Blackmagic Update - 14th September 2023 19:00 CET

[seanzzxx]

The braw sdk comes with a player that even supports Luts and metadata

[IronFilm]

6 hours ago, seanzzxx said:

Pulled the trigger on this after using the 4k for exactly five years (and the Ursa's at work a lot). I don't know if it is the biggest mistake not going for the 6K pro but I am really excited, especially after loving my S5 II (and in my eyes this camera is a 'proper' cinema S5 II). I'll keep you guys posted.

You give up built in NDs and S35, but you gain a mirrorless mount. I think it makes sense to get the L Mount camera. 

Especially as you already have a S5!

6 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

I wish they had added Prores. Braw does not allow playback on usual players such as Vlc.

Surely ProRes is just one firmware update away?? Right?

[seanzzxx]

If there's a prores upgrade it will be paid, since Apple takes a hefty licensing fee for that as I understand it.

[kye]

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

Surely ProRes is just one firmware update away?? Right?

Of course it could be, but there's a question about wether they'll do it or not.

This isn't the "Pro" version of the camera - it aligns with the P6K rather than the P4KPro which added NDs and other cool stuff.  I'd imagine a Pro version to come out, maybe in a year, that adds internal NDs and other pro features.

The other rationale might be that this is a step in the 'ecosystem war' they seem to have started.  Conspicuously, Resolve does not support Prores RAW - which says to me that they're essentially holding Resolve hostage and saying 'if you want to grade in RAW on consumer cameras then use our RAW recorders or cameras'.  They're not about to drop support for REDRAW or anything in the professional circles, but in the "you can shoot RAW with our camera you just need to assimilate into the Borg collective first" levels, they're fighting for control.

I don't think this is the first example of them having conspicuous lack of support, but I can't recall the specifics off the top of my head right now.

Incidentally, the more I learn about what it's like to grade in non-colour-managed environments, the more I realise that Resolve is the killer app for colour grading.  While other apps do seem to offer colour management, I think that by the time someone wraps their head around the topic sufficiently to get the most from it, they'll be familiar with a bunch of advanced techniques (like subtractive colour models etc) and will want to colour grade in Resolve rather than in the other tools.  And once you're colour grading in Resolve, you can just edit and mix in it too, which eliminates the round-tripping, and now if you switch to BM cameras or recorders then you can eliminate the converter for your Prores RAW setup, and bam, now you're fully in the BM ecosystem.

Ironically, Instagram (which has sub-1080p resolution) has taught everyone that colour grading is king, and that might have positioned Resolve as the middle of the post-production workflow.  I mean, if colour wasn't important then the internet wouldn't be full of people selling matrixes of numbers (LUTs).

[kye]

2 minutes ago, seanzzxx said:

If there's a prores upgrade it will be paid, since Apple takes a hefty licensing fee for that as I understand it.

Is it a fee per unit manufactured?  Per product model?  For the manufacturer?

[IronFilm]

1 hour ago, kye said:

 I'd imagine a Pro version to come out, maybe in a year, that adds internal NDs and other pro features.

That's the dream, a BMD camera with a mirrorless mount and NDs!

So very few affordable cameras do this. You're either looking at ones secondhand, or likely paying for at least as much as a Canon C70 / Sony FX6. 

So if BMD kept the L mount but added in NDs (either eND, or at least a clear + 3 stages of ND), say boosting the price up by a few hundred but still sub US$3K then it would be a pretty easy win as the best camera for me at that price point. Ahead of Sony FX3 / Panasonic S5mk2 / etc (I might still rate a preference to get the Sony FX30 instead though, it would after all be half the price. Is why what I really want to see is the standard P4K with ND!)

[kye]

39 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

That's the dream, a BMD camera with a mirrorless mount and NDs!

So very few affordable cameras do this. You're either looking at ones secondhand, or likely paying for at least as much as a Canon C70 / Sony FX6. 

So if BMD kept the L mount but added in NDs (either eND, or at least a clear + 3 stages of ND), say boosting the price up by a few hundred but still sub US$3K then it would be a pretty easy win as the best camera for me at that price point. Ahead of Sony FX3 / Panasonic S5mk2 / etc (I might still rate a preference to get the Sony FX30 instead though, it would after all be half the price. Is why what I really want to see is the standard P4K with ND!)

Yeah, next to the support for a BM "box camera" there's a lot of people wanting a P4K Pro with NDs and a tilting screen etc.  

[seanzzxx]

2 hours ago, kye said:

Is it a fee per unit manufactured?  Per product model?  For the manufacturer?

No idea, I assume it's per unit but that's a total guess.

