"Veryyyyy cool stuff" in next firmware?

ok.

Well, now with the shipment update i only have the question about when will be released the new firmware and what will include. I´m thinking to buy or not the camera. Some solutions like slow motion, repair EF lens issues, etc... will be the key for me to buy this camera or wait to a version 2 of BMCC.

Well, now with the shipment update i only have the question about when will be released the new firmware and what will include. I´m thinking to buy or not the camera. Some solutions like slow motion, repair EF lens issues, etc... will be the key for me to buy this camera or wait to a version 2 of BMCC.

boas tardes galego!!!!

Forget about more than 30p on this camera, they've always stated it will never be more than 30p. Maybe in a new version of the camera ...but not on this.

Jesus

Well, now with the shipment update i only have the question about when will be released the new firmware and what will include. I´m thinking to buy or not the camera. Some solutions like slow motion, repair EF lens issues, etc... will be the key for me to buy this camera or wait to a version 2 of BMCC.

boas tardes galego!!!!

Forget about more than 30p on this camera, they've always stated it will never be more than 30p. Maybe in a new version of the camera ...but not on this.

Jesus

Boas compañeiro!

I didn´t know that they never will do a slow motion options. This made me think if i want this camera, maybe FS700 is the best solution.

Boas desde Catalunya!!!

Well, if you only do slowmotion...Fs700 is your camera....but if you want a filmic 13 DR and raw 12 bit at 2.5k resolution camera, then BMCC is your camere, and you can always hire a Fs700 for 200€ a day.

Jesus

I'm wanting to know if the firmware that will ship in January-March with my particular camera will "fix" the more obvious shortcomings: f/stop readout, audio meters, exfat, record capacity, "black dots", etc. Even while knowing that the camera shipment is getting closer, I am beginning to have doubts about my pre-order purchase. Maybe it would have been better to w8 until there are BMCs on shelves and clear specifications have been published.

Boas desde Catalunya!!!

Well, if you only do slowmotion...Fs700 is your camera....but if you want a filmic 13 DR and raw 12 bit at 2.5k resolution camera, then BMCC is your camere, and you can always hire a Fs700 for 200€ a day.

Jesus

Or you can just hire Phantom
Slomo is so over done in some aspects.

The firmware team are working separately to the manufacturing side.

Surely it's a positive thing that they are continuing to update and improve the camera dispite the hiccup to manufacturing.

BMD haven't said a single thing about the new firmware. It was me. I simply said there was some cool stuff coming on twitter. It wasnt an official announcement, and I'm not a BMD spokesman and am generally very restricted in what I can say. This however is not them running a PR campaign. It was me, being excited about where things are going with the privileged insight that I have working within the bounds of what I'm allowed to talk about.

If I'd said nothing, then BMD would simply release the new firmware and everyone would know about it when that happens.

BMD run a very closed and tight shop. In the way that Apple manage to keep most things secret, it is the way BMD "choose" to operate. You might hate it and disagree with it. But it's their company. And they aren't like other companies. They very much do things their way and that is their right to do so. If you don't like it then don't support them by buying their product. If they promise something that they don't deliver to you then cancel your order.

Yelling and screaming about what is "right" isn't going to change their mindset. I'm sharing this because I know these guys. The fact that they don't "talk" leads to suspicion about what's going on. I think they're ok with that given that this forum is one of the most hostile I've ever participated in. They let it all stand, for everyone to read. Right now, I can barely bring myself to even bother to respond here to those that have genuine questions about the camera because every response is turned into a discussion about shipping. Yeah it's frustrating. We all know and share that.

The fact is, they are working on stuff. Wheels are tuning. A new version of firmware shows this is the case.

BMD don't talk about manufacturing. You will never see a photo of the assembly line. No one even knows where the cameras are made. They will never ever say how many cameras they can make a week. You will never get this kind of information about this camera.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with this but explaining because BMD don't explain why they aren't communicating.

I'm just stating an undocumented BMD policy. I'm trying to explain that this is at the core of how BMD are. Whatever your expectations are of a customer relationship is, they have their way of doing it and this is how they do it. To jump up and down and demand answers won't change their way.

Quite frankly, I was amazed that Grant himself started posting. And when he does post, he goes into a lot of detail that I wouldn't expect from any regular "big" company. And he doens't even choose to respond when told he should resign from the company he built from the ground up.

They have been around for a long time. Clearly they have done well enough using this approach to become as large as they are today. These guys are different. They haven't gone to PR school or management school to learn how to do this. For better or worse.

