Aaron Scheiner wrote:They said they were going to unify the firmware across all the cameras, which implies that all the cameras will have the same functions (with the exception of sensor-related functionality)... so it seems likely that the original BMCC will receive compressed DNG when the unified firmware becomes available.
...that and lossless DNG would be far less processor intensive than encoding ProRes/DNXHD.
Again:
BMD reps (including Grant Petty) stated at NAB 2013 in April that they "hope/plan" to bring new features such as lossless compressed RAW and possibly higher-res ProRes to all their cameras, but it remains to be seen if this is technically possible (do the original cams have enough RAM or processing power?), and when BMD would get around to actually doing it is unknown.
Grant Petty is a very smart & talented fellow, but sometimes software & hardware engineers (the ones who work for him) discover things as they get down into the "weeds" that weren't obvious at first. Sometimes they discover that the hardware simply can't accommodate hoped-for features/capabilities. This happens all the time, at
every company.
I believe Mr. Petty & staff are sincere when they say they "hope" to achieve certain things, and I've also seen plenty of evidence that they are capable to achieving great things when fate is with them. But sometimes all the talent, money, and good luck in the world isn't enough. There's nothing unique about Blackmagic Design in this regard.
There are also hardware-limited aspects of all cameras that their designers are well-aware of from the start. These aren't bugs or faults, they're simply the way the particular pile of components work, period. For example, I don't know for sure, but I suspect the reason the BMCC HD-SDI output is always in Film/log mode when recording RAW (but the LCD is switchable to Film/Video) might be a hardware limitation having to do with the size and speed of the BMCC's video frame buffer or speed of its processor. Again, I can't be sure of this, but it's a possibility. If true, why is like this? The simplest reason would be cost: To keep the cost down. Both the cost for BMD and you, the customer. Now, some customers might not like this particular "non-feature" and chose to buy a different camera. Again, there's nothing unique about BMD or the BMCC in this regard.
Meanwhile, I agree: There are certain baseline features a video "camcorder" should include. For example, why bother including relatively high-quality audio recording hardware capability in a product if you don't also provide a way for the user to know if audio is being clipped or not? Note they included zebras to indicate sensor (video) clipping, but not an equivalent to indicate audio clipping (such as VU meters or a simple green/red icon).
However, other features are genuinely debatable. Although it's common for most camcorders to be able to delete clips in-camera, it's not common for "cinema cameras" to include this feature. Some do, some don't. I believe BMD when they say they strongly feel that deleting clips in-camera is not a feature they want in their cinema cameras. That's their prerogative, and rightly so. It's even possible that BMD tested this capability and found undesirable consequences, such SSD performance issues related to disk/file fragmentation. Again, some customers might not like this particular "non-feature" and chose to buy a different camera.
Lastly, especially at this point, with few exceptions BMD is now well-aware of what features customers desire in a modern video camera. Some of these features are already in the original BMCC-EF (and more, and less), another is in the mythical BMCC-MFT, more are in the new BMPCC and BMPC-4K cameras. My guess is that even more of what customers want will be in future BMD cameras. That's how these things go.