Blackmagic Design has announced that it is adding support for ProRes RAW across its camera, monitor and software range. The DaVinci Resolve editing software and Pocket Cinema Camera 4K have been the first products to get the update, with more to follow soon.
DaVinci Resolve
You need to download and install DaVinci Resolve 20.2 to get support for Apple ProRes RAW. It is available with both the paid-for Studio version and the free version of the software as well. DaVinci Resolve also now supports ARRICORE clips.
Also, support for encoding Samsung APV clips and decoding Sony ARW images has been added.
Pocket Cinema Camera 4K
To add ProRes RAW recording to your Pocket Cinema Camera 4K, you will need to download and install the Blackmagic Camera 9.8 Public Beta firmware update. The camera menu will then show the options to select either ProRes RAW or ProRes RAW HQ as a codec. Shooting at 30 frames per second (fps) and in UHD 4K (3,840 x 2,160), the data rates are 173.6 MB/s for ProRes RAW HQ and 115.2 MB/s for ProRes RAW. For comparison, Blackmagic RAW 3:1 has a data rate of 127 MB/s.
Future updates
Blackmagic Design also explained that more products will get ProRes RAW soon. The company is bringing the codec to its Video Assist monitor recorder. However, you will need to have the flagship 12G model, as the previous models don’t have the necessary processing power, apparently.
In addition, the Blackmagic Camera will also be able to shoot in ProRes RAW in the future. This is likely to be an iOS feature only, however, so Android users may miss out.
“With the addition of ProRes RAW formats across our capture, playback and professional editing software products, we are continuing our commitment to software updates for existing products,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K customers have always been able to record in compressed ProRes 422 formats, but now they will be able to record ProRes RAW and natively playback the files in DaVinci Resolve. We are extremely excited to be delivering yet another free update for our customers.”
What we think
Support for Apple ProRes RAW has been one of the most requested features for Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve editing software for many years. Now at last the company has delivered that, but also so much more. It’s great to see Blackmagic Design rewarding Pocket 4K users with ProRes RAW, as it’s one of the company’s older cameras. However, ProRes RAW will be rolling out to other cameras in the future, too. The addition of ProRes RAW to the Video Assist is great news as well, even if it is only for the 12G model. iPhone users will also welcome the codec as an option with the Blackmagic Camera app. Best of all, these are all free updates. Blackmagic Design continues to provide value to its existing customers that no other manufacturer can match.
Availability
Davinci Resolve 20.2, DaVinci Resolve Studio 20.2 and the Blackmagic Camera 9.8 Public Beta are available to download for free from the Blackmagic Design website now. The updates for the Video Assist 12G and Blackmagic Camera app should be available soon, though no launch dates have been released yet.
