Blackmagic announces new URSA Mini pro and BRAW for BMPCC 4K

If you’ve been keeping up with the week’s news you’ll already know that Blackmagic has introduced the new Ursa Mini Pro 4.6K G2 and the Blackmagic Raw for the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K. If not we told you about it here at 709 mediaroom.

As usual Blackmagic surprises the world with its new products. This time it has officially unveiled a new generation URSA Mini Pro, six weeks before NAB to put an end to the rumors that always circulate before the big show. The other big news that will please Pocket Cinema Camera 4K owners is the introduction of BRAW in their camera, as well as a number of updates to the company’s flagship product for the time being.

However, the Ursa Mini Pro G2 will be the one that attracts all the spotlight. The first thing to mention is that it will be able to record to an SSD disk via the USB C port. In terms of imaging capability, there are significantly higher frame rates, a little more than double the speeds available on the original camera. This means it has an absolute maximum of 300 fps in HD, with 150 fps at 4K DCI and 120fps at 4.6K. All of these numbers require the use of Blackmagic Raw with a fairly high compression ratio of 12:1.
The frame-rate capabilities in ProRes are, once again, higher than in the original camera, although they are not going to be as high as with Blackmagic Raw. The improved sensor performance is also used to improve the rolling shutter.

Some of the improvements of the G2 are mainly based on the implementation of Blackmagic Raw, which is updated to version 1.3. Critically, this update introduces the ability to embed LUTs in files in a way that, optionally, can be used in DaVinci Resolve later on. Finally, there is still no news about the camera’s battery consumption although this was already an issue in the previous generation.