Understanding the Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K LF - In Depth Overview

[@grasworxTTGameplan]

once again BMD has shown its commitment to bringing the best tools into the realm of the affordable. This camera is simply amazing. The level of ingenuity that goes into breakthrough tech like this sensor; this media module...and the thoughtfulness of building out such a vertically integrated workflow is simply genius. Grant Petty does not get the "respect" that a Steve Jobs or Elon Musk get in the eyes of the general public-but in our neck of the woods...he is miles ahead of the pack. For the price of a RED V-Raptor 8K body, you can get a fully rigged out camera system with a set of DZO Arles! The game has changed completely

[@carlyates2487]

The value for money is fantastic

[@zebius4157]

I wouldn't even say it usurps the base vraptor as that's a different form factor, but I would say it usurps the larger vraptor xl as it's within the same category and even more expensive

[@CINENIMUS]

what a simp haha bet you dont even have a BM camera

[@andersistbesser]

This new sensor is the Future for blackmagic cameras

[@StealthFilms]

Absolutely fantastic review. This review deserves some sort of Emmy or whatever the equivalent would be. I am a new owner of this camera and will be putting it to work the next few years. I did want to mention that while the Ursa Cine Manual doesn’t state a ‘Native ISO’ it does mention that ‘The optimum ISO is 800.

[@Darkanent]

My next camera!🎉🎉🎉

[@verebellus]

I'd 100% get this over RED V Raptor or any Canon and Sony camera

[@SamMasghati]

The new RGBW Sensor, their Media Module (I dont get how they can sell such a Card for 1,4k), so much innovation going on here. I wont get this camera, but i still feel like we all win with this camera, as all the other manufacturers need to push themselves to keep up And regarding Megabytes instead of Megabits. Our Storages are in Megabytes. Would love everything change to it in the future. Cant wait for the review on the 17k 65, as I've personally never testes a sensor this big

[@carlyates2487]

Absolutely, pushing technology forwards helps everyone! Its a very good point on the MB/s vs Mbps situation. Its just hard to compare them without sitting down with a calculator! Absolutely, we will be trying the 17K 65 as soon as it is ready.

[@alesko5]

Freudian slip on that last sentence? LOL

[@kristofermerisalo]

I will argue the just plugging in a cat6 cable is far easier once the hardware is in place than pulling cf cards back and forth. Even easier for anyone who already have 10g switches and servers installed, and, dare I mention that a lot of newer computer motherboards are starting to ship with 10g and 2.5g ethernet ports which might be good to mention. So if you're in the market of a new computer anyway, maybe it's time to pick yourself up a Z790, Z690, Z670E, TRX50 among others. Or buy yourself a 10g converter or pci-e card if you have an extra slot for far less than any cf express card. In my opinion, I wish more cameras came with 10gbe ethernet port for offloading and camera control. Blackmagic Design is really working for the future and that is very admirable. And let's face it.. If you buy a cinema camera of this sort for $16k plus, spending $200-300 on infrastructure should be the least of your worries.

[@Sam-higgins]

What a bloody awesome overview! I very much plan on grabbing one of these incredible units! My little piece of feedback...I love how you take on board customer comments & address them with an open & honest opinion. Most companies are afraid to upset a brand or customer but I love the transparency! Great work team :)

[@TerenceKearns]

I won't be affording one of these anytime soon but I find these videos very interesting. This technology is amazing. We live in amazing time. Combine this with the new M4 Max in an new Notebook pro and you have the dream team.

[@celko889]

One can definitely hear the excitement when you talk about this camera, very nice review to watch! The s35 ump 12k had some hue shift when switching from either 4 or 8k to 12k (12k always different), easily noticeable on the vectorscope and a pain to color match. Even when switching the camera from any resolution to 12k makes its screen go black for a second or two (kind of reboot), wheres all the other resolutions you can switch between instantly. Based on this quick look this color shift seems fixed, but if you manage to run two of the same controlled light environment clips in different acquisition resolutions and check the vectorscope to see if there are indeed no differences? Thanks for this great work.

[@celko889]

Would love to see more comparisons to the ump 12k in general rather than the pyxis in the future, but that might not be as straightforward due to different sensor sizes (obv a ump 12k owner here)

[@8KHDRVideoBySittipong]

Love this camera.

[@carlyates2487]

Thanks for watching!

[@8KHDRVideoBySittipong]

​@@carlyates2487Thank you for very helpfull information too.

[@jambred]

Great review Carl! All we need is a one bay dock also and not ONLY a 3 bay dock. Also V mount batteries can be used such as the core Helix Max used for high voltage cameras such as the Venice and Alexa 35. Ive personally used them on the Alexa 35.

