, tiptop hierarchy included. Seems they don't like to listen, it is what it is though.

 

16 hours ago, mercer said:

(...)

The good news is that most people that received theirs is really happy with it.

Well, a game changer and a no-brainer as matter of fact. You simply won't want to shoot with anything else. Hope this helps! : -)

[Shirozina 434]

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 70]

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_ 646]

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 144]

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 2,077]

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 2,077]

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

 

[Anaconda_ 646]

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 434]

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 4,309]

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 4,309]

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 12]

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 70]

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 58]

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!