[IronFilm]

7 minutes ago, kye said:

Yeah, next to the support for a BM "box camera" there's a lot of people wanting a P4K Pro with NDs and a tilting screen etc.  

Just NDs thanks! I'll throw my SmallHD Focus on it as a monitor 

[JulioD]

5 hours ago, seanzzxx said:

If there's a prores upgrade it will be paid, since Apple takes a hefty licensing fee for that as I understand it.

No Apple don’t take a fee.  They are very strict about compliance though and each model has to go through an arduous process to be “approved” which can take a long time.  This has been a barrier because it requires the manufacturer to open up their code and manufacturing to Apple for an unspecified amount of time for a maybe, maybe not.  You can’t even announce it as having ProRes support unless it’s been approved.  Understandably a lot of these companies can’t just sit around for 6 months on a finished model waiting for Apple to say yes or no before they announce.

I believe that this is strategic.  BRAW is their codec now, it’s widely supported and there’s even decent ways to work with it in FCP.  BM don’t see the point in supporting ProRes anymore.  BRAW is better with lower file sizes.  We users feel differently of course but I would be amazed if any more BM cameras have ProRes.  I don’t think that since the 12K they’ve even introduced a camera with ProRes have they?

[BTM_Pix]

55 minutes ago, JulioD said:

 I don’t think that since the 12K they’ve even introduced a camera with ProRes have they?

6KPro, 6K G2 and Broadcast G2 have been released since the release of the 12K but they are all derived from the original 6K and like all other BM cameras even they don’t have ProRes above 4K.

[IronFilm]

1 hour ago, JulioD said:

No Apple don’t take a fee.  They are very strict about compliance though and each model has to go through an arduous process to be “approved” which can take a long time.  This has been a barrier because it requires the manufacturer to open up their code and manufacturing to Apple for an unspecified amount of time for a maybe, maybe not.  You can’t even announce it as having ProRes support unless it’s been approved.  Understandably a lot of these companies can’t just sit around for 6 months on a finished model waiting for Apple to say yes or no before they announce.

That is why I hope in a few months time BMD releases a firmware update with ProRes, once Apple has taken their sweet time to approve it. 

1 hour ago, JulioD said:

 BM don’t see the point in supporting ProRes anymore.

ProRes is the widespread industry standard, that's an easy enough reason to support it. 

[JulioD]

18 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

That is why I hope in a few months time BMD releases a firmware update with ProRes, once Apple has taken their sweet time to approve it. 

No, don’t think so.  Above 4K res the file sizes alone become huge.

18 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

ProRes is the widespread industry standard, that's an easy enough reason to support it. 

No.

BRAW is a widely implemented standard.  Why continue with an older inferior codec - From BMD’s perspective - Not my opinion, just channeling how Blackmagic see it….

I mean 264 is a widely supported codec too and we’ve only just seen it introduced for the first time and I’m assuming we’re only seeing 264 because of future cloud workflows

ProRes RAW is pretty popular and they don’t support that in Resolve either…see where this is going?

[kye]

10 hours ago, IronFilm said:

ProRes is the widespread industry standard, that's an easy enough reason to support it. 

I understand your logic, but think about it this way..

When will a codec from 2007 stop being the industry standard?  It has to some time, right?  People aren't going to be using it in the year 2150...  Not a lot of technologies from 2007 are still around!

Prores is a great codec and we have championed its use for good reasons, but those reasons aren't what they used to be:

• It was high-quality, unlike the h26x codecs on budget cameras
• It was 10+ bit and ALL-I, unlike h26x codecs
• It was high-quality but had must more modest / manageable file sizes compared to RAW

These are all still true, but the h26x codecs are now (mostly) 10+bit and ALL-I (and we have sufficient computing power to edit with IPB in practical resolutions).  

Compressed RAW makes swift work of the file sizes too.

[IronFilm]

10 hours ago, JulioD said:

No, don’t think so.  Above 4K res the file sizes alone become huge.

That's totally fine! The Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera 6K can just simply give us ProRes in 4K DCI, UHD, 2K, and 1080. In all frame rates. That would be awesome! 

10 hours ago, JulioD said:

10 hours ago, IronFilm said:

ProRes is the widespread industry standard, that's an easy enough reason to support it. 

No.

 

BRAW is a widely implemented standard. 

Widely implemented in NLEs and other post tools? 

Kinda. 

Widely implemented in cameras? 

Definitely not! Only Blackmagic does it internally. 

Widely used? 

Definitely not!

So far this year, I myself have been on shoots with only 3 DoPs which used braw, they were also some of the very lowest budget shoots I've been on (almost no budget):

1) acting student shoot using Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 4.6K

2) acting student shoot using Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro G2

3) a short film for a children's acting program using a Blackmagic Pocket (I forgot which Pocket, I think it was the original 6K or the G2? Funnily enough, I'm doing a second shoot with them this weekend! I'll find see which Pocket it was)

So you can see it really is mostly the low / no budget shoots which are using a braw. 

