BMPCC Hot Pixels

Guys I'm pretty sure that's an old film effect and not "hot pixels"... Also according to the filmmaker this video was shot on an FS700 not a Blackmagic camera...

Corrupt Frame we've purchased 4 Blackmagic cameras so far and yes it happened on 2 of our BMPCC Cameras along with all the white pixels. You can read the review of the new 4K camera here where they have the same issues we did with white pixels appearing all over the footage. This is a different issue then the white orbs that appear every few frames.
http://www.cinema5d.com/news/?p=23587

Jeremy Jenkins

Yes I am aware that some people have had trouble with hot pixels on the pocket camera. To my knowledge I was the first person to report that on these forms. My camera was replaced by BM with one that was much better than the first. But all of the cameras will show hot pixels when lifting a very underexposed image.

I have explained about 100 times why we should not expect the camera to be 100% free of them and so have numerous other very knowledgeable users. So I'm not going to go into how compression and oversampling and all that other stuff hide them on DSLRS.

It is only a problem if you are seeing them in properly exposed footage.

If you are trying to bring up very underexposed footage then you can use the Dust and Scratches filter in After Effects to kill them...

Also like I said before the link to the video that EliasD shared does not show "hot pixels" it shows a vintage film effect. And it was shot on an FS700 not a Blackmagic camera...

What bothers me more than the 100 hot pixels in my underexposed images is the "white speckle phenomenon". I had a video shooting in very low light and although the BMPCC is not a low light camera, ASA 1600 is there to be used. And I had to use ASA 1600 quite often.

The thing is, that there are some white "speckles", which appear occasionally. They aren´t there permanently and when they show up, it´s only for one single frame! It almost looks like glowing dust and scretches on real film. These speckles look very different to hot pixels, but they don´t look like dust either. Dust doesn´t appear suddenly and only in one frame.

Any ideas of what´s wrong with my BMPCC?

Unfortunately, the "white speckle phenomenon", as you call it, was already present on the BMCC and still seems to be present on the BMPCC. I've seen it on 3 different BMCCs (from totally different batches) and two different BMPCCs. I haven't tried the BMPC4K yet.

See this post from January last year: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4269&hilit=low+light#p26328

Unfortunately, the "white speckle phenomenon", as you call it, was already present on the BMCC and still seems to be present on the BMPCC.

I see, thank you for the information.

As for the hot pixels: I was shooting a chase some days ago at ASA 1600 and it was very cold outside.
The footage is actually quite usable, because these nasty white pixels aren´t really noticeable. They almost behave and look like normal noise, as they are randomly blinking all over the image. There are hundreds of blinking white pixels, but as long as the camera stays cool, it´s not a big deal.


BUT the warmer the camera, the more white pixels stop blinking and become constantly glowing.


Summarized: As long as the camera is warm, the nasty glowing pixels strew the whole image at ASA 1600 and even at ASA 800! If I turn off the camera and let it cool down, the white pixels don´t constantly glow anymore and start to behave like random noise. I think that´s why some people can´t find "hot pixels" in their BMPCC footage, because the camera isn´t stressed and warm enough.
But that´s only a guess.

- Daniel

I wish i would get white pixels ... I have quite a big cluster of blue pixels that just dissappaer in total white, and its not moving, always on the same position. And the camera was cool, just out of the box. I can see the Pixelcluster even on the screen, always, except in to bright areas (zebra 95%).

Hi everybody,

I read all the posts about Hot pixel and didn't read anything like that occurs one my BMPC.

I have more than 100 hot pixels using the HDMI cable but nothing on ProRes. I can understand that compression algorithms can make disappears all those hot pixels (even with Prores and not only with H264 in other DSLR). I have not SDXC card now to test that on RAW files. I afraid by the idea the day i use raw, it will be like the HDMI. Because RAW files come from the sensor just before being converted to feed the HDMI port.

Does anyone have an issue on HDMI and not on Prores nor RAW files ?

The hot pixel using HDMI port are the same i see on this post (increasing the problem in ISO 800 and more with 1600)

thanks for your help and sorry for my bad english.