[@AdamLangdon]

I would REALLY love to see a side by side comparison of the Ursa Mini 12k OLPF vs the Ursa Cine 12k LF.

[@Samvisualarts]

My dream camera😍

[@BorrachoTarot]

Is that the updated Tokina Vista-P lens? Holy SMOKES!! That lens was made for this camera.

[@carlyates2487]

It is the regular Vista's, but yes the Vista-P versions are also fantastic.

[@hexotech5202]

@@carlyates2487 you need to check out the other 8k video from PRO AV sample footage of the URSA 12K cine LF.

[@BrandonTalbot]

Props to BM for the incredible camera. I’m not in the BM ecosystem but lots of great tech going on, and in time will end up in less expensive future models which has a lot of us excited.

[@robin-comments]

My god, Pyxis 6k just got destroyed by URSA Cine in 4k mode 😮

[@carlyates2487]

Its quite remarkable isn't it.

[@weztastudio6170]

Wow such beautiful footage. Would love to get one.

[@shagral]

Carl, I always wondered, do you use a teleprompter? Great overview as usual, and I love every idea about this camera, a dream camera for sure and props to BM for innovating so hard.

[@carlyates2487]

Certainly do. I'm not remembering all of this for every video! Easily half the work of making each video is in writing the script. Researching, testing and figuring out what to say and how to say it. I occasionally do videos "off the cuff" if we are on a really short time frame. But 90% of this channel is using a teleprompter.

[@shagral]

@@carlyates2487 you are so good at it! Looks very natural. Can I ask which one do you use and with what focal length?

[@carlyates2487]

@@shagral Thanks. We use a datavideo one for iPads, and ususally do these PTC's at 35mm or 50mm

[@puertadlm163]

Holy smokes I had no idea what kinda of technological marvel the Sony Venice and Ursa 12k were.

[@Samvisualarts]

Been waiting for this video🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

[@carlyates2487]

Thanks for watching!

[@Samvisualarts]

​@@carlyates2487thanks for doing all the work you do🙏🏽

[@ChampagneSocialist]

Great video thanks. Definitely the camera for my upcoming projects 👊

[@avdcam]

I appreciate the explanation of the new sensor tech here, but do you know how the RGBW sensor is able to read out at 8K and 4K without doing a traditional downscale from 12K while retaining a lot of detail but at a faster read out speed. How is “on sensor scaling” actually working? If it’s not line skipping or downscaling is it skipping photosites to save time in the scan? Or is the white photosite part of the time saving in someway.

[@jeffreyvsco]

cant wait for blackmagic 17K review

[@diazfilms]

Thank you for this great and thorough presentation! Definitely lots to consider but exciting all together. Also I'm digging the Shelby Mustang in the background !

[@carlyates2487]

Thanks for watching! And good spot!

[@Nick_Lavigne]

10G for the home is cheap. I use a MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+in ($130) this covers my NAS and PC with two more ports left over. for a full copper version use the MikroTik CRS304-4XG-IN ($199).

[@98JamesNixon]

What lens do you use for the PTC with the C70? Also do you use autofocus with it?

[@verebellus]

My biggest thing I don't see anyone talk about is, in most cameras, lowering the resolution crops into the sensor and that improves the readout speed, but skewing actually stays the same. But the Ursa Cine keeps the same area of the sensor so when the readout speed improves, that actually improves the skewing a lot.

[@ForestCinema]

Hoping to see a Pyxis Pro with this sensor, ND and V-Mount/Gold Mount batteries… just with regular cards and limited res/framerate.

[@zebius4157]

Why do you fucks never want the full package in a smaller form factor and are okay with cripplehammering? The internals with the sensor heatsink are roughly the same size as the Ursa mini, the only thing making it like that is the fuckass right hand screen, but yeah they should make a smaller version, especially the 17k, and if Arri does indeed release a alexa 35 sized 65mm camera as per rumormail, blackmagic would have a real opportunity to cement itself in the changing, miniaturizing landscape of cinema at the high end like arri did with the mini

[@nestorarranz3179]

i only wanted a 12k ursa with a mirrorles mount but damn i guess we were blessed ngl

[@Slipsch]

Hope they can squeeze this sensor in Pyxis size body next time.

[@ridersss364]

And also do it for $0.59

[@carlyates2487]

This sensor needs a huge amount of cooling and the large media module for the data-rates. Hence why the camera is the size it is. I'd love to see a version of this RGBW technology inside a pyxis camera though. It'll be less powerful than this of course, but would be very exciting.

