Blackmagic Design Introduces New Products at IBC

September 7, 2012 - Posted by csandy

Blackmagic Design is announcing some new products at IBC in Amsterdam today.

New products include:

• Blackmagic Cinema Camera MFT
• UltraStudio 4K
• UltraStudio Mini Capture
• UltraStudio Mini Monitor
• DeckLink 4K Extreme
• Videohub Master Control
• Mini Converter SDI to HDMI 4K
• Mini Converter SDI Multiplex
• ExFAT HyperDeck Update
• Thunderbolt™ for Windows
• ATEM Audio Panel Support

Blackmagic Cinema Camera MFT

Since the Blackmagic Cinema Camera was announced they have been overwhelmed by the fantastic response. They have also been extremely happy with the response to the first shipments and have already seen some wonderful work done on them.

They started shipping a few weeks ago, however the Cinema Camera is a highly advanced piece of equipment and it uses a large amount of high quality precision parts to build it. Some components are coming into our factory slower than they expected and this has caused the manufacturing of the cameras to slow.

They expect to have this sorted out over the next few weeks and then can speed up and get more cameras delivered. In the mean time, our engineering has not been slowed down at all and they are continuing to develop the next software update with new features for release very soon.

They have also been working on a Passive Micro Four Thirds model of the camera. People have been asking for this as there are a lot of nice high end manually operated MFT lenses on the market, and the MFT mount can also be easily adapted to PL and other lens mounts using third party adapters.

The new Blackmagic Cinema Camera MFT is expected to ship in December, and will be the same price as the original model. It’s identical in features as they are both the same camera, just with different lens mounts. The price will also be the same at $2,995. They will be working with our dealers to help people change their orders if they want.

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagiccinemacamera/

UltraStudio 4K

Ever since the introduction of Thunderbolt technology, they have been excited by its speed and the types of products they could create for it. They have been working hard on creating some unique Thunderbolt based solutions that would let them be more creative in new features they could include.

They have also been asked by DaVinci Resolve customers to add 4K options for monitoring when color grading and so they have included 4K in some of our new products too!

The new UltraStudio 4K is a compact single rack unit “breakout box” capture and playback solution for Mac and Windows that includes a massive range of rear video and audio connectors. The front panel is a really elegant machined aluminum design that features an integrated color LCD as well as video and audio input buttons. The power supply is built in and the rear panel includes virtually every type of video and audio connection that exists, all using standard connectors!

UltraStudio 4K can take advantage of long Thunderbolt cables that can be up to 30 meters away from the host computer. It supports all video formats including SD, HD, 2K and 4K playback. It includes a lot more power in its hardware and they will unlock that over the next months as they release software updates.

UltraStudio 4K supports the new Dual Link 3 Gb/s SDI connection for handing 4:2:2 based 4K and they have converters for adapting to other formats. It’s a very attractive capture and playback solution and it also has every video standard and connection you can imagine!

UltraStudio 4K will ship Q4 for $1,295.

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/ultrastudio4k/

UltraStudio Mini Recorder
UltraStudio Mini Monitor

At NAB they introduced the UltraStudio Express that has SDI, HDMI and analog connections with dual break out cables for both professional and consumer analog. It’s exciting, small in size and Thunderbolt powered so it’s a really nice portable solution.

However they wanted to take that further and see if they could design a capture and playback solution that was even smaller. They realized that the way to do that was to design two separate models, one for recording and one for playback. They also removed the analog, as they felt these models only needed SDI and HDMI. With less video and audio connections, they can be much smaller, and lower cost too.

The two new UltraStudio Mini Recorder and UltraStudio Mini Monitor models let you capture or playback respectively and include 3 Gb/s SDI and HDMI connections plus high speed Thunderbolt technology. Because they both power from Thunderbolt, you can simply plug them in and go!

UltraStudio Mini Monitor and UltraStudio Mini Recorder are extremely portable, and they are so small you can hide one in your hand. They really are very tiny but are still a full broadcast quality spec. solution! Both models work in SD and HD, plus support all Mac and Windows software that our other UltraStudio and DeckLink models do.

UltraStudio Mini Recorder is a perfect solution when you need small, portable, low cost capture. UltraStudio Mini Monitor is great for monitoring with editing software such as Avid Media Composer, Final Cut Pro 7 and X, and Adobe Premiere Pro.

Both models will be available in Q4 for $145 each.

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/ultrastudio/

DeckLink 4K Extreme

As they have added 4K to the new UltraStudio 4K, they also have a new model of DeckLink card that includes all the features of the DeckLink HD Extreme 3D model, but adds 4K and they are calling this new model DeckLink 4K Extreme.

Capture cards are great solutions when you want to hide the capture and playback hardware inside the computer itself, so they will keep developing new models of PCI Express capture cards as they move video technology forwards.

This is an extremely powerful card with Dual Link 3 Gb/s SDI, HDMI 3D, analog video and audio, reference input, deck control and more. Its PCI Express 2.0 interface is twice as fast so it can handle more and higher resolution video and film formats. It’s also been designed with features needed by DaVinci Resolve such as synchronous deck control for frame accurate jam syncing, and additional new advanced color spaces used in the film industry.

DeckLink 4K Extreme will ship in early Q4 for $1,295.