M

Hey guys, had my BMPCC for about 2 months now and I'm really starting to see lots of hot pixels in my prores files. It's not so evident at 100 ISO, mild in 200 ISO, pretty obvious at 400 ISO and very obvious at 800 ISO. The last two ISO settings I was pretty shocked with, the hot pixel count is in the 100s, especially at 800 ISO.

I've contacted Blackmagic support, but I haven't received any reply for over three days now. Can anyone advise me on this? Thanks.

800 is the pocket cameras native ISO setting, you should not see excessive hot pixels there. Literally hundreds is - in my opinion - a defect, that should be handled under warranty. Definitely get into contact with BMD!

It's very strange. I used my BMPC for a few weeks with firmware 1.7 without any problem. Last week I discovered four annoying hot pixels. With firmware 1.8 the same problem. After downgrade to firmware 1.6.2 the hot pixel
problem was gone (prores+raw+iso800). A very peculiar story.

Posted about this a few times, I thought the general consensus was as follows...

The pocket cam gets very hot when it's been recording continuously for more than about 15-20 minutes.

The hot pixels show up when the camera gets hot, especially at high ASAs and in dark/underexposed areas of the frame.

We've had 2 cams that exhibited this behaviour (one had the LCD replaced which made no difference then BMD gave us a new one which was the same too. At that point we decided it was a design flaw, others had exactly the same problem).

Thankfully, if you're a PC/Resolve/Vegas user there is a workaround.

Try Pixel Patcher, it's a free OFX plugin and I've found it's works pretty well.

Can't post the direct link as my phone browser doesn't want to so Google... Playtool.com pixelpatcher.

I also have this issue. When will Blackmagicdesign fix this issue? Is this really a hardware issue or has it to do with the firmware? This is very disappointing. I get pretty noticable white spots in properly exposed daylight footage with ASA 800. I force myself only to use ASA 100. Should it really be this way? Aren't the settings there because you should be able to use them? Normal noice is normal with high ISO. But I have never seen anything like this. ISO set to anything other than ASA 100 results in unusable footage. We hope to hear an official statement from BlackmagicDesign about this. This is not acceptable.

Thank you.

We hope to hear an official statement from BlackmagicDesign about this.

You won't usually hear official statements in this user forum - try to contact BM support directly!

Is this really a hardware issue or has it to do with the firmware?

Both. All sensor suffer from hot/stuck/dead pixels or subpixels / photosites, and over time they get more. That's normal, every camera has to deal with this effect. Usually there is some smart firmware code to detect and remove those defective pixels, but for some reason there either is no such code in BMD cameras, or it's not doing its job very well (at least in some cameras - i can't complain, i neither have hot pixels in my display or in recordings... for now).

So while this is a hardware "issue" (or rather a known limitation), it has to be dealt with in firmware.

IMO you shouldn't be seeing hot pixels at 200ASA (with the lens cap on) or even at 800 unless the camera is very hot.

On the cameras I've seen and talked to people about it's a high ASA and heat issue.

I'd send the camera back if you're seeing hot pixels at low ASAs with proper exposure, that's not normal or acceptable.

Personally I'm willing to put up with a few hot pixels in extreme conditons now they're fairly easy to remove in post (Pixel Patcher).

It's an amazing little camera but unfortunately, it's not perfect.

IMO you shouldn't be seeing hot pixels at 200ASA (with the lens cap on) or even at 800 unless the camera is very hot.

On the cameras I've seen and talked to people about it's a high ASA and heat issue.

I'd send the camera back if you're seeing hot pixels at low ASAs with proper exposure, that's not normal or acceptable.

Personally I'm willing to put up with a few hot pixels in extreme conditons now they're fairly easy to remove in post (Pixel Patcher).

It's an amazing little camera but unfortunately, it's not perfect.

