Blackmagic Forum

This is a calc sheet for quickly getting the data rates of the most used resolutions and codecs in Blackmagic cameras. You'll get the data rates per second to see if your storage media is fast enough. And the data rates per hour, so you know how much storage you will need.

Update v4c 26.04.2021: Bugfixes and additions

• Added: Parallel to the release of Camera Firmware 7.3 now the new Q1 and Q3 BRAW modes are calculated for PCC6k and PCC4k; and Q0 and Q5 have been adapted to the new compression schemes
• Added: .xls version for fans of very old Excel 97-2003 (together with Open/Libreoffice .ods and modern Excel .xlsx versions)
• Fixed: first 2 columns and rows are set to "fixed" now so they don't scroll with the rest of the sheet
• Fixed: a few minor formula bugs have been fixed

Update v4b 08.04.2021: Bugfixes and additions

• Added: now the new Pocket 6k Pro (PCC6k Pro) can be selected. Including its Q1 and Q3 BRAW modes
• Fixed: Kilobytes conversion for some BRAW rows where it did not switch to base 1000 from 1024
• Fixed: some BRAW constant quality compression values do differ from camera to camera, for example Q0 has a different range on the PCC4k than on the PCC6k. I've changed the calculations in the list to reflect this

Update v4a 09.02.2021: Major rework

• added a custom column where you can select from a predefined list of Blackmagic cameras and their respective available shooting resolutions and ratios. This makes Calc Sheet much more flexible. For example you can now also calculate the data rates for 2.40:1 or anamorphic modes.
• Input fields for Bytes Conversion / Camera Model / Shooting Resolution are now drop down menus where you can select from a list. Horizontal and Vertical Resolution cells are then auto-populated with the correct values.
• The increased flexibility should make it even more useful. And I can now easily add upcoming cameras and shooting modes

Update v3b 22.07.2020:

• added the extra 16 pixels around the sensor which BMD uses for demosaicing and other stuff to the calculation
• it is possible to change the Byte conversion from 1024 (Win PC) to 1000 (Apple OS), the latter reflects exactly the way BMD calculates the data rates - the Apple OS way.
• Sheet PW protected against manipulation except for the two input fields. If you need to edit for your own needs, send me a PM

Initial Release v3a 21.07.2020:
LibreOffice ODT and MS Excel XLSX included.

• It not only shows MB/s now, but also calculates the GB/h for most codecs.
  (not for BRAW Q0 - Q5, because of cell space constraints).
• And I have added several of the resolutions of the latest UMP 12K

You can type in your FPS in the sunny yellow cell and the sheet will auto-recalculate all data rates.



* I haven't included audio stream data into the calculation - because honestly it doesn't matter.


Download latest calc sheet here:


Previous version for pre firmware 7.3 users:

Please post your feedback / found errors in this thread.

Robert Niessner wrote:
** I haven't found a way yet to implement a clickable checkbox for more select-able features like Res = anamorphic or so in the sheet, every way I tried did not work out the way I intended it to be.

Excellent sheet! I'll download it once you get the 12K numbers.

As to your problem look at the concatenate function, that may solve it for you, based on how your sheet is set up.

Thanks Robert, that's super useful!

Congrats! Lot of work.
Works very good in Apple Numbers.
I see 18:1 in BMPCC 4k. It's an anticipation of the next firmware?

Great work Robert


Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando Tapatalk

OK, CaptainHook send me an answer which explains the discrepancies:

1. BMD cameras do have an extra 16px around the sensor extra to the nominal resolution for demosaicing purposes. So that means to add 2x16px to the horizontal and vertical resolution

2. It seems the team was using 1 MB = 1000 Bytes while I was using 1 MB = 1024 Bytes

So I will add the extra pixels to the sheet in an update, but I will keep it at 1 MB = 1024 Bytes and might add this as a user set-able later.

Update v3b released.

Robert Niessner wrote:Update v3b released.

Thanks for sharing this.

No problem opening it in Numbers.

Update v4a released. Major rework of the whole sheet interna.

Excellent! Thanks for the work! Very useful!

Robert Niessner wrote:Update v4a released. Major rework of the whole sheet interna.

This would make a very useful forum sticky.

Update v4b released. Numerous bugfixes and PCC6k Pro with its new options has been added.

Robert Niessner wrote:Update v4b released. Numerous bugfixes and PCC6k Pro with its new options has been added.

Thank you for your kind work and contribution to this. It has been very helpful to have such a calc tool.

Super helpful Robert. Really amazing. Thank you.

