Complaints!

Hope i dont offend anyone with this post but sometimes it seems like complaints begin to dominate this forum. First id like to say its great to learn from everyones experiences here so i can make sound purchases. Secondly, i am the last person to defend a company but some of the complaints here are getting ridiculous. Audio issues and blooming are valid as well as others, but complaining about external batteries, sensor size, when the camera will ship, the cost of rigging, etc is a bit much. Reason being, cameras that cost much more need rigging just as well and the accessories are much more expensive. Sensor size either works for your line of work or it doesn't. Why pre-order a camera and then get mad when it doesnt ship, how about waiting til its ready to ship then buy it. We all need to realize blackmagic is new to the camera game and at the same time trying to revolutionize a workflow at a price that is unheard of. Thats why were all here in the first place. Hell, they are giving us a world class color corrector for free. In this day and age who does that. Their products are not for everyone but it gives many of us the best chance currently to produce high quality media at an affordable price. They dont have the years of research and failures as say a canon does, but theyre gaining ground quickly. Im looking forward to this companies growth and im sure many of us will profit from it just as they will. If we want all the bells and whistles, maybe we need to save up and by an Alexa or RED or whatever floats your boat. I doubt the footage in the right hands will justify the difference in cost and aggrevation. Im getting ready to purchase a BMCC and thanks to this forum i know the pros and cons and I think it will fit great into my workflow. Just my 2 cents.

Hope i dont offend anyone with this post but sometimes it seems like complaints begin to dominate this forum... Im getting ready to purchase a BMCC and thanks to this forum i know the pros and cons and I think it will fit great into my workflow. Just my 2 cents.

The complaints do lead to some interesting discussions; sometimes they are found to have merit and other times they seem less serious to most people but the person making the complaint will of course feel they are important to them and seeks a resolution or explanation.

In North American football, it is common for several players to be involved in one tackle. Those whose bodies are committed to making the tackle at that moment before the tackle is achieved are making a fair tackle. But those players who join in are penalized for 'piling on' because it can be dangerous, cause injuries, isn't good sportsmanship, and looks opportunistic rather than a necessary part of the game. I do think there has been a recent tendency in this forum to 'pile on' after the original complaint has been accepted. Many times this occurs in new threads as well as the original thread where you might expect it.

In a perfect world, it would be nice if people were reasonably up-to-date on the forum contents and didn't regurgitate old news. Using the Search function might help before someone starts a new thread although I understand terminology and phraseology may be different and then the Search is useless. A duplicate problem isn't really disturbing or detrimental to our utility and enjoyment of the forum. But the unnecessary piling on of complaints does create a very negative mood that turns people away from the forum as regular readers and contributors. In a perfect world, it would be nice if each post was a conscientious attempt to contribute to the knowledge base of the forum; and by knowledge, I mean both posts which identify problems and proffer solutions.

I am sure there are forums that make this forum look like a serene and decorous picnic in the park. But I hope you agree that we have a ways to improve to keep new members well-informed and to maintain good relationships among the talented members of this community. I have really noticed how everyone does make a significant contribution here and that is rewarding for all. We just don't do it all the time because we are only human! After one has been here for a year as many have, one is struck by the magnitude and diversity of knowledge we have at our fingertips through the generous participation of so many members whether they be professionals or enthusiasts. Keep it up, but keep your gloves on so none of us get too bloody in the fray.

Rick Lang
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Blackmagic is doing a great work.

Blackmagic is doing a great work.

Based on what? Compared to who?

Id say compared to most companies out there. No one else gave me a industry grade color corrector for free. 13 stops for $2k that shoots natively in ProRes. Not even gonna go into RAW as i probably wont use it. The fact that most accessories are not proprietary keeps things affordable. In camera file naming. Thunderbolt transfer. Thats enough for me at $2k. And a full version of DR and Ultrascope. If theres a better deal out I need to keep looking.

It seems to me that people are unlikely to post reviews or on forums if they are not paid to do so, or if they are not experiencing any problems. Therefore all forums and reviews are skewed towards complaints and negatives.

Blackmagic is doing a great work.

Based on what? Compared to who?

BMCC 2000$, BMPCC 1000$, BMPC 4K 4000$, Davinci Resolve 0$ ... For example.

It seems to me that people are unlikely to post reviews or on forums if they are not paid to do so, or if they are not experiencing any problems. Therefore all forums and reviews are skewed towards complaints and negatives.