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/decklink4kextreme/

Videohub Master Control

Videohub Master Control is a router control panel that allows spin knob scrolling of all router sources and destinations as well as direct button entry of any router crosspoint. It includes a built in LCD with really nice looking anti aliased graphics so you can access and see the status of all cross points on a router, including really large 288 x 288 sized routers like our Universal Videohub 288.

The simplest way to use Videohub Master Control is to simply scroll though all the cross points in the router using the large knob on the panel. The built in LCD shows cross points as you scroll using large, easy to read labels. The scroll order is alphabetical so it’s easy to scroll to the crosspoint you want.

Videohub Master Control also includes direct entry of cross point labels via built in buttons. These buttons are a combination of customizable buttons as well as numeric buttons. You can easily set the customizable buttons to labels such as “Monitor”, “Deck” or “Edit” etc, and then router cross points can be entered in by simply pressing the custom button followed by the number.

They think this is a really nice solution for controlling the router from a small one rack unit sized control panel, where you get access to the whole router. It’s very easy to use, and priced affordably.

Videohub Master Control will ship in September for $695

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/videohub/control/
http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/universalvideohub/control/

Mini Converter SDI to HDMI 4K

With new 4K products being released, they needed some converters to help convert and monitor 4K SDI. The new Mini Converter SDI to HDMI 4K features a new HDMI 4K connection that supports four times the resolution of HD video via a single HDMI link.

Video projectors and televisions are beginning to be released with this new video standard and it allows full resolution 4K monitoring using a single convenient HDMI connection. Until now, the television industry has been using 4 x HD-SDI connections for connecting 4K signals so this converter has 4 x SDI inputs for allowing Quad Link HD-SDI based 4K inputs or Dual Link 3 Gb/s SDI 4K connections. It will when convert that to a single HDMI 4K connection to the TV or projector.

This converter also switches between SD and HD video formats automatically so can be used for any task required, in SD, HD and 4K!

Mini Converter SDI to HDMI 4K will ship in Q4 for $495.

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/miniconverters/models/

Mini Converter SDI Multiplex

With UltraStudio 4K and DeckLink 4K Extreme both using Dual Link 3 Gb/s SDI 4K, you will need to convert to the Quad Link HD-SDI 4K way of connecting to older 4K displays and projectors.

The new Mini Converter SDI Multiplex is designed for converting between equipment using Quad Link HD-SDI and equipment using Dual Link 3 Gb/s SDI. Mini Converter SDI Multiplex features four SDI inputs and four SDI outputs, so can convert to and from both these formats. Mini Converter SDI Multiplex also handles conversion between 4:4:4 video via Single Link 3 Gb/s and Dual Link HD-SDI. It’s really a general SDI multiplexer between different formats that use multiple SDI links for higher quality and resolution video.

Mini Converter SDI Multiplex will ship in Q4 for $495.

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/miniconverters/models/

HyperDeck ExFAT Update

They have a new software update that should ship in the next week or so that includes ExFAT support for all HyperDeck disk recorders. It’s exciting as ExFAT is the disk format used on Windows, but Mac OS X also supports and formats ExFAT disks as well. So this means HyperDeck recorders are better able to handle disks from both computer platforms.

Using ExFAT is easy as HyperDeck will recognize both formants and just record and play from them. There are no settings to adjust and nothing to do but upgrade the software and get ExFAT compatibility.

This update will be free of charge to all HyperDeck customers.

Thunderbolt for Windows

They have now received certification from Intel for Intensity Shuttle and Intensity Extreme Thunderbolt capture and playback solutions so you can download the software and use these products on Windows. You get compatibility with the same software our DeckLink cards use, and so you get a massive range of software support.

This update will be available in the next few days for download free of charge from the support sections of the Blackmagic Design web site.

DaVinci Resolve 9 Released

The new DaVinci Resolve 9 has been very exciting to work on and colorists have been giving them great compliments on the public beta that’s been running for the last month. The good news is the final release of DaVinci Resolve 9 has been posted to our web site and is now available to download.

Of course if you’re not a DaVinci Resolve user, please check out DaVinci Resolve 9 Lite as it’s free of charge for both Mac OS X and Windows. It has no limitations on quality, no limitations on file types, no limitations on file resolutions, no limitations on timeline layers and it has unlimited correction nodes. So it’s one very powerful software tool, even if you just use it as a file converter or on set camera file manager!

Of course they hope people upgrade to the full version to get more than 1 GPU, 3D tools, noise reduction, and higher than HD resolution timelines!

ATEM Audio Panel Support

Recently they released some new software for the ATEM production switchers that added full audio mixing for all inputs to every model of ATEM. This has been great as now you don’t need a separate audio mixer when doing live production.

However using a software interface to an audio mixer can be a bit limited. They have been working on some new software that supports plugging in a USB based audio panel for controlling the audio mixer in the ATEM switcher. It supports the the MACKIE control protocol and many other audio panels support this standard too so will be compatible.

They are still working on this and it’s close to shipping, however if you’re traveling to IBC this year, please check the demo of this working, and give them some feedback on where you think the buttons should be mapped for various panels. Please let them know what panels you would like to see them support. It’s a really nice feature and they will release it soon.

This entry was posted in News and tagged amsterdam, Blackmagic design, ibc, new product.