I'm a first time user of spreadsheets, and this calc sheet is impressive. I downloaded this Numbers app on my iPad and immediately found a way to change resolution and frame rate.

I guess this spreadsheet is fixed. When I delete a column, exclamation marks appear in some cells.

Many thanks, Robert.

Edit: columns can be deleted, just not those two above the resolution cells.

Phil999 wrote:I'm a first time user of spreadsheets, and this calc sheet is impressive. I downloaded this Numbers app on my iPad and immediately found a way to change resolution and frame rate.

I guess this spreadsheet is fixed. When I delete a column, exclamation marks appear in some cells.

Many thanks, Robert.

Yeah, you should not temper with the columns - that might break the formulas.
Did you want to remove unnecessary entries for your needs? I can customize it for you if you tell me want you want to stay and what not.

thank you Robert, this is very kind of you. In the meantime I'm quite close to rearranging the sheet for my purpose (Pocket 4k only). Looking good.

I'll ask here in this thread when I need some help.

Phil999 wrote:thank you Robert, this is very kind of you. In the meantime I'm quite close to rearranging the sheet for my purpose (Pocket 4k only). Looking good.

I'll ask here in this thread when I need some help.

You can select the PCC4k in the orange field and then it will auto-populate column B with PCC4k only.

Update v4c released. A few bugfixes and new BRAW Q0 / Q1 / Q3 / Q5 options have been added to reflect the changes of the latest camera firmware 7.3.

Thanks again Robert. Excellent work.

Awesome job again Robert, very useful and up to date working fine in Apple Numbers.

Thanks for posting Robert! Super helpful.

AJA Data calc. does not have the BMD cameras.

I just learned that BMD has changed around a bit for the UMP12k what BRAW compression means, so currently with the UMP12k the calc sheet is only correct at certain resolutions and constant modes. Q modes apparently have completely changed.

I will updated the sheet as soon as I find some spare time because those changes make everything more complicated for me.

a new release for this valuable tool ?

Videobegin wrote:a new release for this valuable tool ?

Yeah, it’s about time. But Blackmagic made it quite complicated for me with those variables to reflect everything in this calc sheet. I have to rethink the sheet structure.

Robert Niessner wrote:

Videobegin wrote:a new release for this valuable tool ?

Yeah, it’s about time. But Blackmagic made it quite complicated for me with those variables to reflect everything in this calc sheet. I have to rethink the sheet structure.

This is only for the 12K, right. Otherwise the calc sheet is very useful for all the other cameras. Thanks Robert.

Newbie to 6K. I've been working with 3840x2160 (1.77) capture from my PCC 4K camera, exported to UHD.
If I upgrade to a PCC 6k I'll be capturing 6144x3456 (1.77). This will increase by 1.6X the horizontal resolution which I understand is required to get actual 3840 detail.

But, I'm totally confused by:
How to reduce 6144 to 3840 (UHD). A downscale of 1.6.
How to reduce 3456 to 2160 (UHD). A downscale of 1.6.
Will this 1.6 downscale eliminate the claimed value of shooting 6144?

How/when to downscale:
* Simply create UHD timeline and let Resolve handle the problem.
* Create a 6144x3456 timeline and downscale during export. What's the best way?
* Set the Input Scale to auto-scale during import. Resolve will do the downscale of imported clips to a UHD timeline.
* Buy Studio and Super Scale at some point--maybe before export.

The question of scaling has become relevant to the Canon EOS M + Magic lantern users who simply upscale under 1920x1080 footage to 1920x1080 or even to 3840x2160. As long as upscale creates the desired number of pixels, they are happy! For example, 950 to 1080. I think a 1.37 upscale will result in a softer image than would importing and applying a mask/crop to cover the missing lines. (I am comfortable with a 2.00 upscale from 1080 to 2160.) Am I simply being old fashioned? Thank you for your help.

Using the 6K recordings in an UHD timeline will give you a nice oversampled image quality for all following operations. The only exception where I'd consider working in a 6K timeline is NR, if your machine can handle that. You can experiment with the different scaling algorithms to your hearts delight.

Upscaling is a very different issue. Neither SuperScale nor even TVAI can work miracles. If you have a project that consist dominantly of HD sources, I'd consider working in HD and let the TV do the upscaling. Most current TVs do a pretty good job.

Thank you for your reply. My main question is how 6k is converted to 4k to get the benefits of over sampling.

Let DR do that job. You can even work in a HD timeline and only switch to UHD before final rendering if your hardware is challenged. But never upscale a HD timeline to UHD on the Deliver page (you'll even get a warning).