Overall I sort of agree with your conclusion. However, I am involved with a software product. We have an online user forum with a Feedback and Comments section and many times people post reviews.
The reviews can be positive and negative all in one, or all positive, or all negative. It's really a mixed bag, but yes, many times people buy something then post a glowing review.
I'm on another public music forum that has a review section. Again, ordinary users post reviews all the time.
If people discover something they really like, they want to tell others about it.
As I said, i do agree in the end that the online fora have resulted in more whining, and often what I personally perceive as unreasonable complaints.

In North American football, it is common for several players to be involved in one tackle. Those whose bodies are committed to making the tackle at that moment before the tackle is achieved are making a fair tackle. But those players who join in are penalized for 'piling on' because it can be dangerous, cause injuries, isn't good sportsmanship, and looks opportunistic rather than a necessary part of the game.

That sounds more like rugby league or rugby union.

I just finished a 16 day, 12 hour a day shoot with two BMCC. Absolutely problem free. Not one dropped frame in 2.6 TB of ProRes footage.

I'll say BlackMagic is doing really good.

I just finished a 16 day, 12 hour a day shoot with two BMCC. Absolutely problem free. Not one dropped frame in 2.6 TB of ProRes footage.

I'll say BlackMagic is doing really good.

Absolutely. 1 shoot using 2 individual cameras is totally a basis to judge the whole company performance on, despite the tons of issues that users are complaining about.

I just finished a 16 day, 12 hour a day shoot with two BMCC. Absolutely problem free. Not one dropped frame in 2.6 TB of ProRes footage.

I'll say BlackMagic is doing really good.

+1 I just came off a 13 day shoot with an EF as a B Camera that ran all day every. Not one problem.

I just finished a 16 day, 12 hour a day shoot with two BMCC. Absolutely problem free. Not one dropped frame in 2.6 TB of ProRes footage.

I'll say BlackMagic is doing really good.

Absolutely. 1 shoot using 2 individual cameras is totally a basis to judge the whole company performance on, despite the tons of issues that users are complaining about.

By "issues" do you mean the "extreme crop factor" you keep speaking of in regards to a S16 sized sensor built for a S16 sized camera? That issue? That complaint?

If I have a complaint it's that we don't have an emoticon for blowing ones own brains out.

Last week I was doing a demo for a class of film student and showed them a rough cut of a project I shot in April with panasonic gh2 (still have my bm4k on preorder).
First question was "this looks amazing - what did you shoot it on? Was it canon 5d?"
My response was: "no I did not shoot it on canon 5d, and I do not answer questions like that ever. It's the craft, not the equipment"
The guy (of course, girls were asking about pacing, and actors, and what the directors notes were) approached me after the class and asked again - "so what was it? Red?"

I am with you Dmitry, it is not the equipment, but how youmusemthe equipment you have. I used to teach media relations and how executives should react to TV news or Relevision interviews. We used Sony DXC 327 Hi 8 cameras for a ENG camera look for field interviews, edited them and made the subject thinkmitmhad been used in the 10 O'Clock news. Mother could not tell the difference from out Hi8 and network Betacam. Our talent was an ABC reporter, wore his "pin". I also used GL2's for "studio" cameras (they were in our budget) up until this year to record to a Tricaster switcher for two local TV shows.
Once feed down a cable as a SD signal, hard to tell the difference.

When Imwas in school, we used Bolex 16 cameras, as did most film classes in colleges. USC had access to "bigger" cameras, but first year students used the Bolex 16. Not any different today, only now it is with "video" cameras instead of film. So any decent video camera can be used to learn the craft, because it is what and how you use the equipment that matters.

I just finished a 16 day, 12 hour a day shoot with two BMCC. Absolutely problem free. Not one dropped frame in 2.6 TB of ProRes footage.

I'll say BlackMagic is doing really good.

Absolutely. 1 shoot using 2 individual cameras is totally a basis to judge the whole company performance on, despite the tons of issues that users are complaining about.

By "issues" do you mean the "extreme crop factor" you keep speaking of in regards to a S16 sized sensor built for a S16 sized camera? That issue? That complaint?

No. More like the horrible audio, the crazy vertical lines all over the screen and footage, the blooming sensor that requires cameras be sent in for repair... that type of stuff.

No. More like the horrible audio, the crazy vertical lines all over the screen and footage, the blooming sensor that requires cameras be sent in for repair... that type of stuff.

+1 The audio that no one has done anything about since the camera was released... or even worse the regressions in audio quality in firmware updates that aren't in the changelogs!

Professional audio connectors but effectively useless audio recording capabilities (due to lack of VU meters and undocumented EQ). The tragedy is that the hardware in the camera is capable of recording good quality audio... BMD is just too busy pushing out other cameras to do anything about it.

