Blackmagic RAW 12:1 Video

I've been beta testing the new Blackmagic RAW and it's insane! All these were shot on the new codec @ 12:1. They are monologues as part of an upcoming project.

-Ursa Mini Pro @ 4.6K
-Rokinon 14mm 2.8
-Sigma 18-35mm
-Nikon 50mm AIS @ 1.4
-Rokinon 50mm @ 1.4

Actors:
-Thom Delahunt
-Reza Leal-Smartt

All either in 23.796 or 60p conformed to 23.976.

Music: Departure by Alice in Winter from Soundstripe

My first impression of Blackmagic RAW, is that it's insanely amazing. Flexible, fast and small. Game changer for the Ursa Mini Pro. This will be my main codec going forward.

Beautiful, thanks for sharing. How hardware intensive was the decode on 12:1?

Beautiful, thanks for sharing. How hardware intensive was the decode on 12:1?

Very, very easy. Even with playback and editing direct on the CFAST reader.

Beautiful, thanks for sharing. How hardware intensive was the decode on 12:1?

Download samples from BM website and try

Beautiful, thanks for sharing. How hardware intensive was the decode on 12:1?

Download samples from BM website and try

Holy smokes, I assumed they were less compressed because of the good quality and easy playback. Color me impressed!

Did you happen to try and see what you could record to on a fast SD card (if you have one)? Looks awesome!

Did you happen to try and see what you could record to on a fast SD card (if you have one)? Looks awesome!

On another forum beta testers were reporting this was working.

Thank you so much, Note.
That's just jaw-dropping *gorgeous!*
[Re]Pete

Yes, very, very nice. I really liked the lighting also.
Cheers

The four demo clips from Kholi and Note total exactly one minute. The BRAW storage equates to 32.325MB/s. That supports about two hours recording time on a 256GB Card. I think that is well within the capabilities of shooting with Q5 VBR. Such a treat to get good-looking results without all the pain. Thank you, Note and Kholi.


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The four demo clips from Kholi and Note total exactly one minute. The BRAW storage equates to 32.325MB/s. That supports about two hours recording time on a 256GB Card. I think that is well within the capabilities of shooting with Q5 VBR. Such a treat to get good-looking results without all the pain. Thank you, Note and Kholi.


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Yep. At 12:1 a 256GB cfast will get you either 114 or 115 minutes of recording time with Blackmagic RAW.

Very impressive! Sound was fantastic too.

thank you!

Yes, very, very nice. I really liked the lighting also.
Cheers

Thank you!

Thank you so much, Note.
That's just jaw-dropping *gorgeous!*
[Re]Pete

thanks!

Did you happen to try and see what you could record to on a fast SD card (if you have one)? Looks awesome!

Thanks! And yep from others' reports it does! I used a microSD and it did.

Did you happen to try and see what you could record to on a fast SD card (if you have one)? Looks awesome!

On another forum beta testers were reporting this was working.

Yes. I had a microsd that I used to record Blackmagic RAW 12:1 but at a lower resolution via microSD to SD adapter. From others' reports, it does work. Exciting times!

Note, did you do any comparison of Q5 VBR with BRAW 12:1 constant bit rate? I’m leaning toward shooting Q5 for most things. Q0 for most important things.


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Note, did you do any comparison of Q5 VBR with BRAW 12:1 constant bit rate? I’m leaning toward shooting Q5 for most things. Q0 for most important things.


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I have not. I originally shot something in Q0 and it looked great but after testing 12:1 I found that the quality was still retained yet the storage time it offered was to great to pass up.

Yes. I had a microsd that I used to record Blackmagic RAW 12:1 but at a lower resolution via microSD to SD adapter. From others' reports, it does work. Exciting times!

Micro-SD? MICRO-SD? Wow! Do you mind sharing which one? Wow! Just...Wow!

I'm also leaning towards Q5 when I get the P4k, and it looks like I won't have to rig up an SSD to get that!

