One-for-all: This doesn't work for manuals!

I first realized my trouble with the "all-gear-all-language-one-manual" concept when I tried to understand the (very limited!) options of our six micro studio cameras:
First I was glad to read about the cinema dng raw mode of "my" camera - before I realized it was only the cinema modell that has the flat gamma curve - but not mine. (which really is a downside of the micro studio that has a contrast range of an eighties ENG-camera)
So many pages (more than 1600!!), so few really needed information that are hard to find and to identify as those, really meant for your gear.

I don't get what the concept is!

No one really needs more than one manual in his language. And no one operates a whole camera family so that you may safe time by only downloading one manual.

Please BM guys, do it like ALL the others do it:
Give us a single manual for a single gear. And let me choose my language, I don't want to carry arround 1550 pages (and that is for the livemixers only) of stuff I cannot read and do not need. Waisted storage space, wasted download time.
And in addition to that it means you find your manuals updated many times without any benefit for you - as your modell is not affected.
With all my other stuff I receive a mail when a new FW is available. In the mail, your find what is changed so you can deside whether an update makes sense or not. That's what it must be like.

With the current manual concept, you are never sure, that anything you find really is about your gear, before you have not checked the headlines on the pages before the Info, that possibly limits the reference, be it a camera, a mixer, whatever..

Thanks, BM, for working in that.

Stefan Schröder

And if cutting-out is the answer:
I cannot dump the not-needed languages by any tool (using a webbrowser, iBooks- app) I'm unsing on set and I think editing a manual is NOT a solution.

Totally agree with you..!!

Often on rental jobs.. Oh i forgot how to do this.. or have to look something up.. No internet connection other than my 4G Phone..

Downloading 1600 page manual on 4G While i only needed the first 160 pages because that is english.. All other languages i don't care about..

Now i try to keep my USB stick up to date with all manuals and software versions on site.. But often enough you forget something.

Hi Stefan, it's not the ideal solution, but if you're on a Mac you can edit the pdf by opening it in Preview and deleting the pages you don't need.
Cheers

I print the English part of a manual, because that is easier to handle at home, to study. I print at the office, because of the fast color printer - and under Windows - and yes, under Windows it is an issue.

But I use some MacBookPro's for photo and video - and with macOS creating a copy of part of the manual is no issue: use the print function, fill in the pages: from - to, and then at the bottum choose Pdf drop down and save as pdf .... and you have that part of the manual you want to keep and carry around, e.g. copy to your iPad.....
(I do not open the manual in Acrobat Reader, but in the standard Preview function from the macOS, but also in Acrobat you can save to a pdf in the print dialog. Yes, on the Apple - I did not see this print to pdf function under Windows)

Yes, print to PDF has always been a Mac OS feature, when PDFs were used to send files for printing to earlymlaiser printers, and commercial job printers, when you did not want the files changed.
Cheers.

New camera manuals have been released, with better organization and added detail. Check them out in the BM Support page.
Cheers