Ever since Blackmagic announced their BRAW format, Blackmagic camera owners have been begging for it to come to their camera first, particularly those who were still waiting for their Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K orders to show up.
Initially, BRAW came to the Ursa Mini Pro, and there have been no real guarantees as to which other cameras it may appear on or when. But now, in the latest Blackmagic Camera 6.2 update, it’s finally here for the Pocket 4K. Oh, and they’re removing CinemaDNG completely.
The video above covers a number of new products and updates in the Blackmagic lineup, but the bit about the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K and BRAW begins at 15:32. But in short, they’re adding Blackmagic RAW 1.2 to the camera, which adds all of the features included with BRAW on the Ursa Mini Pro, but a few new features have been added, too.
- Double tap zoom – Double tapping on the screen has been reassigned due to customer demand. You can still tap to focus, but you need to tap and hold.
- ACES AP0 and AP1 colour gamuts added – Along with ACES CCT support
- Removed CinemaDNG completely
While DNG is patented, it is an open standard, created by Adobe for anybody to use. Blackmagic claims somebody has made a patent infringement against them. Given that Blackmagic didn’t invent the DNG standard, and that they now have their own RAW video format, it was less costly and troublesome to simply drop support for the format from the camera than to try and fight it. So, it’s gone.
Blackmagic RAW, on the other hand, is their own format, and arguably a much better format. So, they’re going full steam ahead with that. And who could blame them, really? DNG is also being removed from the URSA Mini Pro. As far as Blackmagic are concerned, DNG is an “obsolete format”, at least when it comes to video.
I played around with some 4.6K BRAW samples on my ASUS ZenBook Pro when the announcement was first made, and editing with it in DaVinci Resolve was as smooth as working with 1080p footage from a DSLR or mirrorless camera, but with way more latitude when it came to colour correction and grading. 4K CinemaDNG wasn’t quite so stutter-free at a slightly lower 4K resolution.
So, if you’ve been waiting for BRAW to come to the Pocket 4K, your prayers have now been answered. You can download the Camera 6.2 update over on the Blackmagic website.
