Blackmagic design has announced a RAW, 2.5k cinema camera with a sensor size that falls somewhere between S16mm and Micro 4/3. Blackmagic has really created a lot of buzz for this camera by pricing it at $3,000. It has a unique form factor with the battery and touchscreen LCD built right in.

Here is a quick list of the details:

• Price: US$2995
• Perks: comes with a free copy of DaVinci Resolve
• Resolution: 2432 x 1366
• Sensor size: 15.6mm x 8.8mm
• Recording format: 12-bit DNG RAW or Log ProRes on 2.5″ SSD drives
• Lens mount: EF Canon mount
• FF35mm Crop factor: x2.3
• Form factor: built in touchscreen LCD and battery
• Rolling shutter: a bit better than the 5D MkII
• Low light performance: not as good as 5D MkII

Sensor Size:

Here is how the Blackmagic Cinema Camera’s sensor size stacks up against other cinema cameras. It is the bright blue rectangle labeled BMD:

RED showed off the 4k laser projector they announced at NAB 2011 today.  Ridley Scott and his son Luke shot a short film “Loom” on Epic cameras and the 3ality Technica Atom rig that was shown in RED’s NAB theater in 2k passive 3D (engineers were in a hotel room working on the 4k boards).  The laser projector will be able to do simultaneous 4k for each eye very soon.

We attended the very first screening at 9am on Monday morning and were blown away.  Being a Ridley Scott production shot by Darius Wolwski, 10 seconds in we forgot about 5k, lasers, simultaneous 3D and were just drawn in to the great story and beautiful images.  It really hit us when we walked out of the theater, we can have THAT for $10k.  Amazingly a REDray player is built in.

The RED Laser Projector is natively stereoscopic meaning all you need to view 3D is a polarized silver screen and passive 3D glasses. Due to the lasers providing the projector a very stable light intensity per primary color it can auto calibrate itself. For 2D a standard white screen or just a wall will suffice.

Details:

• Price: $10k (good for up to a 15 foot screen)
• Input: REDray player, also accepts HDMI or HD-SDI input
• Rez: 4K, 12 bit
• 24 foot lamberts
• Simultaneous right eye/left eye
• 3D and 2D up to 120fps
• Laser lasts more than 25,000 hours
• No calibration necessary
• Add laser modules to scale up to a big theater

• S35mm covers full 5k
• pl mount
• lesss than nine inches in length
• less than six pounds
• detachable servos

Our first test using the H.264 codec was not playable at all on the iPad. The iPad would try to play the file and then it would just close out. Next we tried the M-PEG 4 codec and the 2048 clip played great! After some tweaking we found the iPad could play 2048 footage up to about 32 Mbit/s with a 16×9 aspect ratio. We are experimenting adding more vertical resolution and have been successful with an 16×11.5 (2048×1463) clip.

Just last night a buddy of mine, Bill Barnes, figured out a work around to get H.264 working on the iPad using the Handbrake program. You can read about the details here: www.reduser.net/how-do-I-get-highest-quality-video.

• www.camerarentalz.com/video/retina-32Mbit.mov 16×9 (2048×1080)
• www.camerarentalz.com/video/retina-8×5-20Mbit.mov 8×5 (2048×1280)
• www.camerarentalz.com/video/retina-16×11.5.mov 16×11.5 (2048×1463)

GETTING THE FOOTAGE ON THE IPAD

We learned very early on that iTunes was not the way to get high quality video on the iPad. We were able to get very high bitrate 1080 footage on the original iPad using apps like Goodreader, DropBox and AirSharing. Here are the apps that we have confirmed can play 2048 video:

1). Goodreader is our favorite app because you can just go to “Web Downloads” – “Enter URL” and paste a link right in. The video downloads and plays right there. Super convenient.

2). DropBox requires you to download the file on your desktop/laptop into your DropBox folder than load the video from the app on your iPad. Works fine, but requires a few more steps.

3). AirSharing also requires you to download the file on your desktop/laptop and then open a web page that allows you to upload the video to the iPad.

• Base has 3 lemo powered outputs for Focus/Iris/Zoom for Heden or Preston lens motors. Plug in your motor of choice and you are set.
• Has full wireless lens control built in for 3ality Technica, Preston and eventually other lens controls. No more MDR hanging off your camera. Just show up with hand control of choice.
• Has built in wireless timecode receiver. – Jam camera timecode wirelessly from sound cart etc. No more Lockit box via velcro hanging off the side of camera.
• Has wireless Audio receiver built-in. – Send audio wirelessly to camera from anywhere….. audio is embedded into clips on the R3D file on your REDMAG.
• Has wireless 1080p Video transmission built-in. – You heard that right.. We finally figured it out. less than one frame latency.. with a healthy working distance.
• 3rd front lemo can power Cinetape if Zoom control is not needed.
• V-LOCK plate on back. One REDBRICK powers everything including the camera.

• 1x 2B Lemo DSMC standard input power
• 2x 2p 1B accessory power output
• 1x 9p 1B Gig-E
• 1x 10p 1B 232/422
• 1x 4p 0B CAN
• 1x HD-SDI video BNC
• 1x genlock BNC
• 1x timecode BNC
• 1 x D-Tap output

• EPIC-M Brain with titanium PL mount
• Bomb EVF® (comes with 5” RED ARM and 18” LCD/EVF Cable)
• 5in Touchscreen LCD (comes with 7” LCD/EVF Cable and RED MicroFiber Bag – Medium)
• DSMC Side Handle
• DSMC Side SSD Module
• REDmote
• 4x 128GB SSD cards
• 4x REDVolt batteries and travel charger
• Custom laser-cut foam EPIC Pelican 1510 case

• Scarlet is now a 4k S35mm camera that ships with the electronic Canon mount for $9,975. It can also shoot 5k stills at up to 12fps.
• You can read a lot of the details about Scarlet here: http://www.scarletuser.com/showpost.php?p=90187&postcount=4