Blackmagic Forum

I understand that the BMPCC 4k shoots windowed in slow motion 1080p mode and of course, in its RAW 1080p mode. But what about the non-slow motion frame rates (24-30p) and in ProRES? There is no reason why would that specific use case needs to be windowed.

Can someone who owns this new camera confirm if 1080/24p with ProRES is windowed or not?

It's very rarely windowed. I don't know of any cinema cameras that require windowing for ProRes/DNxHR recordings other than cropping to the correct aspect ratio.

Since it's a DCI camera (1.85:1), that means that UHD (16:9, or 1.79:1) would be cropped, but if you're recording HD, it would crop to UHD and then scale down to HD.

I'm not asking about some normal sensor cropping, e.g. to maintain 16:9 etc, that is required as you explained. I'm talking about extreme sensor cropping, as in the case of 1080/120 fps. My question is about 1080/24p in ProRES. Does it have this same extreme cropping as found in 120 fps, or not? Someone who owns the camera must confirm this or not, because the manual and the reviews do NOT mention this clearly.

I own the camera. You can choose to record full and have it downscaled or record windowed.

Perfect, thank you.

I found that sometimes when I'm switching between UHD and HD the camera was suddenly set to windowed mode and I had to uncheck that. Maybe that's the reason some reviewers thought it could do HD only windowed. Looks like a firmware bug.

Robert Niessner wrote:I own the camera. You can choose to record full and have it downscaled or record windowed.

You're a LIFE SAVER! )))

I feel like I should mention that this is said in the manual which is available for download on BMD's website.

This has also been repeatedly pointed out here and on other sites, since the release of the camera on numerous discussion threads.
Cheers

Denny Smith wrote:This has also been repeatedly pointed out here and on other sites, since the release of the camera on numerous discussion threads.
Cheers

It's also normal operating behavior on pretty much every cinema camera out there.

Hi All,

regarding to this topic and to the manual of BMPCC 4K. I cannot switch windowed mode off when I'm in Full HD / Bm RAW / 25p mode. But manual sais this:

Resolution Codec Sensor Scan Max Frame Rate
1920x1080 Bm RAW Full 60

Is this bad info in the manual, or am I missing something?

Branislav

IIRC, in another thread someone from Blackmagic confirmed that it's a typo. You only get full sensor 1080p with prores. Raw would not be raw anymore if it was downsampled.

Yes, it is a typo in the current manual.

When recording RAW you can only get the full sensor readout in 4k DCI. All other modes are sensor windowed to the respective resolution.

Eugenia Loli wrote:I'm not asking about some normal sensor cropping, e.g. to maintain 16:9 etc, that is required as you explained. I'm talking about extreme sensor cropping, as in the case of 1080/120 fps. My question is about 1080/24p in ProRES. Does it have this same extreme cropping as found in 120 fps, or not? Someone who owns the camera must confirm this or not, because the manual and the reviews do NOT mention this clearly.

You can use the full sensor scan up to 60fps. From there it's window sensor crop up to 120fps.
The windows crop quality is actually pretty good, especially on "low" ISO settings (100-400 & 1250-2000), but you have a crop of about 4.

Robert Niessner wrote:When recording RAW you can only get the full sensor readout in 4k DCI. All other modes are sensor windowed to the respective resolution.

Just as confirmation: if I want to record in RAW with the full-sensor, I can't output a downscaled HD? Is that so?
That means that in RAW-full-sensor you are forced to record ONLY BIG files? (Or heavy-compressed raw...)

You are correct, Adriano. Hamlet’s soliloquy “to window or not to window” only applies to ProRes. Raw has always been a window, full sensor or crop sensor but not downscaled in camera.

Definitely one of the best arguments for shooting ProRes. The other strength is the broad use of the codec when handing off footage to others for post. BMD is doing their best to have BRAW supported broadly, but they’re up against Apple on that I suppose who wants you to license ProRes or ProRes raw.


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Adriano Castaldini wrote:That means that in RAW-full-sensor you are forced to record ONLY BIG files? (Or heavy-compressed raw...)

The data rate difference between "heavily compressed raw" -- say UHD Q5 -- and Prores down-sampled from full sensor to HD by the camera is fairly small, but there are efficiencies in raw compression that you can't get in Prores.

Comparing the two files, Q5 braw UHD v. full sensor HD on an HD timeline, I don't think you'll see more compression artifacts in braw, at least not at the usual viewing size. And Davinci Resolve appears to down-sample UHD to HD better than the camera does. Q5 braw UHD files on an HD timeline have more detail than Prores full sensor HD files, though that won't be perceivable without zooming in.

Thanks a lot for your answers.
Mah... This "windowed" stuff in RAW is not so attractive... it's a big con...
Do you think a future firmware could include the in-camera full-sensor HD-downscale in RAW?

Adriano Castaldini wrote:Thanks a lot for your answers.
Mah... This "windowed" stuff in RAW is not so attractive... it's a big con...
Do you think a future firmware could include the in-camera full-sensor HD-downscale in RAW?

You can't downscale raw to raw, because then it can't be raw anymore.
The only way would be the so called pixel binning, where 4 sensor pixels are readout as 1.
But this must be supported by the sensor hardware itself, and the camera firmware and because of bayer pattern structure this might even introduce aliasing artifacts.

Adriano, when you record 4K or full sensor Raw, the HDMI output will be a downscaled HD, with the LUT of your choice applied. You could then record this signal to a VA, for example.
Cheers

Robert Niessner wrote:But this must be supported by the sensor hardware itself, and the camera firmware and because of bayer pattern structure this might even introduce aliasing artifacts.

The Pocket 4K's sensor actually does support binning and it supports 120 fps. It would be awesome if they enabled it especially since it should be a lot cleaner than shooting windowed which means it has an increased dynamic range. I'm not actually sure why that would have any more aliasing than windowed recording though. If it was using line-skipping then that would totally increase aliasing but I don't think it applies to binning.

Mark Grgurev wrote:The Pocket 4K's sensor actually does support binning and it supports 120 fps. It would be awesome if they enabled it especially since it should be a lot cleaner than shooting windowed which means it has an increased dynamic range. I'm not actually sure why that would have any more aliasing than windowed recording though. If it was using line-skipping then that would totally increase aliasing but I don't think it applies to binning.

+1 for Mark Grgurev! If they introduce HD-binning-full-sensor on Pocket 4K, I'd be honestly tempted to buy it.

P.S. A bit off-topic: I personally think it should be amazing if BMD would release a new firmware for the old first BMCC2.5K (mFT) in order to add BRAW 3:1 !!! It would be fantastic...

Adriano Castaldini wrote:P.S. A bit off-topic: I personally think it should be amazing if BMD would release a new firmware for the old first BMCC2.5K (mFT) in order to add BRAW 3:1 !!! It would be fantastic...

The FPGA in the cameras may not be able to handle BRAW. While BRAW is still lighter on resources than ProRes, it's heavier than CDNG because it takes into account some degree sensor profiling information. So it's not just a matter of them not wanting to update those cameras with BRAW, it's that they most likely can't.

Mark Grgurev wrote:The FPGA in the cameras may not be able to handle BRAW.

:(
Ok BMD... An upgraded remake of the old BMCC2.5K with BRAW will be highly appreciated
(...sorry for this off-topic...)

Grant started, the Pocket 6K is the upgrade for the BMCC 2.5. That said, a similar camera with the new Fairchild Sensor would be a better IQ match to the old BMCC, which also had a Fairchild Sensor.
Cheers