Black Magic Camera Utility 1.6.1 available!

Hi,

this is my first comment. I've noted several improvements, as I want to use the Blackmagic Pocket hand-held. Initial feelings: Panasonic OIS lenses (12-35 and 35-100) similar behaviour to panny body now (stabilization of course, no changes in focusing behaviour). I have a couple of GH2's. I will use more the Slr magic 12mm because you can relax the hand and have a goot shoot. Sigma 30mm f1.4 ex dc hsm (it's not art) not for hand-held but I think I will use it in a shoulder rig (I rejected this idea before the update, too shaky, now I think it will work, I still have to test it).

well aware of the type of COMPRESSION in use.. on both cameras

just tying to keep in fun and light hearted..

on a side note, sure missed those compressed bits while watching the Amazing Spider Man...or not

(we get it JB, but not EVERYTHING on here needs to be reduced to an endless pissing contest)

Just wanted to point out that you, T, were the one who started up the pissing contest. One was merely astonished by BMD and what they were providing.

*underwhelmed* flickering.

Just to get back on topic, this update doesn't include the sharper ProRes for the BMCC 2.5k? I would assume they would list that in the release notes instead of shoehorn it into "general stability improvements." Surely, something has changed with this update?

Just to get back on topic, this update doesn't include the sharper ProRes for the BMCC 2.5k? I would assume they would list that in the release notes instead of shoehorn it into "general stability improvements." Surely, something has changed with this update?

I didn't notice any performance changes at all.

Has anybody noticed any lens compatability changes? I meant to dust off my 24-70 L V1 to test it last night but got distracted.

update:
OK, I tested it and still no iris control. It is stuck on F2.8 which is where I had it set from my DLSR however when I pointed it at a light source the display changed to F22 however it did not actually change the setting in the lens. Strange the display would read 2.8 or 22 nothing in between.

I´ll come back in a couple of years to see if they have done anything to update BMCC 2.5k...
Take your time Mr. Grant!!! It has been great to see so many BM films on the big festivals (sarcasm)

I don't think there is any noticeable changes in 1.6.1 for Pocket or 2k5 cameras. I rather believe "stability improvements" is a nice way to say "we found some bugs in our code and we fixed them on the way". There have been incidents of unexpected behavior, like ssds not found after restarting the camera (2k5), or sd cards not found after switching from raw back to prores (pocket cam) - i believe the second one is gone now.

After updating to FW 1.5.1 my Tokina 28-70 2.8 EF isn't working as before! There is no Iris change in the Lens.
Before the FW Update that Lens works perfect, it's so disappointing.

Is it possible to install a older FW on the Camera?

Kind regards

My Tokina 28-70 2.8 has never worked properly, sometimes the iris button works, but the iris never changes when you hit the iris buttons. I was hoping the stability improvements might be more lens compatibility, but no ...

well aware of the type of COMPRESSION in use.. on both cameras

just tying to keep in fun and light hearted..

on a side note, sure missed those compressed bits while watching the Amazing Spider Man...or not

(we get it JB, but not EVERYTHING on here needs to be reduced to an endless pissing contest)

Just wanted to point out that you, T, were the one who started up the pissing contest. One was merely astonished by BMD and what they were providing.

actually I didnt, was just having a little fun.

one was merely claiming that bmd was "miraculous".. and I added a comment to the contrary, a factual one at that!

bye now!!

just tying to keep in fun and light hearted..

So missinformation / starting missinformed rumors is your idea of fun and Light heartedness? Seriously?

I am glad for every one like JB, Adam etc that come here to share "factual" knowledge.. or simply "correct" said missinformation..

Is it possible to install a older FW on the Camera?

Simply download the firmware version you would like to run on the camera. Run the included uninstaller then install that version.

Launch the camera utility, connect the camera and "update" as usual.

If the firmware version on the camera is different from the version of the camera utility you will get a message stating you camera needs an update. This is the case even if the firmware on camera is newer than that of the camera utility.

I hope .... But No erase sd ...
what news ???

I really don't get the "need" for formatting. Sure it would be nice to have but you have to dump your footage so it's really a non issue to format the card while it's connected to the computer. Then it's ready for its next use.

Of way more importance would be a space remaining indicator that would save having to check the elapsed record time and then working out how much might be left.

need for formatting is to allow you to sweep a card clean when you need in a hurry and either you fogot to sweep it on download OR your AC/DIT did. Or perhaps you downloaded at the office and forgot to sweep and now you are in the field without your computer.

It's a no brainer to include it....every other pro camera out there can do it, even the non-pro cameras.