Add to that the insult of the price cut and the poor colour science in ProRes video mode, it's all quite disgusting.

I learned a long time ago that when a company ventures into a new line of products there are gonna be issues. Hyundai had the Excel, now they make the Equus. Im not making excuses for the deficiencies of the camera but you could go buy a more proven product or at least not buy the first release. 9 out of 10 companies are gonna have issues when they start making cameras. Go buy a proven product, oh i forgot, probably out of your price range which is why your here. Well go rent a proven camera, that may be out of your budget as well. Fact is, BMD probably wont get the kinks out until their 4th or 5th camera. Are you going to complain with each one or go get a camera you feel is adequate. As far as the price drop, thats a smart move to me, who would pay $3000 for a camera with a 2.3 crop when i can pay $4k for 35mm and global shutter. Your feelings don't come before good business sense.

the poor colour science in ProRes video mode, it's all quite disgusting.

The ProRes Video mode footage grades beautifully when properly exposed. I can match it perfectly to my F3. Your problem with the footage is your personal workflow preference.

The ProRes Video mode footage grades beautifully when properly exposed. I can match it perfectly to my F3. Your problem with the footage is your personal workflow preference.

Vince, please read this thread where the issue is described in detail : viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6453

When recording in ProRes Video mode reds come out orange... that is a malfunction, it has nothing to do with my workflow or preferences, it's just wrong.

Fact is, BMD probably wont get the kinks out until their 4th or 5th camera.

Well they're well on their way to their 5th camera at all of our expense... because pushing out two new cameras is far more important than fixing simple issues with their initial versions.

Your feelings don't come before good business sense.

My feelings will come into it when I think twice before buying gear from them again. My feelings will come into it when people ask me what I think about BMD. Considering that word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing strategies available I would say hacking off a significant portion of your client base is not good business sense. Neither is releasing new cameras with fairly severe faults all while doing nothing to correct the trivial faults on existing units.

The ProRes Video mode footage grades beautifully when properly exposed. I can match it perfectly to my F3. Your problem with the footage is your personal workflow preference.

Vince, please read this thread where the issue is described in detail : viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6453

When recording in ProRes Video mode reds come out orange... that is a malfunction, it has nothing to do with my workflow or preferences, it's just wrong.

You apply a LUT in e.g. Resolve to get you roughly where you want and then dial into to the exact look you are after. Or you can just grade from scratch.

It comes down to your workflow and expectations. Certainly, I'm not an expert in Resolve, but for fictional work I do, I grade for style. And BMCC ProRes holds up really well for grading.

I think you are expecting a different ideology with this camera?

Jules

The camera has two colour profiles, Film and Video. When you shoot RAW you can only shoot film, which is great. The dynamic range is magnificent, the extra resolution is an added bonus... the flexibility is like nothing I've ever had before, which is why I almost always shoot everything in raw.

ProRes film mode is also great, better than normal flexibility and reasonably good resolution, but unless I'm limited for time or storage I usually use raw.

and then there's ProRes video mode, which is difficult to expose for due to zebra which is calculated based on raw data and it renders red objects as orange. ProRes video mode exists as a means of saving time and bypassing the grading process, in other words, it turns the BMCC into a "normal"/ENG camera, like a Sony PMW unit. Unfortunately, unlike a standard camera it gets the colours wrong and has very few of the professional functions one would expect for such a camera. There are times when bypassing the grading process is necessary, live scenarios (for screen) being an example.


The issues with ProRes Video mode should be easy to fix... as is the lack of audio metering.

And on that note, this is the code that calculates and generates VU meters in the magic lantern software. It relies on a method called "audio_read_level()" but that's also fairly simple :

Code: Select all

void draw_meters(void)
{
#define MAX_SAMPLES 720
   static int16_t levels[ MAX_SAMPLES ];
   static uint32_t index;
   levels[ index++ ] = audio_read_level();
   if( index >= MAX_SAMPLES )
      index = 0;

   struct vram_info * vram = &vram_info[ vram_get_number(2) ];

   // The level goes from -40 to 0
   uint32_t x;
   for( x=0 ; x<MAX_SAMPLES && x<vram->width ; x++ )
   {
      uint16_t y = 256 + levels[ x ] / 128;
      vram->vram[ y * vram->pitch + x ] = 0xFFFF;
   }

   uint32_t y;
   for( y=0 ; y<128 ; y++ )
   {
      vram->vram[ y * vram->pitch + index ] = 0x888F;
   }
}


Consider that that code probably took far less than 4 hours to write... which demonstrates how little time BMD has for the BMCC.