The majority of shoots I work on are shooting in ProRes, with a minority in some flavor of raw, or in some flavor of a 10bit codec (such as XAVC). 

38 minutes ago, kye said:

I understand your logic, but think about it this way..

When will a codec from 2007 stop being the industry standard?  It has to some time, right?  People aren't going to be using it in the year 2150...  Not a lot of technologies from 2007 are still around!

Prores is a great codec and we have championed its use for good reasons, but those reasons aren't what they used to be:

• It was high-quality, unlike the h26x codecs on budget cameras
• It was 10+ bit and ALL-I, unlike h26x codecs
• It was high-quality but had must more modest / manageable file sizes compared to RAW

Eh, all the reasons to use ProRes still remain today. 

It's a solid codec which ticks all the boxes and does the job, why should productions bother to waste time on trying out anything else and changing their workflow?

If anything, the negatives of ProRes are becoming less and less relevant with time. 

I remember way back when I purchased the OG BMPCC, that recording 1080 ProRes HQ seemed like such a hassle for me, with the huge files, the expensive and fast&large SD cards I needed to buy, the extra storage space for each project, etc etc 

Fast forward a bunch of years, and all my concerns about ProRes are a trivial concern now. 

You don't need super fancy ultra expensive cards to support ProRes now, even quite large cards are dirt cheap to buy, and as for the extra terabytes of storage needed? Who cares now!!

Yes, eventually ProRes will no longer be used, but that will not be a fast change. It will be a slow and gradual change, and heck, it might even get more popular before it starts to decline. 

[newfoundmass]

14 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Widely implemented in NLEs and other post tools? 

Kinda. 

Widely implemented in cameras? 

Definitely not! Only Blackmagic does it internally. 

Widely used? 

Definitely not!

Yeah, I think BRAW is significantly trailing when it comes to ProRes RAW, or at least that has been my experience when dealing/talking with professionals that have a reason to shoot it.

Even ones using lower end mirrorless cameras, I see Atomos Ninjas for RAW recording more than BMD Video Assists. I think it's to their own detriment that they don't support ProRes RAW if they are able to, especially as it pertains to Final Cut users who are increasingly getting fed up with how outdated the app feels and would switch to Resolve.

I very much understand, and even respect that BMD has created an entire pipeline from acquisition to editing, I think it's a smart strategy overall, but I don't think it does them any favors to shun other technologies that they view as competition. They don't have that kind of strength/market dominance. 

[kye]

15 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

That's totally fine! The Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera 6K can just simply give us ProRes in 4K DCI, UHD, 2K, and 1080. In all frame rates. That would be awesome! 

Widely implemented in NLEs and other post tools? 

Kinda. 

Widely implemented in cameras? 

Definitely not! Only Blackmagic does it internally. 

Widely used? 

Definitely not!

So far this year, I myself have been on shoots with only 3 DoPs which used braw, they were also some of the very lowest budget shoots I've been on (almost no budget):

1) acting student shoot using Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 4.6K

2) acting student shoot using Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro G2

3) a short film for a children's acting program using a Blackmagic Pocket (I forgot which Pocket, I think it was the original 6K or the G2? Funnily enough, I'm doing a second shoot with them this weekend! I'll find see which Pocket it was)

So you can see it really is mostly the low / no budget shoots which are using a braw. 

The majority of shoots I work on are shooting in ProRes, with a minority in some flavor of raw, or in some flavor of a 10bit codec (such as XAVC). 

Eh, all the reasons to use ProRes still remain today. 

It's a solid codec which ticks all the boxes and does the job, why should productions bother to waste time on trying out anything else and changing their workflow?

If anything, the negatives of ProRes are becoming less and less relevant with time. 

I remember way back when I purchased the OG BMPCC, that recording 1080 ProRes HQ seemed like such a hassle for me, with the huge files, the expensive and fast&large SD cards I needed to buy, the extra storage space for each project, etc etc 

Fast forward a bunch of years, and all my concerns about ProRes are a trivial concern now. 

You don't need super fancy ultra expensive cards to support ProRes now, even quite large cards are dirt cheap to buy, and as for the extra terabytes of storage needed? Who cares now!!

Yes, eventually ProRes will no longer be used, but that will not be a fast change. It will be a slow and gradual change, and heck, it might even get more popular before it starts to decline. 

All those arguments could be made about shooting 1080p.  Good luck trying to hold back "technological progress"!!