The advantage of 12:1 is a predictable storage rate so you can confidently determine how many minutes of recording you will be able to record on a card. But it appears there will be some loss of detail although it may not be missed.

The advantage of Q5 is that more detail is retained. It will be interesting to see how that translates to people and things.


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I haven't yet been able to find a case where 12:1 displays any artifacts.
Green screen keying is a good way to see codec differences, but I haven't tested that yet. As Grant mentioned in the release video, if shooting for VFX, Q0 would likely be the choice as it's the least compressed. But for everything else, it seems so far that 12:1 is pretty much visually lossless.
It's amazing. As others have said, with braw it's like BMD has gifted us a whole new camera.

This is exciting. Can’t wait to get my pocket 4K!


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I haven't yet been able to find a case where 12:1 displays any artifacts.
Green screen keying is a good way to see codec differences, but I haven't tested that yet. As Grant mentioned in the release video, if shooting for VFX, Q0 would likely be the choice as it's the least compressed. But for everything else, it seems so far that 12:1 is pretty much visually lossless.
It's amazing. As others have said, with braw it's like BMD has gifted us a whole new camera.

I'm curious to see how well 12:1 does on a greenscreen. It may be compressed, but it has the high bit depth and no chroma subsampling.

I shot a lot of tests on a 150mb 1000x 128gb lexar SD with no problems at 8:1. Again I struggled to find anything in the footage that indicated compression. Threw the camera around a bit as well.

Kel, is that 1000x Card rated as V60 or V90? BRAW 8:1 is about 68MB/s. About the same as Q5 VBR in a moderately detailed scene.


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Yes. I had a microsd that I used to record Blackmagic RAW 12:1 but at a lower resolution via microSD to SD adapter. From others' reports, it does work. Exciting times!

Micro-SD? MICRO-SD? Wow! Do you mind sharing which one? Wow! Just...Wow!

I'm also leaning towards Q5 when I get the P4k, and it looks like I won't have to rig up an SSD to get that!

Yep, it's a samsung microsd but at 1080p since that microsd was also nearly full.

Are we looking at levels and toning instead of detail?

Reducing noise and smoothing out the differences between surrounding pixels increases compressibility a lot by reducing detail and softening the image. This is what you are likely to see rather than artifacts. This is what we see in cineform wavelet, and advanced dct compression has used overlaps to get similar accuracy for many years. Consumer codecs do this too. You can even put good levels, toning, dynamic range and detail into a high bit rate consumer codec, if you choose too do that without compromises.

The interesting thing is with the braw I want more the UMP then the BMPCC4K. Nevertheless the price difference is huge. Who knows, maybe someday.

I shot a lot of tests on a 150mb 1000x 128gb lexar SD with no problems at 8:1. Again I struggled to find anything in the footage that indicated compression. Threw the camera around a bit as well.

Those are the cards I use with my GH5 and GH5S. What frame rate was that shot at? I assume that the data rate will be proportional to frame rate in some way. I get about 110mins shooting UHD60P on those cards. Max write on those is 80MBps and minimum at 30MBps so may have some problems.

Are we looking at levels and toning instead of detail?

Personally, I think what we're seeing in BRAW is better real detail (thanks to the new debayer) instead of a lot of false detail + noise that was there in cDNG. But I'm certainly not a camera engineer, so there's a fair chance I'm wrong about that. As a shooter and colorist, what I can say for sure is that to my eyes the images are looking better in BRAW, even at 12:1, than I used to get from cDNG. And even though I can't explain exactly how BMD is doing it, I really like the results so far.

You are right Jamie. It needs a careful examination of frames under different compression ratios (3:1 and 12:1).

You are right Jamie. It needs a careful examination of frames under different compression ratios (3:1 and 12:1).

