Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

[Danilo Del Tufo 12]

Emanuel, I'm interested about this camera, but I will wait till NAB to take decision.

I'm not sure but I'd like this combo: AG-CX350 and Lumix S1, it's my own strategy based on my needs, but I admire what Blackmagic is doing, I'm curious about the new codec Blackmagic RAW, but I use barely DA VINCI RESOLVE and for now, ya know, compatibility issues, I'm more confident with Premiere. 

[seanzzxx 67]

Well, this is a bit shocking:

 

[Novim 41]

1 hour ago, seanzzxx said:

Well, this is a bit shocking:

 

 

It's too early for any conclusion, especially for shots with so many unknown other parameters (what lens, what compression, etc. etc - and the focus in this video is not quite accurate).

Much more tests are needed to say "shocking" (or "superb"). Good thing that everyone can downgrade to the 6.1 version if not satisfied with the 6.2.

Edit: And the author removed the video. 😆

[Emanuel 1,288]

Indeed. Missed the video. Shocking for superb in fact or anything else?

[webrunner5 1,980]

Not impressed with his footage. But it's a first try.

[Emanuel 1,288]

Wait for his next Sony... ; -)

[dslnc 16]

Braw - variant of ‘brave’ (according to google)

 

[Snowfun 261]

In modern Scots idiom “braw” means good or attractive as in “it’s a braw day” or “you’re braw looking”...  the latter might need to be used with care however (or you’ll be greeted with a 12bit uncompressed “Glasgow kiss”). 

Not, I hasten to add, that it’s my own preferred variation of the Queen’s English.

Playing with the settings after I upgraded reminded me just how superb the BM user interface and menu system is. 

[leslie 137]

quite a few people have commented about the width of the bmp4k before now, however after seeing the internals of the bmp4k from grants latest video its easy to understand why its like it is . as there's not a lot of room left on that board to add anything else in. to add anything else would probably have the bmp4k looking totally different yet again. i get the impression that grant doesn't like cdng much, i have to speculate aloud now and wonder how much of that is influenced by wanting braw to succeed. i dont know much about braw or cdng to comment either way. i reckon that one thing is for sure with this development there will be a flutter on youtube with sensationalist titles vying for our viewing pleasure.

[webrunner5 1,980]

Well adding braw sure didn't hurt sales of Studio Resolve. Only game in town.

[kye 1,213]

It would be interesting to see a signal-to-noise analysis of BRAW at various bitrates vs competing formats.  I doubt we'll see one, but after seeing how h265 is roughly the same as h264 with double the bitrate, it might be a similar situation between BRAW and CDNG formats where BRAW gives similar image quality to a much higher bitrate CDNG stream.

[leslie 137]

5 hours ago, kye said:

It would be interesting to see a signal-to-noise analysis of BRAW at various bitrates vs competing formats.  I doubt we'll see one, but after seeing how h265 is roughly the same as h264 with double the bitrate, it might be a similar situation between BRAW and CDNG formats where BRAW gives similar image quality to a much higher bitrate CDNG stream.

i'll bite, how do you do that ? oscilloscope or something else ? i guess its expensive or technical or both

[kye 1,213]

1 hour ago, leslie said:

i'll bite, how do you do that ? oscilloscope or something else ? i guess its expensive or technical or both

Interesting question. 

You get a reference clip and then encode it to whatever codec you want to measure and then compare the compressed clip to the original and then do some math and get the result.  

The tricky thing is that to compare BRAW with uncompressed RAW with the P4K you would have to point the camera at something recording uncompressed RAW and then set it to compressed BRAW and point the camera at the exact identical same thing, which is practically impossible.  In reality you'd have to be able to take uncompressed RAW and then convert it into BRAW so you had the the same thing in the two codecs, so it's something that only BM would be able to do I think.

I'd bet that looking at signal-to-noise ratios would have been done probably thousands of times during the development of BRAW, and they'd have been comparing it to all the other codecs they could analyse too, but I doubt we'd ever see any of their numbers.

The only way we'd get a glimpse of it would be for someone to buy a P4K, crack it open and then tap into the RAW feed coming off the sensor before it gets to the video processing circuitry and save that stream as uncompressed RAW and let the camera record to BRAW, then to compare those two files.  Of course, they would have to do a similar test for every BRAW setting, and as the codec quality is signal-dependent they'd have to do it many times for each set of settings in order to be able to reliably compare two different compression levels.

