Blackmagic RAW -"The world’s fastest RAW format"

Hey, now that it's out, here's some footage that originated in Blackmagic's new RAW format. https://vimeo.com/289753406 -- some info on the Vimeo page. Overall the BMD team has worked some serious magic ( HA HA HA PUNS this is why I don't write) and I'm excited about the future of both the Pro and Pocket 4K.

 
Kholi said:
Hey, now that it's out, here's some footage that originated in Blackmagic's new RAW format. https://vimeo.com/289753406 -- some info on the Vimeo page. Overall the BMD team has worked some serious magic ( HA HA HA PUNS this is why I don't write) and I'm excited about the future of both the Pro and Pocket 4K.

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Thanks for sharing that, I like the skin tones and colors!

Kholi, you also shot the sample files on the BM website?
 
Kholi said:
THanks Ted

One of the sample files would be mine, it's the gal with the bright light bulb.
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That's Awesome!
The clips are quite small for a RAW file! With these file sizes, it would make sense now to invest in internal storage rather than external SSDs!
 
Ted Ramasola said:
That's Awesome!
The clips are quite small for a RAW file! With these file sizes, it would make sense now to invest in internal storage rather than external SSDs!
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=] Exactly. Will be more options for people now, and everyone should be able to shoot RAW.
 
And not even CFast, you can go with just SD cards! A very welcome surprise for people with p4k preorders
 
Now I see why BM were very non committal with regards to ProRes RAW. Can't see Resolve getting ProRes RAW any time soon if BM have their own new RAW codec.

Chris Young
 
Wouldn't it be great if this could be adopted by all of the camera makers so we would end up with a unified standard? This functionality could be added to mirrorless cameras relatively quickly and the industry could move forward without all of the proprietary holdups and NLE adoption. Never will happen but gosh it would be nice.
 
Bassman2003 said:
Wouldn't it be great if this could be adopted by all of the camera makers so we would end up with a unified standard? This functionality could be added to mirrorless cameras relatively quickly and the industry could move forward without all of the proprietary holdups and NLE adoption. Never will happen but gosh it would be nice.
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Well that doesn’t sound like it’s gonna make as much money now does it.
 
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicursaminipro/blackmagicraw#play-video-raw

I'll rain on this parade... If it is partially demosaiced, then how exactly is it still raw? The variable bit rate setting tells me that there is a lot more demosaic than "partial" demosaic going on. Sounds like they are doing a perceptual compression with the variable setting.

That said, I think this is a good direction and I hope other manufacturers will build this into their cameras and software.
 
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I'm not totally clear on what's open. They appear to make their SDK freely available, writing on the above page:

"Using the SDK gives you access to GPU accelerated and CPU optimized algorithms for decoding Blackmagic RAW files. In addition to the encoded image data, the SDK also provides access to unique information about the camera’s imaging sensor so you know how to accurately decode and present the image based on the characteristics of the sensor."

So as I read that, it might not be difficult for developers of external recorders and NLEs to add support for Blackmagic RAW. But this doesn't seem to be the same as saying any camera company can compress data on their cameras to braw. We'll probably learn more in the coming days... Or does anyone know more now?
 
While this looks like a good format, jeez, does the world need yet another RAW variant? Must be close to a dozen flavors of RAW now in popular use? Honestly, I think Prores RAW will be much more adopted by third parties and I wish that BMD had gone with it. There's no way a codec from a competing camera will ever be implemented by BMD's competition, while I think there was and still is a good chance that the Sonys, Canons and Panasonics of the world "might" put Prores RAW into their cameras, just like they did with regular Prores. In the end, guess it doesnt matter much, BMD camera owners will shoot this, Canon camera owners will shoot CRL and RAW, Arri shooters will shoot Prores or Arri RAW, etc. and we'll still live in a world of maximum incompatibility.
 
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Smaller file sizes with apparently better compression. Faster. SDK. Free. Whats not to love. Thankyou BM.
 
The different ratios (a la RED) was a long time coming (even though there are only a few)...should make a lot of people happy as you don't need to shoot everything in 3:1 or 4:1.
 
This is exciting but will be more exciting if adopted by Atomos and unlocking BMD Raw recording for EVA1 and other cameras. And editable in premiere.

If it stays only for resolve and BM cameras it is great for that and addresses a major complaint in the game over Panasonic thread and is a huge boon for BMD.

But I hope this also does the former and opens things up, as months later I still can’t utilize prores raw on windows adobe premiere.
 
He didn't say anything about a free SDK for camera manufacturers, but he did say that they had several patents filed for this. But it might be an option that many people would be willing to pay for if it could be added to their cameras/recorders. This might prevent the need for having DNxHR on the camera, assuming Avid will add this SDK to their product. And since it is free, I would hope they could add it to the First version of Media composer (in and out). I can do XDCam EX with First after adding the Nablet codec (free from Sony), I assume that other AMA plugins work the same, but Avid could add this as a core I/O codec (but they will probably wreck the GPU acceleration like everything else they have done for the past many years). Yes I'm critical of Avid, they should be doing things better with their very long history!
 
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