I haven't yet been able to find a case where 12:1 displays any artifacts.
Green screen keying is a good way to see codec differences, but I haven't tested that yet. As Grant mentioned in the release video, if shooting for VFX, Q0 would likely be the choice as it's the least compressed. But for everything else, it seems so far that 12:1 is pretty much visually lossless.
It's amazing. As others have said, with braw it's like BMD has gifted us a whole new camera.

I'm curious to see how well 12:1 does on a greenscreen. It may be compressed, but it has the high bit depth and no chroma subsampling.

Wayne and Jack,

I shot some green screen footage with multiple versions of BRAW, cDNG, and prores and made a post in the green screen thread. I typically don't work with green screen so this isn't a great setup, but I think it's good enough to show the codecs. I've made the footage available to download so you can play with the image yourself.

Here is the link to the thread. https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=79410#p439988

You are right Jamie. It needs a careful examination of frames under different compression ratios (3:1 and 12:1).

I haven't yet been able to find a case where 12:1 displays any artifacts.
Green screen keying is a good way to see codec differences, but I haven't tested that yet. As Grant mentioned in the release video, if shooting for VFX, Q0 would likely be the choice as it's the least compressed. But for everything else, it seems so far that 12:1 is pretty much visually lossless.
It's amazing. As others have said, with braw it's like BMD has gifted us a whole new camera.

I'm curious to see how well 12:1 does on a greenscreen. It may be compressed, but it has the high bit depth and no chroma subsampling.

Wayne and Jack,

I shot some green screen footage with multiple versions of BRAW, cDNG, and prores and made a post in the green screen thread. I typically don't work with green screen so this isn't a great setup, but I think it's good enough to show the codecs. I've made the footage available to download so you can play with the image yourself.

Here is the link to the thread. https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=79410#p439988

Thanks. Do you have frames? I'm using phone at the moment and no player..

Clicking vimeo.com/Suwanchote - takes one to a porno site!

Please, don’t upload anything to the forum before disinfecting your computer!


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So the spam may have been at Vimeo. Would be nice to live in a different world. Did you see the Planet Vulcan (from Star Trek) has actually been found; it’s only 16 light years away!


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Unless it's the actual planet, it's not. The real vulcan they think were some planetiods/astroids close to the sun which I think they found. Which Star system was the original vulcan in star trek in?

Wayne, I hope this link works for you.

“Roddenberry, along with three scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, wrote a letter in 1991 to the astronomy magazine Sky & Telescope, naming 40 Eridani A as the star around which Vulcan orbited. ”

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/exop ... -1.4830111



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The redirect was definitely on their end!

Note, I saw on Blackmagic_News you have another video shooting BRAW, but clicking on the Twitter link takes one to a BMD Page without the link to your video, only a still. Do you have the new video somewhere?


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The last two BMD Twitter posts about Blackmagic Raw are reviews which as far as I can see you can only read on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/BlackmagicDesignOfficial/posts/

The links look like a mistake, or maybe there's an update to the Blackmagic Raw page that hasn't been published.

The last two BMD Twitter posts about Blackmagic Raw are reviews which as far as I can see you can only read on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/BlackmagicDesignOfficial/posts/

The links look like a mistake, or maybe there's an update to the Blackmagic Raw page that hasn't been published.

I think it takes you to an earlier post on their site.

Note, I saw on Blackmagic_News you have another video shooting BRAW, but clicking on the Twitter link takes one to a BMD Page without the link to your video, only a still. Do you have the new video somewhere?

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Do you mean the valley/cavern one? Currently, that video is not up.

Thanks, Note! That explains why I can’t find it.


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Wayne, I hope this link works for you.

“Roddenberry, along with three scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, wrote a letter in 1991 to the astronomy magazine Sky & Telescope, naming 40 Eridani A as the star around which Vulcan orbited. ”

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/exop ... -1.4830111



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I thought that vulcan was originally supposed to be in the sol system. They only picked it because some books used it. It has had a large use in scfi, even before startrek, and in significant sci-fi. But what do you expect from a series which keeps rewriting it's universe and even physics.