[Jim Giberti 118]

The difference in noise is there...if you look closely and more obvious in 12:1 and 8:1

Been doing a bit of testing at all codecs in detailed scenes - doing people today.

Bottom line so far: As far as actual deliverables for broadcast and web and any practical distribution - the final compression for delivery will negate any differences from Q0 to ProRes HQ.

Frank Glencairn just did a great article on just that.

BM has done such a good jog implimenting ProRes in the new P4k that it's remarkably (indistinguishably) similar to the new highest Braw flavor - Q0. The in camera debayering is handled similarly and it shows. Aside from the larger file size, we're sticking with our ProRes HQ to FCPX work stations for simplicity with no IQ compromise.

It's all good no matter which approach you choose. No end viewer will ever see the difference on screen.

[webrunner5 1,980]

This video was filmed with the PK4 in cDNG, and a Mavic Pro Drone. To me the gap had changed so much to me at least it is hard to tell the difference between the PK4 and the Drone. And this is a pretty damn good video. I like the look of it.  And I am not knocking the PK4. 4K is pretty much 4K no matter the camera if you are good at editing, Grading, Sure there is a difference between the PK4 and the Drone. But it is not huge anymore like it use to be.  Good for everyone.

 

 

[Morty 1]

Hi All,

Been watching this forum since I found out about a certain company called Blackmagic 😀

Just in case it helps anyone who is waiting for an PCC4K order from CVP in the UK, I ordered mine on 30th April, I finally got an email about stock the middle of last week, got the camera 1st March.

 

Got a Panasonic Leica 12-60 as my 1st MFT lens so I hope i did not make a mistake but it seems to get positive comments on forums.

 

My camera came with 6.1 software, I just tried the 6.2 update but it sticks on 0% and does not progress, then after 5 mins says failed to update the camera software. Already seen someone on YouTube with the same issue, at least it did not brick the camera..

cheers

Kev

[wyrlyn 28]

Any video out there how the new codec handle high iso? is it better thank Prores or are they similar? Any experience?

[mercer 3,526]

2 hours ago, Jim Giberti said:

The difference in noise is there...if you look closely and more obvious in 12:1 and 8:1

Been doing a bit of testing at all codecs in detailed scenes - doing people today.

Bottom line so far: As far as actual deliverables for broadcast and web and any practical distribution - the final compression for delivery will negate any differences from Q0 to ProRes HQ.

Frank Glencairn just did a great article on just that.

BM has done such a good jog implimenting ProRes in the new P4k that it's remarkably (indistinguishably) similar to the new highest Braw flavor - Q0. The in camera debayering is handled similarly and it shows. Aside from the larger file size, we're sticking with our ProRes HQ to FCPX work stations for simplicity with no IQ compromise.

It's all good no matter which approach you choose. No end viewer will ever see the difference on screen.

Good to know, thanks for the update. I am waiting on deciding if I want to give the P4K a test ride until it is readily available to buy but my gut reaction is that this is the ProRes camera for a seamless FCPX workflow.

Since I’ve decided to wait a little while to order one, I’ve been a little behind with some of the features. But I recently saw a video where it seems you can set up metadata as if it’s a slate? Does the camera give you a clip of the “slate” at the beginning of your clip as a visual reference, or is it just embedded in the metadata? 

Otherwise, the menu system seems to be simplistic genius and very intuitive. 

[BTM_Pix 3,182]

18 minutes ago, mercer said:

Since I’ve decided to wait a little while to order one, I’ve been a little behind with some of the features. But I recently saw a video where it seems you can set up metadata as if it’s a slate? Does the camera give you a clip of the “slate” at the beginning of your clip as a visual reference, or is it just embedded in the metadata? 

It doesn't but I'm curious enough to ask whether you currently use an ios/android app like Movie Slate ?

I'm sure you know where my curiosity may lie for whether this might be something that people would use if it incorporated the camera data  

[Jim Giberti 118]

It's all metadata and yes, the UI and menus are brilliantly simple and complete.

You can get anywhere and adjust just about anything with a simple screen tap or button push.