USER REVI EW | BRAW ON BLACKMAG I C C I NEMA CAMERA
Blackmagic promised it and a new update has confirmed it – you can now record to BRaw on their Pocket Cinema Camera 4K BRAW IN PRACTICE FREE UPDATE
WORDS ADAM GARSTONE
here was a time when there were good cameras, and there were cheap cameras. Over the last few years the good cameras have got cheaper, and the cheap cameras have got better: many of the established camera manufactures make good, relatively cheap cameras, and most of the newbies make relatively cheap, good cameras. One way that Blackmagic Designs has kept its cameras in the sweet spot is through software updates, and the latest code for the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K adds a host of new features, perhaps the most interesting of which is support for Blackmagic’s Raw codec. It’s worth noting that BMD has started to remove support for CinemaDNG, its previous Raw camera codec – the latest Ursa Mini Pro update deletes it, and this BMPCC 4K version is similar. Apparently, BMD has been accused of patent infringement (possibly by Red) which will be easier to deal with if it only has its proprietary codec in the cameras. Personally, I won’t miss CinemaDNG – BRaw is superior in pretty much every way. In fact, I would stick my neck out and say it’s one of the most flexible codecs around. BRaw’s built-in LUT support, excellent compression algorithms and low CPU overhead on the edit computer means you could shoot BRaw instead of, say, ProRes and take
ABOVE BRaw behaves very similarly on the BMPCC 4K as it does on the Ursa Mini Pro
it straight into the edit suite without transcoding. All we really need is the mainstream NLE makers to support it (come on Avid/Apple/Adobe – there’s a free software development kit, you know). It’s also no secret that we like the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K here at Definition Towers. It’s a great price, like its big brother it has the best menu system of any camera out there (battery status aside), and is capable of very nice images indeed. So, the marrying of the excellent Pocket Cinema Camera with the clever BRaw codec is good news. WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE In practice, BRaw behaves very similarly on the BMPCC 4K as it does on the Ursa Mini Pro. It offers the same constant bit rate and constant quality compression algorithms, with the same 3:1, 5:1, 8:1 and 12:1 data reduction (CBR), with constant quality options of Q0 and Q5 (whatever that means). Unless you pixel-peek very closely, the compression levels are much of a muchness – however, there is a slight
rise in noise in dark scenes as the compression increases, particularly if you bump up the ISO. It’s likely that the Pocket Camera will be used in situations where lighting is harder to control, but in well-lit locations, with no heavy shadows, it’s safe to use the heaviest data reduction. That also means you can safely shoot to SD cards, which can be another major cost saving. The free update is available
BELOW It’s likely that the Pocket Camera will be used in situations where lighting is harder to control
now from the Blackmagic website. It adds 2:1 monitoring frame guides, an improved UI for card formatting, better autofocus, better battery life, and a whole load of other fixes and improvements. “IT IS WORTH NOTING THAT BMD HAVE STARTED TO REMOVE SUPPORT FOR CINEMA DNG”
66 DEF I N I T ION | APR I L 20 1 9
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