I agree. Ok, thanks for explaining. My hot pixels appear even when the camera isn't warm. I wonder how many pixels there would be in extreme conditions. =/ Probably a lot more. Now, I see maybe 30 or 40 fixed big hot pixels on the highest ISO setting. Many are also visible in lower ISO. I'll return the camera for another pocket (oh, gosh. I hope it will work this time). I guess it can't go worse than this. I'm very unsatisfied customer so far. I really hope Blackmagicdesign will provide solutions for this. I'm still convinced that not all cameras could be as bad as mine. I will not give up yet.

I just received my BMPCC and noticed a lot of dead/hot pixels, even in well-lit 800 ASA 180° footage with a cold BMPCC, as long as there is a dark object/surface in the scene. With the lens-cap on I counted 46 dead pixels.
I have to shoot with my BMPCC this summer, so I can't send it back right away. Is there an elegant way to fix this in resolve at clip level ?

You could average some black frames and use that as a darkframe - speaking subtracting it from the footage.
You have to work in linear color space though.

Here's mine, looks good to me. But for the pixel peepers here's a .DNG

Code: Select all

http://speedy.sh/ZuEcX/Blackmagic-Pocket-Cinema-Camera-1-2014-07-31-2049-C0000-000002.dng

Here's mine I posted in another thread.
It's getting worse I think.

http://i1.minus.com/iicCBFSRVmY3I.png

Do the same test on your Canon/Nikon/Sony/Panasonic cameras, you'll be surprised.

Hi everyone, first time posting on this forum. I have two BMPCCs from the sale and am noticing the hot pixels. More so on the 1st camera I've been putting more hours on so far.

I can accept what people are saying that its normal for a camera to have these hot pixels when pushing ISOs but I'm suprised to see it at ISO 800, the cameras native ISO. Specifically I see about 20 hot pixels at ISO 800 when my shutter angle is at 180 and even more at 360.

When I shoot raw stills on my 5D II, I don't see any hot pixels at slow shutter speeds/lens cap test. Only when I boost it in post do they start appearing.

My questions:

Why does the BMPCC show hot pixels even when not lifting the exposure in post? Shouldn't it be clean at the native ISO/exposure.
Why does the shutter angle effect the amount of hot pixels we see?
Why don't we see hot pixels in regular video cameras when boosting the exposure in post. (we see more grain, but we don't see Fixed hot pixels...or maybe we do?)
Will black magic be addressing this in the 1.9 firmware?

Didn´t find an specific thread on that... I have bright spots on my BMPCC LCD... It does NOT show on the "recorded" file...it´s an LCD problem. Any ideas??

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 828d566642

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/p235x350/11057835_955937851117802_4642766708056674207_n.jpg?oh=64cf480fb9cc70bbc6f95d009a1382a6&oe=55EC317B&__gda__=1446151499_9f82db0ee7674c688814bc828d566642

The LCD is amlow res. monitor, and shows a lot,of "noise" which may look like hot pixels. If your recorded footage is clean, the sensor is OK, and issue is with the LCD monitor. Try hooping up an external monitor, see if it's better? My Pocket cam works great with an external EVF or monitor. However, I, did notice a lot on noise on the external monitor when its battery went low, so LCD monitor needs full current to work properly. Try a fresh battery, and see if you still have a monitor issue.

These are my shutter angles using no lens with camera cap on using focus peaking to see the hot pixels.
1080p30, Raw, 5600k, Camera Cold.
Numbers are for clean image and then beginning to see flickering or solid hot pixels
1600ISO @ 22.5 clean, 30 flickers
800ISO @ 60 clean, 72 flickers
400ISO @ 72 clean, 90 flickers
200ISO @ 120 clean, 144 flickers

I can't see a better way to compare them then this.

I've posted one time in the forum about this topic, this is not a issue to the pocket alone.. its apparent on many other brands of cameras.. the only thing is that other manufactures added functions to their cameras that clean up the image but the BMD cameras don't have that functionality built-in (at least not yet?).. so hopefully they add some functionality later via firmware.. I bought a new BMPCC earlier this year and after my first shoot with it, it had many hot pixels just like my older one.. that sucks... here's to hoping for new firmware to resolve this issue!