[@zebius4157]

​@@carlyates2487 maybe not exactly pyxis size but the heatsink is not that much bigger than the Ursa mini cameras

[@michaelbyrne2619]

When will this camera be available in the UK and Ireland

[@StringerBell2002]

Great video! I was hoping that dovetail base plate was snap-on vs slide-on.

[@rjake333]

It can be snapped on or slid on. Hence why the lever has 3 positions; lock, slide, release. If you look up the b&h site there’s mention of the quick release system.

[@StringerBell2002]

@@rjake333sweet! That’s what was banking on but watching him slide it on game me doubts. Thanks for the clarification.

[@sganzerla]

Only 4K is available (as in right now) for watching here in KZbin, unfortunately.

[@kevin-e5h5t]

As for displaying 12K/12bit or 17K/14bit - we barely have 8K displays and I don't know anyone with one. Those LED displays you bolt together need more quality/bit depth improvement. Has 12-17K reached the upper level of film grain? It's like wishing for 32 bit colour - even though the human eye cannot perceive it. Would you have used it to make "Laurence of Arabia" or "2001? Does it replace film?

[@AndyAksen]

Hey guys, great video! What kind of PC/Mac do I need to edit 12K/8K in good quality (low compression)? Maybe you said it in the video and I missed it. Thank you very much! :)

[@carlyates2487]

We used an M1 Max Macbook Pro from 2021 to edit this video. Playback with just the 12K files was fine on a 4K timeline. Once we started doing the split screens in this video and showing 3 12K clips at once, or the 8K Sony XOCN and 12K Braw with noise reduction on screen at the same time, the computer couldn't handle that any more. We got there... but this video took 4 hours to export! The previous video on the URSA Cine which was a mixture of 12K B-Raw & 8K HEVC from Canon R5C was easier though. So, you will be ok for simple editing with anything M1 Max and above for Macs. I'm afraid i'm not familiar enough with PC to make any recommendations there though.

[@AndyAksen]

@@carlyates2487 Wow, thanks for the quick reply. I ordered a MacMini M4 Pro yesterday and was just wondering whether the computer would be able to edit film material like that. Greetings from Hamburg 😃

[@carlyates2487]

@@AndyAksen I imagine that should be faster than our M1 Max macbook. So you should be good!

[@AndyAksen]

@@carlyates2487 yeah, I think the M4 Pro CPU is between the M2 Max and M3 Max.

[@akyhne]

A Mac tower PC or a Threadripper workstation with a few GPUs in it, would probably be the choice of a professional studio. But even the pros edit with proxies, simply because it speeds up workflow.

[@philpritchard5173]

Grt overview. Tx

[@adopepointofview]

👏🏻👏🏼👏🏽👏🏾👏🏿

[@carlyates2487]

Thanks for your help on this as always Nathaniel!

[@KombatFlix]

the actress is 🔥

[@robertpaterson5477]

Why can't they add the ability to copy files directly to an SSD via usb?

[@JojoJoget]

Pretty insane kit and this isn’t even the 17K. Not a fan of XLR pointing upwards tho

[@srproductions5650]

Mine arrived last week, came with a pixelated line straight through the middle of the image, such a shame 😭 have a video on my KZbin of what’s happening, so annoying

[@Darkanent]

They still didn’t get back to you. I was thinking that it may have something to do with the docked drive?

[@srproductions5650]

@ they got back today, saying that might be best to just return the camera, I’ve formatted the drive and was doing some tests earlier - can’t see the line in my recent footage but don’t feel comfortable shooting now on any big shoots, going to do another day of testing tomorrow

[@adamwalters9651]

@@srproductions5650keep us posted on this one. I see a faint line as well but only in certain situations. However ours is not a pixelated line. Did they tell you to reformat the drive?

[@srproductions5650]

@ really? So strange that you can see it also. No they didn’t tell me to but I was doing some research and someone just suggested that. So bizarre that you can see it even slightly also

[@adamwalters9651]

@@srproductions5650 I was hoping it was something that could be fixed with firmware. For example, the pocket 6k cameras have a sensor calibration button which normally fixes any dead pixel issues. The Cine dosnt have the same function. Could be something they release in an update.

[@Joshua_S]

I think rather then straight record to external SSD, why not record internally and just automaticly copy finished clips to the attached SSD. This way all the speed of the "internal" blackmagic drive could still be used and after the shot is done you have a SSD with all the files on it too. Of course the camera has to show how far the copy process is and there should be a "unmount external storage" button..

[@DaveHukka]

The M1 ultra chip was never available in a MacBook Pro 10:48

[@chrisniswonger]

Wish it shot ProRes!