What they are very good at is listening and innovating. They just don't look like they're listening. They just dont talk about it. They let the gear do the talking. So the fact they can't even do that right now means theres an apparent silence.

Look at the new firmware release and even the one that is to come. It shows that they are listening and that they can react very quickly, especially when all the processes are under thier control ( like software dev).


JB.

John, I'm sure you know that there are a bunch of us who aren't whining and complaining about the sensor cover. We're patiently waiting to get our hands on this new gear. At the same time appreciating all the people for posting their work with the camera and sharing what they believe works and doesn't work as far as gear or process go. Keep it coming please. Don't let the good energy get weighed down by the noise.

Dear John Brawley,

Please accept my huge thanks for the your posts showcasing the capabilities of the Black Magic Cinema Camera, the quality of the images and test material posted is a great advert for both the BMCC and your work as a cinematographer.

I’m also grateful for all your rumours and posts regarding the camera and its future capabilities. Most of us who have worked under corporate NDA agreements, completely understand how you can only share, what you are allowed to share. I think rumour and speculation add to the desirability of a product, and BMD, with your help, certainly do that very well for the BMCC.

However I’m sorry to have to say, I believe posting your insights into BMD’s business practices doesn’t really help, especially when so much misguided & unsupportable information is included.

It is almost like you are describing a company that chooses to spy on its customers to gain industry knowledge, rather than have an active conversation with them to learn the priorities and needs of those customers.

I think it might be misleading to make comparisons between BMD and Apple, when BMD are a tiny supplier in a very small; niche & complex industry, whereas Apple are perhaps one of the most important, consumer technology leading companies in the world. You make statements like such as; “you were surprised to see Grant posting himself”, when Steve Jobs, continuing your comparison, was famous for his late night “genius put-downs” of his critics in defence of the “Apple vision”.

Finally and the reason I post this message at all, is I’d like to understand a little regarding your background reasoning ; to understand the statement you make about their reaction times with regards to the their software development decisions, and the impacts of those decisions, which can often be far more costly to clients than the equipment itself? No worries, if this topic is covered by your NDA, but unsupported statements are a little hard to accept when they go against all anecdotal evidence in the established areas of BMDs business (i.e. all none BMCC products).

Kind Regards

John Bengston

Finally and the reason I post this message at all, is I’d like to understand a little regarding your background reasoning ; to understand the statement you make about their reaction times with regards to the their software development decisions, and the impacts of those decisions, which can often be far more costly to clients than the equipment itself? No worries, if this topic is covered by your NDA, but unsupported statements are a little hard to accept when they go against all anecdotal evidence in the established areas of BMDs business (i.e. all none BMCC products).

All I'm trying to do is explain that the apparent silence is a chosen silence. They aren't ignoring their users. They certainly hear everything being said here on these forums, even when they get ridiculous and insulting. I get called an "apologist" for simply trying to explain this. The howls of indignation here come from the idea that one isn't being heard.

I guess I'm trying to offer some insight into their culture. It's still the views of an outsider, so these inferences are my own, not stated policy that you'll find on the wall as a mission statement at BMD. But lecturing them on how to do it is the kind of thing that make them more determined to do it "their way".

All they've ever heard for their entire corporate history is "it can't be done and it if can, it should be done like this"....They actively like to prove these comments wrong....and instead of hyping it, they build it and ship it, for a fraction of what the market thinks it would cost. They have a history of hundreds of products where they've done exactly that. They are very protective of this core model and that's their mantra.

I dont think Grant is anything like Steve Jobs, which is exactly WHY it's unusual that he's out in front. Before he announced himself here on these forums, most assumed Dan May (US) was at the helm. BMD generally like to keep a low profile. They don't really showboat. Grant is a hardcore engineer - innovator, but his roots are engineering and manufacturing, not marketing...

I'm not really sure I really understand your question about the development times.

They have a huge list of things they could do when working on firmware, which by the way is constantly ongoing.

They take into account what people are asking for when they prioritise what they will do. They have this forum, and other selected voices that talk to them. I learned long ago, that I simply need to say what I think is important, and let them think about how to address it, if they even choose to. You should also know, that they consider themselves users of their own products. Many of the BMD team there come from post and from production.

When I first met Grant, he was a telecine engineer at a post company where I used to get rushes transferred. So they USE the gear not as the manufacture, but as an end user. Until recently, BMD operated a post facility in Singapore as part of this strategy.

So IS was going to get done further down the track, but a lot of people wanted and were asking, and it wasn't THAT difficult to do so they brought it forward.

