Blackmagic Forum

Okay, I've searched, and I'm just not getting the answers I need. Hopefully someone just shakes their head and says: "Aw, I remember when I had my first Blackmagic Cinema Camera" and takes pity on me.

BMCC came today. Excited. It's out of the box, on the rig, with a lens. Nada--can't do anything with it.
I knew peripherals were involved, so I'm patient. But I would like to at least get an image and start playing around.

This is what I've got: mid-2010 Mac Pro Quad-Core 2.8ghz Mac, and that's about it. It doesn't have Thunderbolt and never will, and it doesn't have USB 3.0...yet.

I broke the bank on the camera and lenses so I'm hoping that a new computer purchase is not one of the 'peripherals' I'm going to need.

Imagine that somewhere down the road I want to shoot a feature and be able to store, edit, color grade and finish that pup. That's where I'm headed. In the meantime, I'm going to dust off my cinematography skills that have been sitting on a shelf for the past couple of years and have some fun. But I will be shooting mostly RAW, that's why I bought the camera, so even starting out I've got to be able to handle that.

But I can't even format a drive at this point. Do I just get some cheap docking solution for the SSD or do I go for something with a little more muscle? If we're talking a feature, I'm guessing 20TB minimum for rushes. How do I array all of that? (The last feature I did was shot on film; pure digital workflows with this kind of image/storage issues is brand new to me).

What is the setup I need to build in order to format drives, import RAW footage, grade and proxy in Davinci so I can cut in FCP and get my XML cut list to finalize back in Davinci? Are the drives in the Mac fast enough or do I need some PCI card something or other. I know I need monitors, etc, for grading--which I can research separately. I'm just looking for the barebones start up with what I've got to be able to start shooting and cutting.

I appreciate any help! Thanks!

There are a lot of questions in here actually! Let me see if I can help get you started.

In the FAQ, there's a few threads you might want to check out. The "Show Your Gear" thread and any of the threads in the "Accessory Discussion" category might be of interest to you. Here's a thread specifically for SSD docks: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8752

For questions about Resolve, you might want to head over to the Post Production section of the forum. For your setup though, you should get started with the Configuration Guide. It will tell you if your computer is capable of handling Resolve or what you'll need to upgrade to.

The Thunderbolt port on the camera is for connecting to a computer to upgrade your firmware. In order to transfer footage from your SSD to your computer, you will need an SSD dock.

I hope that helps! If you have any other questions, let us know.