This stuff is interesting. I've had multiple plot mechanics in my scifi turn out to be true in real life. Such as the matter streams connecting galaxies which I invented to do something in a certain way and latter was found, of universal void where galaxies had been consumed then turned out there were voids (fur whatever reason), or obscure ancient places and civilisations, I picked places and just made fake names based on obscure word play unrealated to history or places, and it turns out to be true there were names out there with vocal shifts are the same (the names change with transliteration to different languages, and over time the way people pronounce the vowels, and constants shift. It can even sound really different, not as close as what I found). But you can read and follow through the shifts. So even found two ancient co-inhabiting tribes which equal Anglo and Saxon. I never got to talk with Thor Heyerdahl about his work, as he had already died. However, I'm eager to talk to James Cameron about a interesting real thing I've discovered which would be related to the Atlantis legend, and we have some very significant archaeology stuff happening locally to do with mounting Egyptian archeological finds in Australia I wanted to put together venture into with doco (definitely Q0 or Q5 direct to TV). I used to correspond with one of his film editors.

As far as this (too heavy) planet and its star system so widely used in fiction, it may well be a planet of demons (don't expect it to not be empty) look up Darklings.

$1 to anybody that can get their Blackmagic cinema camera out there first to film it, within the next hour. If the startrek universe is true, that's quiet possible.

The advantage of 12:1 is a predictable storage rate so you can confidently determine how many minutes of recording you will be able to record on a card. But it appears there will be some loss of detail although it may not be missed.

The advantage of Q5 is that more detail is retained. It will be interesting to see how that translates to people and things.

Just shot a commercial at Q0/Q5 - the prediction of space/minutes left on the card is pretty good.

The advantage of 12:1 is a predictable storage rate so you can confidently determine how many minutes of recording you will be able to record on a card. But it appears there will be some loss of detail although it may not be missed.

The advantage of Q5 is that more detail is retained. It will be interesting to see how that translates to people and things.

Just shot a commercial at Q0/Q5 - the prediction of space/minutes left on the card is pretty good.

Very nice!

Thanks, Frank. Good to know. The bitrate range in that codec comparison chart is quite large for Q0 beginning at 110 MB/s to well higher than 3:1. But if the camera adjusts for the scene and gives a pretty accurate prediction then it will be easy to learn what a given scene will use.


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The advantage of 12:1 is a predictable storage rate so you can confidently determine how many minutes of recording you will be able to record on a card. But it appears there will be some loss of detail although it may not be missed.

The advantage of Q5 is that more detail is retained. It will be interesting to see how that translates to people and things.

Just shot a commercial at Q0/Q5 - the prediction of space/minutes left on the card is pretty good.

Very nice!

Do you guys have any concerns about using a BETA codec for your projects? I have a short film project upcoming and I want to use BRAW 8:1. Is there anything dramatically catastrophic that could happen do you think?

I wouldn't think twice - the current public beta is pretty good and rock solid.

I wouldn't think twice - the current public beta is pretty good and rock solid.

That's the impression I'm getting as well. Looking forward to using it!

Solid stuff. I’ve used it on a few projects and it’s been great!

James, don’t know your timing, but if your shoot begins on a weekend, you want to make sure you have spent two days shooting and carefully reviewing your footage in various conditions that mimic what your actual shoot may entail as much as possible. It’s not just the new codec, but your camera itself and possibly your rig will be new so you need to get the muscle-memory going understanding where and how everything works. If you have two days and all looked good and behaved in your hands, then no worries.

I was hoping to have the camera about mid-September but once that date passed I just concentrated on prepping everything I had and planning all my logistics like site visits, rehearsals, and so on. Better a good shoot with old guns than a new gun blowup in your hands the first time it’s fired. There’s always the possibility that your experience with new toys may vary, through no fault of your own, than the experience of other seasoned shooters.

