In traditional fashion, Blackmagic used NAB to announce and show off a number of new products and releases. But what really got attention was the introduction of the Cinema Camera.
Blackmagic Cinema Camera: This revolutionary new digital cinema camera design includes super wide dynamic range with 13 stops for film-look quality, a high-resolution sensor, a built-in high bandwidth SSD recorder, open file format support, color correction with a full version of DaVinci Resolve and a built-in LCD with metadata entry. It is priced at only $2,995.
According to the company, this camera brings a true feature-film look at an affordable cost, making it ideal for shooting high-end television commercials, episodic television programming and feature films.
Among the features are:
- Super-wide 13 stops of dynamic range that allows capture of increased details for feature film look.
- High-resolution 2.5K sensor that allows improved antialiasing and reframing shots.
- Built-in SSD that allows high-bandwidth recording of RAW video and long-duration compressed video, capturing open standard CinemaDNG RAW, ProRes and DNxHD files .
- Open file formats that are compatible with popular NLE software, such as CinemaDNG 12 bit RAW, Avid DNxHD and Apple ProRes. No custom file formats.
- Includes no custom connections. It comes with a standard jack mic/line audio in, BNC 3 Gb/s SDI out, headphone, Thunderbolt, LANC remote control and standard DC 12-30V power connection.
- Capacitive touch-screen LCD for camera settings and “slate” metadata entry.
- Compatible with extremely high quality Canon EF and Zeiss ZF lenses.
- Refrigerated sensor for low noise.
- Supports 2.5K and 1080HD resolution capture in 24, 25, 29.97 and 30 fps.
- Thunderbolt connection allows direct camera capture via included Media Express software and supports live waveform monitoring via the included Blackmagic Design UltraScope software.
- 3 Gb/s SDI output.
- Includes a full copy of DaVinci Resolve 9.0 color grading software.
Davinci Resolve 9.0: A major new software update with a completely overhauled user interface and optimizing the workflow for speed, DaVinci Resolve 9 will be available in July as a free-of-charge update for all Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve customers. The new user interface has been designed to be extremely fast to use and to eliminate unnecessary clicks and settings to get working fast. A job can be up and running in three clicks: one to log in, one to drop media into the project and the next to grade.
The release also includes other new workflow features, such as streamlined project import, export and selection workflow, scrubbable media thumbnails to speed up shot selection, production metadata fields for entering on set shot notes and larger color control palettes to give faster access to grading tools.
Desktop Video 9.5/Support for Adobe CS6: Blackmagic’s capture and playback product lines (DeckLink, UltraStudio, Intensity), on both Mac and Windows 7, now support Adobe CS6 and includes a WDM driver to support Windows video apps. The release is available immediately and free to download .
In other news:
- Blackmagic Design announced a new lower price on its popular all in one video routers. The Micro Videohub will reduce in price to $1,495, Smart Videohub will reduce to $1,995 and Compact Videohub will reduce to $3,995.
- The company also revealed a new lower price for all Mini Converter Heavy Duty models. From today, Mini Converter Heavy Duty SDI to Analog, Mini Converter Heavy Duty Analog to SDI, Mini Converter Heavy Duty SDI to HDMI and Mini Converter Heavy Duty HDMI to SDI will be reduced to $345 each.
- The firm also announced a major new software update that adds full audio mixing capability to its ATEM 2 M/E Production Switcher. Audio mixer software lets customers mix embedded audio from SDI and HDMI inputs, plus audio from media players and the ATEM 2 M/E Production Switchers external audio input. This new software update will be available this month and will be provided free of charge to existing ATEM 2 M/E customers.
- Blackmagic Design rolled out a Thunderbolt enabled capture and playback interface for its Universal Videohub 3 Gb/s SDI and optical fiber routers. Universal Videohub Editing Interface plugs into all Universal Videohub models and features four high-performance Thunderbolt ports and four reference signal inputs. Thunderbolt-enabled devices can now connect to all router inputs and outputs using a Universal Videohub Editing Interface for $1,195.
- The company revealed HyperDeck Studio Pro, a new model of SSD recorder that includes powerful new features such as 4 channels of 3 Gb/s SDI in and out, built-in high-speed Thunderbolt I/O technology, as well as full HDMI and analog in and out including standard XLR connectors for audio and timecode. HyperDeck Studio Pro features dramatically higher processing power and quality which allows full 4K playback from a single SSD disk using Apple ProRes compression that is four times the resolution of regular HD 1080 resolution video. HyperDeck Studio Pro will retail for $1,995.