Thu Apr 10, 2014 8:04 pm
Kristian Lam wrote on April 10, 2014:
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Hi,
I know there are some concerns that we are no longer supporting the Blackmagic Cinema Camera or Pocket Cinema Camera. I just want to assure you that this is not the case.
Let me give you some background information about the development and why it is taking longer than expected.
The Blackmagic Cinema Camera was our very first foray into cameras and since then, we have shipped 3 more cameras, the Pocket Cinema Camera, Production 4K and the Studio Camera.
The original 2.5K camera had fundamental architectural differences in firmware compared to the other cameras which doubled the effort when trying to do any bug fixes or add new features to the cameras. As such, we knew we had to re-architect the firmware so as to bring it up to speed with the current cameras. This is not simple and taking longer than we thought. However, we are close now, close enough that beta versions have been seeded to some users for the past few months.
We should be able to see an update, as I'd mentioned in my post, to the 2.5K camera and Pocket Cinema Camera soon with the features below:
1. New debayering for shooting directly to ProRes or DNxHD on the Blackmagic Cinema Camera EF and MFT
2. Improved MFT lens support on the Pocket Cinema Camera
3. Compressed RAW support on the Production Camera 4K
4. Autofocus support for EF lenses on Blackmagic Cinema Camera EF and Production Camera 4K
What is also in this release are also certain hooks that are required for audio level metering and histogram display. It won't be visible as yet but will allow us to quickly followup with an update to add these 2 tools we know you guys are asking for.
Let me also answer some other questions I've been asked below:
• Formatting of media
Yes, we want to do this. A large part of the work has been completed so I don't believe this will be a big effort to implement. However, it is very unlikely that we will support deleting of clips directly in camera due to the risk of media fragmentation.
• Time Remaining indicator
Yes, this is going to happen. It's probably in the next update or an update after.
• Black Sun effect
This is a fundamental characteristic of CMOS sensors. Some sensors have additional circuitry to try and overcome this and this was available in the Pocket Cinema Camera. Unfortunately, it is not in the 2.5K sensor. Also, black sun correct circuitry is also not an on/off switch and with some sensors, it may result in other unwanted artefacts so we have to be really careful about it. Another method of overcoming the black sun effect is via image processing after the image has been acquired and passed on from the sensor. This is basically running an algorithm to try and detect what looks like the black sun and just clipping the black areas. Again, this could result in false positives and if you have a pattern in the image that is similar to the black sun, it could mistakenly be "corrected" as well. As you can see, this is a tricky situation. We are not ignoring it, but working to see what is the best way to address this.
I hope this gives you more information about what we're currently up to. I'm tempted to keep this thread locked as it tends to go off topic but I'll leave it open for now. Please try and keep on topic.
Thanks
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Thanks very much for the communication, Kristian. Communication is good. Of course, I'd prefer greater specificity, especially a drop-dead date by which BMD plans to deliver the next firmware update -- one that actually benefits current camera owners & users (as described above).
It's a bit disconcerting that you don't even mention some critical bugs in the current cameras, such as the BMCC's audio frequency/quality issue (broken after FW1.2), or the FPN issue reported by many BMPC-4K users, etc.
As a BMPC-4K owner I'm concerned by your description of the "black sun" (actually magenta) artifact which can occur on overexposed highlights. At least with the BMCC, anything that is overly-clipped could be converted to pure white and it will "look" fine (highlights are white anyway).
But the BMPC-4K's black-ish/magenta-ish clipping is another mater. What happens to real magenta-colored objects that are actually in the scene? Do they get converted to white, or will BMD will handle it in such a way that this won't be an issue? As you say, depending how this issue is handled, the result could be undesirable, such as a decrease in dynamic range, etc.
I believe it was suggested by someone else that perhaps the BMCC and BMPC-4K might gain an additional menu item (a user pref) to allow switching between a "normal" recording mode (e.g.: the same as the cams work now in regards to black/magenta sun), and a "safe" recording mode (e.g.: converts extreme clipped highlights to white, but with slightly reduced overall DR). This way the user could choose a recording mode appropriate for a scene before recording begins. Not an ideal solution, but just a suggestion.
Concerning audio: I realize many users never use a video camera's audio recording capability to record sound from external sources, but I'm one of the people who would greatly prefer to do this more often than not. I hate synching audio in post, and I prefer having audio and video assets in the same file (usually ProRes) so the audio can't get lost/misplaced over time. Point is, in-camera audio recording is important to me, so anything and everything BMD can do to improve this capability in their cams gets my vote. But that's just me, other users have different priorities.
Because BMD has been so incredibly slow, late, and tone deaf in addressing these (and other) issues, I can't say I'm happy about the situation. In the past I've cut you guys a lot of slack because you're new to the camera game, but my patience has worn very thin.
As they say in tennis, the ball is in BMD's court.
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but it actually does feel good to know you guys are hearing us. And when you explain specifics like why the black hole sun is such a problem that makes it easier to accept.