That code effectively grabs a couple of audio samples from from the input device, averages those samples, works out based on a ratio how many pixels on the screen it should colour and then writes the result out into the video buffer. It's SUPER SIMPLE, it really is an incredibly simple chunk of code , my home alarm system is more complex... my garage door opener's software is more complex.

It's SUPER SIMPLE, it really is an incredibly simple chunk of code , my home alarm system is more complex... my garage door opener's software is more complex.

This is great.
I look forward to your Magic Lantern style firmware hack.

It's SUPER SIMPLE, it really is an incredibly simple chunk of code , my home alarm system is more complex... my garage door opener's software is more complex.

This is great.
I look forward to your Magic Lantern style firmware hack.

Pablito... I would love to be able to write stuff for the BMCC, unfortunately it's a closed platform. I have e-mailed BMD asking for them to let me create a community version of their firmware... but that e-mail got a polite "no". They suggested that they might at some point open it up to developers.

Its a good idea though and we have SDK's for almost all our products so people can expand them. Doing it for the cameras would be good.

Although I have the skills to write many of the functions I'd like to see in the BMCC, I don't have the necessary skills to reverse engineer the camera's firmware update process. If someone could at least hack the camera to the point of others being able to write code for it (which is the way ML works) it'd be trivial to add extra functions.

If the camera cost $500 I'd start taking it apart.

If BMD wants to be truly revolutionary they should provide community support for third party software add-ons...

you do realize ML exists because canon limited their cameras, intentionally i might add. Im a 5D owner and I like the ML hack but why should we have to hack it in the first place. Canon restricted functionality to keep its higher end cameras relevant. Trust and believe they don't need ML to add in the additional functionality. They were only going to give so much at that price point.

Pablito... I would love to be able to write stuff for the
If BMD wants to be truly revolutionary they should provide community support for third party software add-ons...

I don't have any skills in reverse engineering myself.
I use Linux and Android and am a huge fan of open source, and hackers. I can only imagine it is way more complex to engineer something like a camera, and do it on everyone's timescale and please everyone. I thought they they did an excellent job on the Hyperdeck Shuttle, adding ProRes and timecode detect start etc, after the hardware had been baked. FPGA's make that possible I guess.

you do realize ML exists because canon limited their cameras, intentionally i might add. Im a 5D owner and I like the ML hack but why should we have to hack it in the first place. Canon restricted functionality to keep its higher end cameras relevant. Trust and believe they don't need ML to add in the additional functionality. They were only going to give so much at that price point.

Canon, Sony et al always do this.
This is the reason I like BMD lots
They give us technology denied to us by the big boys at a price we can afford.

Pablito... I would love to be able to write stuff for the BMCC, unfortunately it's a closed platform. I have e-mailed BMD asking for them to let me create a community version of their firmware... but that e-mail got a polite "no". They suggested that they might at some point open it up to developers.

Its a good idea though and we have SDK's for almost all our products so people can expand them. Doing it for the cameras would be good.

Although I have the skills to write many of the functions I'd like to see in the BMCC, I don't have the necessary skills to reverse engineer the camera's firmware update process. If someone could at least hack the camera to the point of others being able to write code for it (which is the way ML works) it'd be trivial to add extra
If the camera cost $500 I'd start taking it apart.

Good initiative

If BMD wants to be truly revolutionary they should provide community support for third party software add-ons...

Sound's good.
That's how open source works.
Collaboration.
But you would need to take responsibility for qc and tech support.

Sorry. Double post.

[Tony Rivera]

No problem with this thread but it's really best suited to be an off-topic thread so it's being moved. Just remain civil with each other.

I thought they they did an excellent job on the Hyperdeck Shuttle, adding ProRes and timecode detect start etc, after the hardware had been baked. FPGA's make that possible I guess.

Yes, I own four Shuttles... and they are truly awesome. I bought my BMCCs partially based on my excellent experience with BMD's Shuttles. And yes @ FPGAs... they offer unparalleled flexibility but they're particularly useful for tasks that can be heavily optimised (like video encoding).

But you would need to take responsibility for qc and tech support.

It appears that a large portion of BMD's tech support occurs right here, on the forums (and there's nothing wrong with that).

you do realize ML exists because canon limited their cameras, intentionally i might add.

That is true... and it's quite annoying. I agree that Canon limits their cameras intentionally, whereas it appears that BMD limits their cameras through a lack of attention to the device. That said, they did retroactively add ProRes to their shuttles, which was a nice surprise... I'm hoping they'll give BMCC owners a nice surprise at some point.