The way I see it BM is performing miracles getting SD cards to write RAW.

i thought that was r3d ..writing RAW, to CF CARDS!!!

oh wait, BMD invented everything...I forgot

Writing lossless RAW for sure. All R3D is compressed.

JB

but isn't the pocket shooting compressed raw as well JB?

just tying to keep in fun and light hearted..

So missinformation / starting missinformed rumors is your idea of fun and Light heartedness? Seriously?

I am glad for every one like JB, Adam etc that come here to share "factual" knowledge.. or simply "correct" said missinformation..

Hi there, slamming me doesnt make you right, thank goodness.

I posted that red had developed shooting to cf cards in their cameras, if, and when, YOU'd take the time to not hop the JB, Adam, etc bandwagon, and possibly read and understand my post for what it was (a true factual statement) then perhaps the needless bickering and hijacking would slow just a little.

Not only are/were cf cards inferior to sdhc technology, but the ability to shoot to them on red cams is years old.
Heck, you can FORMAT them in camera, a miracle indeed!

Then JB jumps in with the but red is shooting 'compressed'.. which the pocket is as well, then its "lossy vs lossless compession", then its.....

No rumors, no misinformation, no incorrectness. None.
Show me one thread where I started a rumor, or misinformed anyone. I know youre mad, but I'll give you all the time you need to find any such posts, from me.

Its not that big of a deal, BUT, if you want to run your mouth about speaking facts, how about you give it a go sometime.
m'kay big fella?

No rumors, no misinformation, no incorrectness. None.
Show me one thread where I started a rumor, or misinformed anyone. I know youre mad, but I'll give you all the time you need to find any such posts, from me.

The way I see it BM is performing miracles getting SD cards to write RAW.

i thought that was r3d ..writing RAW, to CF CARDS!!!

That was the culprit, and you know it perfectly well. You implied that RED already years ago managed to write RAW (implying the same "kind of RAW") to even slower CF cards.
It's a pretty pretty pretty big difference if you write _lossy_ compressed RAW vs. _lossless_ compressed RAW. It's not that hard to comprehend that many people have problems with you leaving out / ignoring that important bit of information.
Back in the day it was needed to make "RAW" possible at all, but at the same time it was of course a burden because of the intensive processing required to uncompress it (in REDs case).
And it's perfectly possible to set the compression ratio so high to get _visible_ artefacts even with RED.

I'm not mad at all, just tired of certain peoples "acidness" and their need to constantly sprinkle it over everything...
Still hoping that this forum becomes nicer again with the BMC4K finally shipping, hopefully a firmware update will give some more peace as well.. but I'm not that positive, some people just enjoy being vile I guess...

Let's keep away from the personal attacks. These forums are for help/advice about our products, not anything else. As I've always stated, you're free to talk about anything that pertains to the company/products as long as it doesn't violate the terms you've agreed to when signing up for the forums.

That was the culprit, and you know it perfectly well. You implied that RED already years ago managed to write RAW (implying the same "kind of RAW") to even slower CF cards.

Acidness? Thats your new attack?
Not implying anything, red did already manage to write RAW to cf cards..lol

perhaps you are the only filmmaker that wishes to dismiss Redcode.
Bayer data is RAW (compressed, lossy, or otherwise)
"pretty pretty petty big difference" - yeah HUGE difference in 4k, vs 1080p

Still waiting on the rumors or misinformation that I spread, and some "facts" ..not your opinion

Better yet, how about you take it as me poking a little (factual) fun (which I said it was from the get go), nothing acidic about it..unless you choose to see everything that way..?

Either way, I am done with it, and you.

Auf Wiedersehen

I apologize that I'm adding to the off-topic comments of this thread, but can we keep this thread for the 1.6.1 update only—not feature requests or arguing about r3d compression. Those need to be new threads. It makes it very hard to visit the forum and catch up on actual, important information.

I can confirm now the Sigma 19mm MFT lens now displays aperture and is now adjustable on the BMPCC. AF still doesn't work (not that I care).

I'm still on 1.5.1 (BMCC)
Anything on the audio side?
Does it worth the upgrade?

I would have guessed there was a virtually imperceptible difference between those types of raw compression.

The devil is in the detail Marc.

Compression has been a means to an end mainly because we've not had post infrastructure ( or camera media ) that can support uncompressed.

Lossy compression inherently means you loose information that can't be recovered.

Just like the way we know h264 can look great until you actualy want to grade it, so it is in varying degrees with compression. Obviously the less compression the less difference.

So you get marketing speak with phrases like "visually lossless" which are true. Your eyes can't pick it. But it depends on what you're doing with the material.