Am I nuts? Maybe. But I remember the alpha test shoots before the URSA Mini 4.6K Camera began shipping in large numbers. Only one of the people looking at the testers’ results was concerned that the images seemed to have a pink cast. And that concern didn’t get a lot of attention or respect. It turns out to have been prescient as my camera took the better part of a year to significantly reduce its magenta stain on the right side. That issue has totally evaporated (and I mean that literally) although it was demonstrated in a few different ways (The Magenta Corners is a mystery short coming to The Onion Web real soon now).

BMD has not to my knowledge ever confirmed the sensor or sensor glass were not prepared properly in some way due to either a cleaning agent or a coating that was improperly applied or insufficiently dried or whatever it was. BMD may have repaired or replaced many cameras because of it, but I’m sure all those bad cameras are perfectly usable now so I hope they weren’t ground up like recycled coffee.


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James, don’t know your timing, but if your shoot begins on a weekend, you want to make sure you have spent two days shooting and carefully reviewing your footage in various conditions that mimic what your actual shoot may entail as much as possible. It’s not just the new codec, but your camera itself and possibly your rig will be new so you need to get the muscle-memory going understanding where and how everything works. If you have two days and all looked good and behaved in your hands, then no worries.

I was hoping to have the camera about mid-September but once that date passed I just concentrated on prepping everything I had and planning all my logistics like site visits, rehearsals, and so on. Better a good shoot with old guns than a new gun blowup in your hands the first time it’s fired. There’s always the possibility that your experience with new toys may vary, through no fault of your own, than the experience of other seasoned shooters.

Am I nuts? Maybe. But I remember the alpha test shoots before the URSA Mini 4.6K Camera began shipping in large numbers. Only one of the people looking at the testers’ results was concerned that the images seemed to have a pink cast. And that concern didn’t get a lot of attention or respect. It turns out to have been prescient as my camera took the better part of a year to significantly reduce its magenta stain on the right side. That issue has totally evaporated (and I mean that literally) although it was demonstrated in a few different ways (The Magenta Corners is a mystery short coming to The Onion Web real soon now).

BMD has not to my knowledge ever confirmed the sensor or sensor glass were not prepared properly in some way due to either a cleaning agent or a coating that was improperly applied or insufficiently dried or whatever it was. BMD may have repaired or replaced many cameras because of it, but I’m sure all those bad cameras are perfectly usable now so I hope they weren’t ground up like recycled coffee.


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Thanks so much for your concern and advice, Rick. I appreciate it as always.

Have a look at the other threads here about the red and blue channel fine macroblocking, reduction of detail and fringing at 3:1 compared to DNG. To see if it's acceptable. On a Bluray FullHD delivery, it may not be an issue. People might not even notice on 4k Bluray on pause (and apparently ProRes produces similar effects).

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=79611&p=441744#p441744

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=79208&start=200

People might not even notice on 4k Bluray on pause (and apparently ProRes produces similar effects).

I'd be completely shocked if any human eye could parse the difference between cDNG and BRAW in real world (non-zoomed) footage mastered to DCP and projected on a theater screen. DCPs are compressed too. Not as heavily as BluRay, but compressed nonetheless.

Two very different sets of requirements are being conflated in this thread: Detailed VFX on the one hand, and normal editing and color grading on the other. There's a tremendous difference in whether a codec is suitable for VFX work where artists need to be able to manipulate an image in ways that require fine grainless details unseen by the naked eye, compared to whether an image in a narrative drama or documentary is suitable for editing and color grading (even extreme color grading). I can't comment on VFX work, as it's not what I do, but I can say that based on what I've seen so far out of BRAW, it is more than sufficient for editing, color grading and mastering for even cinema deliverables.

...but I can say that based on what I've seen so far out of BRAW, it is more than sufficient for editing, color grading and mastering for even cinema deliverables.

This!