Blackmagic RAW Explained

Blackmagic RAW was announced by Blackmagic Design during IBC 2018. Patrick Southern, the Lead Editor & Producer at LumaForge explains the benefits and draw backs of this new codec in relationship to other RAW codecs on the market.

Blackmagic RAW benefits from providing two types of encoding: Constant Bitrate and Constant Quality. Whereas RED focuses on Constant Bitrate and ProRes RAW focuses on Constant Quality, Blackmagic RAW is capable of both.

Limits of the codec include limited de-bayering in post-production and 12 bit, rather than 16-bit color depth.

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[ukfilmer]

Old video, but refreshing to see someone who actually knows what they're talking about and doesn't just say "Cinematic footage" repeatedly. Thank you!

[edenem]

I know this video is old, but small correction: Blackmagic raw is 12bit LOG raw, when you transfer the footage into your NLE, the data is reprocessed into 16bit LINEAR, which is the same amount of color data that RED and Sony provide. Blackmagic raw is both 12bit log AND 16bit linear.

[off-whiteedits]

A very good explanation of BRAW. Concise, and good examples of the technical parts. Thank you!

[julienpierb]

I know I am late to the show, but I have been using BRAW since I got my URSA G2 the day it arrived in Vancouver and I can say it is FANTASTIC.
The 12:1 is such a bliss to use! I shot a couple of training videos that were meant to be played in 1080p on a cheap computer screen and I really liked the fact that I could film almost 6 hours of footage on inexpensive SD Cards!
I also worked on some social media campaign that was meant for Youtube and IG so there was no need for more than 8:1 (Even 12:1 would have been perfectly fine). Once again shot with inexpensive Sandisk Extreme PRO 128GB (I bought 5 of these and they work amazingly well in the URSA).
And lately, I shot a short film for a friend and it was meant for festivals so we rented a couple of CFast Cards and shot in Q0 and that was actually the only time I "needed" to shot in Q0 (Even 5:1 would have been just fine but the director said Q0 so...)

To summarize, BlackMagic RAW is the perfect codec to suit Blackmagic's cameras I think. If you want better quality then you probably have a bigger budget that allows shooting and editing RED or ARRI.

Plus, the 16bit of RED and ARRI are not real 16bit. CMOS sensors only output 14bit of information and they fill the rest with zeros. Don't quote me on that since I am not 100% certain, but I remember it being a thing back when we were shooting Medium Format with a CCD sensor and CMOS came to be. I don't know if this information still holds tho.

Great video and thanks!

[cjbernauer]

Closed my eyes when it started and you sound exactly like Tony Stark

[CAPfilms]

This is a great clip that clearly explains some really useful information about BRAW. Thanks

[PremierPrep]

I edit on a Linux PC with DaVinci Resolve Studio and absolutely love it!! ALSO: The Blackmagic RAW player is now on Linux.

[creativesymon]

Great vid. Hopefully the P4K gets it soon. And the fact you published in the ratio you wanted and not 16:9 with baked in bars means I now love you! ha!

[PhillipRPeck]

Thank you for the explanation, it made much more sense to me than the video BMD released yesterday!

[OliverMbamara]

Very precise but good explanatory video.

[myownfriend]

I don't think they ever said the Blackmagic RAW is limited to 12-bit. I think that's just a limitation of the camera. The metadata from the sample files even says 16-bit.

Also a suppose the question of whether or not it's still RAW depends on what process in the debayering is done in camera. Lets say, for example, that it doesn't treat the image as one channel and instead sorts them into 3 channels because grouping more similar data spatially allows it to compress better and the actual pixel pattern is saved as metadata for computer to use afterwards (I don't know if any of that's actually true) then nothing would stop it from taking advantage of future debayering algorithms.

I'll have to familiarize myself with what's going on behind the scenes though.

[chunkykizza]

The reason it is 12bit is because Blackmagic sensors are 12bit sensors. Its not that they cant add in 14bit into Blackmagic raw if the camera has a 14bit sensor, Blackmagic raw is designed specifically for each camera, so its not the same settings for every camera type. Blackmagic raw leverages the most amount of data from each camera sensor. As mentioned, if they have a different sensor, the bit colour would suit the sensor's bit colour....alot of sensors have a 16bit linear colour depth, but a 12bit LOG curve is much more useful :)

[johnkelly]

The new G2 has me thinking about going to Blackmagic again. I was considering the C200 for a while with the 12/14-bit RAW recording internally, but the others codecs could potentially be a big downside for an €8k camera. Apart from Dual-Pixel AF (which might come in handy for solo shooting interviews but might not), the G2 seems to do most things better and has far more variety and flexibility when it comes to what and how to shoot

[LikeAGentlemanPlease]

I slick want to buy a URSA mini 4.6k just for the metadata control

[va_bg]

That's really cool but can someone explain why do I have it? BlackMagic Raw Speed Test and BlackMagic Raw Player

[Bradidimus]

Nice overview as always Patrick! Also did you grow out that beard specifically to test out different RAW codec compressions?

[dominiccole]

I am so excited about this! Also for potentially "upgrading" older BM Cameras.

[timothyjkolb]

ProRes RAW seems like a misnomer.

Changing exposure and color balance in metadata is one of the more important parts of shooting RAW in the first place.

[Nelstill]

Hello, can you make a video tutorial with how to install in the camera this raw update? I sow many video tutorials on YouTube, but nobody's show how to install it... I'M new user with ursa mini pro and I try to learn how to manage this camere... Thanks in advance!, wait for your response!

[soamjena]

I just downloaded some braw files from BM website. But it does be dragged to my FCPX ? How do I directly start working on FCPX for the braw files ?
I dont want to learn resolve da vinci now.