[@JarredCordova]

I understand this sentiment, I’m a union AC and this is a main go to requirement for studios and distribution. However, have you ever looked at what ProRes is as a codec? It’s not as “efficient” as apple claims it to be and being proprietary means that we as owners of said footage we ultimately have to pay the apple tax because of its level of ubiquitous usage and market share. All this is to say I loath ProRes it’s not the best in between and it really got to be the standard because it was “first” but honestly it’s time to move on from the choke hold apple has on Hollywood.

[@carlyates2487]

Not certain its possible with the RGBW sensor to be honest. I think B-Raw is an important part of how it is able to work.

[@chrisniswonger]

@@JarredCordova In the agency I work with they will not hire a production company if they cannot deliver ProRes. Sure, you can transcode, but it would be an hassle. I'm just mentioning that BRAW only might be a limitation for some production's workflows or agencies. This is why we shoot 90% on ARRI cams.

[@chrisniswonger]

@@carlyates2487 totally get it.

[@danielutsik]

Venice great too

[@Sweetflyfilm]

On paper this is the best cinema camera on the market. Yes, including Sony, Red and Arri. Especially for the price. Nothing can match it's image and function.

[@carlyates2487]

On paper yes, But the spec's on paper have never been whats made the Arri or Venice cameras the best on the market. But the URSA cine certainly can hold its own against them! It will be very interesting to see if any productions pick it up.

[@habcast3978]

In fact, it is. Yes, it is.

[@Sweetflyfilm]

@@carlyates2487 I think with production budgets coming down, BMD is primed to take over the market. Can they deliver?

[@GabrielBarrella]

Have you ever heard about Alexa 35?

[@habcast3978]

@@GabrielBarrella He was careful to state, "On paper"!

[@roismartin]

a great camera on paper but unfortunately no one will use it.

[@Christian_Haake]

Same comment as with every new camera from Blackmagic.

[@SaintProductions1]

@@Christian_Haake😂 Let the haters, hate

[@Christian_Haake]

@@SaintProductions1 You're so right, I always forget.

[@shalvami]

Almost all the cameras on the market got smaller, this went the other way, I think it’s possible to make it in a much smaller package, just a little more clever engineering

[@carlyates2487]

Who knows! I am no camera engineer after all. But its very clear it needs a lot of cooling, it gets hot in use.

[@shalvami]

@@carlyates2487 check out the computing power of the new Mac mini, even iPhone has more power then any of mirrorless cameras, why don't implement it in cameras, cameras are old tech

[@VariTimo]

Much more usable than I thought. I think I’m gonna need to take some things back. Still don’t think it has much place in a narrative production but for things where resolution is important, it’s nice to see fast readout and good dynamic range.

[@carlyates2487]

I think theres a place in some narrative productions. I can't imagine the biggest films will be swapping from Arri & Vencie any time soon... but for the mid-tier, smaller production, streaming focused kind of production. This would be a great camera for them. And then there's the 17K 65 which is a whole other situation!

[@VariTimo]

@ Steve Yedlin’s Resolution Demo.

[@JarredCordova]

I’ve already seen black magic cameras in Hollywood 100m film sets. The opinion has already shifted, and the vertical integration with Davinci excites folks in the industry I’ve gotten to talk with. The brand has in fact made an impact and trust me any producer worth their weight in salt is looking for cost saving measures if they can get to 99% Arri with like 10% the price they’re willing to be plenty of productions looking at this seriously. I mean producers are looking at the ronin 4D seriously

[@VariTimo]

@ They don’t get 99% to Arri especially since Arri is about the last few percent, mostly in the reliability department. But what does any of that have to do with how much resolution makes sense?

[@wayoftruth8428]

@@VariTimobecause of film. Since the first Sony digital used on attack of the clones digital has been unable to reach the true artistic value of film because it’s not capturing digitally but chemically. And being organic makes all the difference. By being 12k it has nothing to do with 12k tv’s but about reaching the organic detail and definition of film. Which I and many other cinematographers think the 12k is pretty darn close. That’s why its predecessor the mini pro 12k was used for the promo to the Emmy’s in if I remember right 2022 and the thing that filmmaker said shocked me. He said he hated using film and would never dare touch digital, but the 12k was the most like film he had ever seen.

[@CINENIMUS]

the washed out, overexposed desaturated low contrast grade makes you look unhealthy. get some colour in it. you are welcome.

[@chicobraz4335]

Weak

[@Giovanni-Giorgio]

I'm afraid that by the time i can afford the camera.. my hair is grey and mirrorless compact cameras have caught up. 🧓

[@carlyates2487]

Thanks for watching

[@JarredCordova]

Compact however is not the right tool this camera is for, large crew productions, this is not a camera for the solo single operator filmmaker however it looks like a single experienced operator could make it work for sure.