JB

John can I enquire about what compression ratio you run on the REDs you use? Where have you found the sweet spot?

I'm still on 1.5.1 (BMCC)
Anything on the audio side?
Does it worth the upgrade?

Audio seems to be the same between 1.5.1 and 1.6.1 on the original BMCC.

I'd always recommend updating to the latest version.

John can I enquire about what compression ratio you run on the REDs you use? Where have you found the sweet spot?

I usually run 7:1

But I work on long form TV drama. We shoot 2/3 cameras for 2-3 hours every day for weeks on end. I hate data wrangling on set so I have to have enough media to shoot for three days without backup. This allows enough time for the media to be split, usually twice a day and sent to post. It gets backed up and tech checked normally within 24 hours.

I want to have enough that I could isolate a cameras media AND have a public holiday which causes a 2/3 day turnaround for post ( say for a long weekend).

At higher than 7:1 it starts putting an onerous demand on media. You end up needing a LOT of cards. 3 cameras x 3 hours per day x 3 days. It's a crap load of data.

I found there isn't a great deal of improvement beyond 7:1. It can make a difference in very low light.

JB

Same here, we even use 8:1 most of the time. For very low light we go 5:1 and only for critical VFX work 3:1.

R3Ds are lossy compression. Once compressed the file is NOT the same as the original.

There's a big difference between those types of compression.

JB

This is something most people do not get.

I have seen a lot of bad material in r3d as the compression is so big (8:1).

Resolution does not help there at all.

Thanks for pointing this out!

Question/request to Blackmagic: Camera Utility 1.6.1 for Mac OS X requires at least Mac OS X 10.8 while previous versions also ran under 10.7. Since many of us are working on older Mac Pros that can't be updated beyond 10.7 without hacks, it would be great to reintroduce 10.7 compatibility.

(I assume that this shouldn't be difficult since the actual operating system-specific program code of Camera Utility must be rather simple, and it's likely just a question of the libraries/XCode version used to compile the code.)

I had to try...

I can confirm the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM still has no iris control on the BMCC. Such a cool lens, I wish it would work.

Hello People!
do olympus EF lenses works for MFT version of BMCC after updating the latest firmware?
I'm a new black magic camera convert:).. this constant updates makes me anxious:))

this constant updates makes me anxious:))

If only that was true! We've been waiting for a substantial update for a while. I didn't install 1.5.1 because it didn't include BMCC stuff, but 1.6.1 mentioned the BMCC so I did that.

For the record, I love the camera. The sensor is magical. I don't bother recording sound with it at all. Plural Eyes is every BMCC owners friend

If only that was true! We've been waiting for a substantial update for a while. I didn't install 1.5.1 because it didn't include BMCC stuff, but 1.6.1 mentioned the BMCC so I did that.

For the record, I love the camera. The sensor is magical. I don't bother recording sound with it at all. Plural Eyes is every BMCC owners friend

It's a great camera when it works, but so far the BMCC has proven to be nowhere near as dependable as the Pocket. I had to send my BMCC in for repair because the power supply died, and around three weeks after I got it back it flaked big time in the middle of a shoot, first whiting out the image, then showing me 5 smaller images and one big one, overlapping. Very odd behavior, basically acting as if the shutter was broken.

And today my BMCC drained its battery and shut down during a shoot... even though it was connected to AC power. And it's not charging. So I probably can't install the latest update on it anyway, since it won't even stay on long enough to open the menu window. I'm hoping that it's the v-mount plate that's hosed rather than the camera, but not terribly optimistic about it.

Regarding sound, BMD's made it abundantly clear that they simply don't care. Even Resolve's audio support is mediocre, demonstrating that it's not just the camera teams that don't take sound seriously.

I would have guessed there was a virtually imperceptible difference between those types of raw compression.

The devil is in the detail Marc.

Compression has been a means to an end mainly because we've not had post infrastructure ( or camera media ) that can support uncompressed.

Lossy compression inherently means you loose information that can't be recovered.

Just like the way we know h264 can look great until you actualy want to grade it, so it is in varying degrees with compression. Obviously the less compression the less di
So you get marketing speak with phrases like "visually lossless" which are true. Your eyes can't pick it. But it depends on what you're doing with the material.


JB

John can I enquire about what compression ratio you run on the REDs you use? Where have you found the sweet spot?

i use 9:1 and try to not go over 12:1

I will try the update today and hopefully my Tamron 70-200 2.8 will start working! It really pisses me of
I'll let you guys know what I found different and if any other lens stopped working.