Within a couple of months of the first cameras shipping, they'd implemented what you could argue was a feature, IS. Now you could also argue that it's something that should have been there from the beginning, but this is the way they chose to release the camera, though it was one that was actually talked about as coming soon.

They did of course, assume that there would be a lot more cameras out there by now too.

I sent a single tweet, which started two threads on two different forums speculating wildly about what would be in the update. It wasn't a policy or PR push from BMD. It was me.... As a DP, being excited by what I was seeing in the camera. Some of it stuff I'd asked for as well. A camera that I've informally had a hand in developing... There's no strategy or plan. It'll probably be monumentally disappointing when you see what's in it because of all this crazy speculation.

I was excited by what's in it, but I know what is and isn't possible with the hardware. Like the constant 60 FPS aspirations that refuse to go away, despite plenty of evidence it's not realistic...

Once you see the next update, you'll see more evidence that BMD are fast to react to what their customers ask for.

jb

John,

Thanks for the detailed reply. It's good to hear from someone who has known BMD, and specifically the people who make decisions for a long time.

I hope you are correct about the manner in which BMD conduct future updates to the camera, and their other products for that matter. I've only been a BMD customer (of pretty much every product) for around 5 years, and have only total respect for the engineers and the products they have produced.

I'm certain BMD have good and valid reasons for every decision they make, and that they believe that every decision they make is the best interest of their customers. In other words I have absolutely zero doubt that the people that make up the company are highly honourable.

Please understand you'll never ever see me ask for BMD to provide new features, or for shipping updates, as I believe firmly that customers should do due-diligence and confirm products meet their needs before purchase, and not complain they don't have something that wasn't there when they purchased a product.

However, if you examine the existing evidence, and look at all of BMD products and "so called" updates, at least over the 5 years I've been a user and reseller, you'll find they have a history of removing features and breaking working features. New firmware is a great thing when it introduces new features, but only when it doesn't break features that are already in place, and features that purchases were made because of. ATEM users have recently experienced this with a SD Down-converter problem, and Decklink OEM developers have had a continuous stream of changes and software breaks to deal with.

It's very easy to make generalisations and form incorrect conclusions due to confirmation bias on too little data. The BMCC camera is only at the very beginning of it's life, it is entirely possible many "new features" were planned long before BMD even launched their forums and started "listening" to customers, and therefore, when new features appear it seems like they are listening to customers, when in fact, they are simply implementing features they hadn't been finished at the time they launched the product.

More time and cycles of customer request, BMD solution need to occur before you can say they are behaving differently with regards to firmware / software updates as the history of changes to other products shows.

Please allow me to be clear, in 5 years use of BMD products, I can only report extremely positively about almost every piece of hardware they produce. The engineering excellence, I don't think can be questioned in any way. However, nothing I have experienced can support your view of the customer service experience users should expect from this company, and I know of many other seasoned industry professionals who feel the same way.

I think it's important if customers are new to BMD, and the BMCC camera is their first experience of the company, they should understand the customer service policy you have described in detail is an issue that should be considered when making their purchasing decisions.

And I 100% agree it's to BMD credit they allow potential customers to review all viewpoints on their own website.

The very best wishes, and looking forward to your next posts, showcasing the capabilities of what "could be", an industry leading product. I've certainly got my fingers cross for them.

John

I was just involved in a live feed with Philip Bloom where he drew for the prizes for his "Movember"/Film competition activities, and he mentioned that he was testing out his BMCC with upcoming firmware updates and simply commented "Very cool stuff coming for the BMCC!".. (paraphrasing)

Now both JB and PB are excited about upcoming updates.. and Grant announced the camera is going back into production! I'm very excited about this camera again!!

From OneRiverMedia aka Marco Solorio:

So I received permission from Blackmagic Design to talk about the latest Cinema Camera 1.2 beta firmware update I've been testing the last couple of weeks. It includes aperture readout on display, 2.5K rez time-lapse recording, exFAT format support, improved CinemaDNG file naming, better overlay options on SDI output, fix on RP188 output over SDI, and my Canon 35mm f/1.4L lens is working again! Gotta say, these are really nice improvements, as I was secretly using them on our shoot this past weekend (my crew didn't even know!). Yes, there are some wish list items missing in this release that I'd love to see, but I'm sure many features are still to come. And even if you don't have your camera just yet, at least you'll get it with added features we've been requesting and testing by the time it gets in your hands. More to follow! Cheers!

Wow...but sincerely I hoped 60p.