TBH, My preferences are now 10-bit LOG ALL-I h26x files (due to their manageable file sizes and down-sampling in-camera advantages) or compressed RAW (for the complete lack of processing).  I think Prores is a weaker alternative to those other two options, with the only advantage being wide-spread support.

Sure, some of the negatives of prores are becoming less, but if the advantages of the alternatives overtake it, then it makes sense to switch over at some point.  The primary purpose of 4K over 1080p was its ability to sell televisions, but hot damn did Hollywood go to 4K anyway.  Compressed RAW has all sorts of benefits over Prores, and they're even relevant to film-making not just limited to selling consumer products....

[newfoundmass]

I am definitely in the camp of people who thinks ProRes' time has passed. There are not a ton of reasons to use it outside of it being the current industry standard for larger productions. That isn't to say that I think support for it should be completely dropped, merely that releasing a camera with it, even ones touting themselves as cinema cameras, is fine if it cuts costs or makes development easier. The more I thought about it the less I cared about whether or not it this camera had regular ProRes recording. 

Outside of its ubiquity in the industry there aren't a ton of reasons why it is better than h.265 or why it'd be difficult to switch to h.265 in 2024 and beyond. The biggest issue, outside of people hating change, I think would be the impact on those running older hardware that can handle ProRes but would struggle or not be able to handle h.265. But I'm not sure that's enough of an argument to keep things the way they are. 

I began the process of transcoding most of my archived ProRes footage to h.265 in 2021. 

[kye]

7 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

I am definitely in the camp of people who thinks ProRes' time has passed. There are not a ton of reasons to use it outside of it being the current industry standard for larger productions. That isn't to say that I think support for it should be completely dropped, merely that releasing a camera with it, even ones touting themselves as cinema cameras, is fine if it cuts costs or makes development easier. The more I thought about it the less I cared about whether or not it this camera had regular ProRes recording. 

Outside of its ubiquity in the industry there aren't a ton of reasons why it is better than h.265 or why it'd be difficult to switch to h.265 in 2024 and beyond. The biggest issue, outside of people hating change, I think would be the impact on those running older hardware that can handle ProRes but would struggle or not be able to handle h.265. But I'm not sure that's enough of an argument to keep things the way they are. 

I began the process of transcoding most of my archived ProRes footage to h.265 in 2021. 

Thinking about this more, one of the things I liked about Prores over h264/5 was the aesthetic of the compression artefacts - the Prores artefacts were more organic and the h26x were more sharp/digital. 

I measured the relative quality of Prores vs h264 vs h265 back in 2020 and found that h265 > h264 > prores..  here's the table sorted by SSIM (a mathematical image quality comparison measurement - I compared every image with the uncompressed version to determine that score)

These are all based on the outputs from Resolve, which is known for not having a very good h264/5 encoder, so this is likely wrong, but indicative.

The things that kept me as being a fan of Prores at that time were:

1. Prores implementations were always relatively unprocessed compared to h264/5
2. Prores errors were more analog in feel rather than sharp/digital

However, Apple showed with the iPhone 14 that prores could be implemented and still have horrifically over-processed images, so that clearly showed that the processing isn't a codec thing, it's a processing thing.

And, I've discovered that un-sharpening footage is easy in post, and that the difference in image frequency response (MTF) between film and RAW/unprocessed digital and over-sharpened digital footage is all fixed by just un-sharpening the footage, with the over-sharpened footage simply requiring more un-sharpening than the normal digital footage.

Given these factors, I see no advantage to Prores over h264/5.  In fact, now that manufacturers have insisted that all cameras are now megapixel-steroid-freaks, and the fact that Prores has a constant bitrate-per-pixel, the compressed RAW formats have lower bitrates than the Prores flavours, when shooting at higher resolutions anyway.  This matters, as having decent downsampling in-camera isn't a given, and you're perhaps more likely to get a better compressed RAW implementation than a nice downsampling implementation.

[IronFilm]

5 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

Yeah, I think BRAW is significantly trailing when it comes to ProRes RAW, or at least that has been my experience when dealing/talking with professionals that have a reason to shoot it.

Even ones using lower end mirrorless cameras, I see Atomos Ninjas for RAW recording more than BMD Video Assists. I think it's to their own detriment that they don't support ProRes RAW if they are able to, especially as it pertains to Final Cut users who are increasingly getting fed up with how outdated the app feels and would switch to Resolve.

Yup, and for everyone using mirrorless cameras recording raw onto an external recorder, well, that's an entire market segment which I rarely overlap with! As it's a bit too low budget to ever use a Sound Mixer much. 

And that end of the market has less of a need to confirm to any particular workflow demands, or can be more flexible with their workflow in making changes to accommodate, or they just simply don't care