Very nice for Aperture display

Cool, thanks for the secret info!!!

I't is in beta this is why it is "secret"

Hope to see it pre installed on larger shipment to be.

Wow...but sincerely I hoped 60p.

Please note that 60p will never happen on this camera due to a limitation of the hardware. The chip overheats at that frame rate.

Very interested in seeing the new file naming improvements as the first version implementation was challenging at best for many post workflows, not to mention user metadata in the WAV file. Looking forward to see whatever changes there might be!

Michael

For me (even though Ive moved on) I would like to see higher frame rates.
But this option would be helpful as well:

Maybe NAB 2013 will be all about firmware updates that everyone wants/needs

Any idea when the firmware will be updated? I am shooting this weekend and the fstop read out would be awesome. Also more SDI overlays so I can match it easily to the Red.

From OneRiverMedia aka Marco Solorio:

So I received permission from Blackmagic Design to talk about the latest Cinema Camera 1.2 beta firmware update I've been testing the last couple of weeks. It includes aperture readout on display, 2.5K rez time-lapse recording, exFAT format support, improved CinemaDNG file naming, better overlay options on SDI output, fix on RP188 output over SDI, and my Canon 35mm f/1.4L lens is working again! Gotta say, these are really nice improvements, as I was secretly using them on our shoot this past weekend (my crew didn't even know!). Yes, there are some wish list items missing in this release that I'd love to see, but I'm sure many features are still to come. And even if you don't have your camera just yet, at least you'll get it with added features we've been requesting and testing by the time it gets in your hands. More to follow! Cheers!

Wow...but sincerely I hoped 60p.

Just to clarify, does exFAT support mean the drives used in the BMCC can be formatted so that they'll work with Windows natively, rather than having to be used in conjunction with MacDrive on PCs? We edit on Windows 7 PCs at work, so it'd be great to be able to just plug the drives into a dock and roll.

From OneRiverMedia aka Marco Solorio:

So I received permission from Blackmagic Design to talk about the latest Cinema Camera 1.2 beta firmware update I've been testing the last couple of weeks. It includes aperture readout on display, 2.5K rez time-lapse recording, exFAT format support, improved CinemaDNG file naming, better overlay options on SDI output, fix on RP188 output over SDI, and my Canon 35mm f/1.4L lens is working again! Gotta say, these are really nice improvements, as I was secretly using them on our shoot this past weekend (my crew didn't even know!). Yes, there are some wish list items missing in this release that I'd love to see, but I'm sure many features are still to come. And even if you don't have your camera just yet, at least you'll get it with added features we've been requesting and testing by the time it gets in your hands. More to follow! Cheers!

Wow...but sincerely I hoped 60p.

Just to clarify, does exFAT support mean the drives used in the BMCC can be formatted so that they'll work with Windows natively, rather than having to be used in conjunction with MacDrive on PCs? We edit on Windows 7 PCs at work, so it'd be great to be able to just plug the drives into a dock and roll.

Correctamundo!

does anybody know when this comes out or possibly how to get the beta?
im going up to the mountains on saturday and either aperture readings or timelapse would be amazing features to have.

I love to see waveforms and higher frame rates on the BMCC.

Hi Guys

I am sure we are all outstanding new firmware for the camera.

Anyone have news????

Is there a method to show cropmarks? This is something I'd consider very helpful.

This is indeed a function which i require in a CINEMA camera.
That was one of the main reasons to get the magic lantern firmware for the Canons.

It includes aperture readout on display [...] exFAT format support

Let's hope (at least) those two come with the BMPC 4K as well...!

When can we expect the long announced firmware update.
Kristian? Can you jump in and give us some information?

I kinda of understand the not being able to delete clips in camera issue, if it is a fragmentation issue (as has been suggested elsewhere on this forum...) but I'd REALLY at least like the option of formatting the drive in the camera

SSDs don't get fragmented
The issue from what I've seen is formatting to either the wrong filesystem or through a pile of adapters. Native formatting from a SATA connection should be 99.9% effective.

On topic: I'm hoping for crop marks and better audio (so I don't have to run a pre-amp from the mic).

SSDs don't get fragmented

They do. It just has negligible impact on normal use as the read and write speeds are so fast.

Writing video to an SSD is very different from normal use in a PC. The files are being written as a continues stream of data. If there is a slight delay in writing caused by fragmentation it will cause frame to get dropped.

I would be very happy to see :

1. ability to delete clips
2. f-stop indicator
3. ability to delete clips
4. audio meters
5. selectable framing guides
6. ability to delete clips

of course, until I get my camera, it makes little difference, and that isn't going to be anytime soon since I didn't order back in April.

1. i'd rather have the ability to know how much more I can film than delete clips.
2. this is already on there for active EF lenses, on the EF cam. the camera can't get lens data if the lens won't provide it.
3. see 1
4. yeah, and just a better audio recording. i want it to just take the feed from a mixer and save it, don't mess with my audio input
5. actually yes, blue painters tape tends to look a bit tacky.
6. see 1

1. Histogram
2. Audio monitoring
3. 60p

In that order.

1. Histogram
2. Audio monitoring
3. 60p

In that order.

I'm much less ambitious then that list...

Just fix the audio! No DC offset issue, no bass/eq roll off problems and in camera pre-amps that can boost the signal so that I can hear it (like back in firmware 1.2.1).


Jules

Just fix the audio! No DC offset issue, no bass/eq roll off problems and in camera pre-amps that can boost the signal so that I can hear it (like back in firmware 1.2.1).

AGREED! The camera shoots pretty pictures. It has a few quirks (i.e. shooting red coloured items with ProRes), but you can get beautiful images out of it. For the price - it's absolutely unbelievable. But the audio... is rubbish. Fixing the frequency attenuation issue is an easy fix (we know because it was fine in 1.2) - they should push this fix out as a priority.

I think the problem is that the camera only has a limited amount of internal storage and processing power, and the engineers don't want to "waste" any of it with lots of audio code - they want to save it for really cool features like auto-focus, which I can completely understand. But... to make this camera actually useful, we NEED decent audio recording that doesn't require huge amounts of post work.

The BMC is an odd beast. In my opinion it has too many limitations to be used for big projects - I'd much rather hire an Alexa or EPIC. The fact that it's so cheap and compact, it makes it ideal for doco and run-and-gun - but the lack of decent audio makes me think, why even bother trying to make this giant iPhone-like device work, when I'd be much better off investing in a C100/300.

Fix the audio - and the whole usefulness of the camera instantly changes, and we'll finally get the dream camera that was originally advertised.

OK... I'll shut up now.

Just fix the audio! No DC offset issue, no bass/eq roll off problems and in camera pre-amps that can boost the signal so that I can hear it (like back in firmware 1.2.1).

AGREED! The camera shoots pretty pictures. It has a few quirks (i.e. shooting red coloured items with ProRes), but you can get beautiful images out of it. For the price - it's absolutely unbelievable. But the audio... is rubbish...

the lack of decent audio makes me think, why even bother trying to make this giant iPhone-like device work, when I'd be much better off investing in a C100/300...

I selectively quoted your post Chris because that is exactly the message many people will remember and even quote in blogs and so on.

There must be two Chris Hockings posting here. Shortly after this post the other Chris Hocking posted a somewhat more encouraging view:
viewtopic.php?t=7829#p77806

Rick Lang
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

You misread my other post Rick. I wasn't being positive - I was merely saying that you can get good LEVELS using external microphones, and if you're not getting good levels, you either have a cabling or power issue. I never said the audio QUALITY was good - just the levels themselves. You still have all the pain of the frequency response issue, headphone noise, etc. Obviously I wasn't been clear enough - so I've updated the other thread.

You misread my other post Rick. I wasn't being positive - I was merely saying that you can get good LEVELS using external microphones, and if you're not getting good levels, you either have a cabling or power issue. I never said the audio QUALITY was good - just the levels themselves. You still have all the pain of the frequency response issue, headphone noise, etc.

Sorry, Chris, but the "good results" implied audio quality to me. I understand if you meant "good results in levels" so thanks for the clarification.

I value all your comments and the great effort you (and others) are doing to stay on top of the audio issues until the whole thing is working better. Bad news travels faster than good news, so my approach hopefully is to be cautious in the language used. That's all I was hoping to point out.

Here is where I thought your tone was much different than the previous post in this thread:
"A lot of people mistake low levels with phase cancellation problems. Check your cabling. As you can see in this thread, I have been able to get good results (ignoring DC offset, frequency attenuation, etc.) from external microphones using all versions of the firmware - it's just that the level scale changes in different firmware releases."

Rick Lang
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

My original comment is still accurate. I HAVE been able to get GOOD results using external microphones - it's the frequency attenuation issue that's the killer! Once this is fixed, I'll be happier. If they can improve the headphone output performance so you can actually monitor the audio without your head exploding, then I'll be really happy.