Blackmagic's Resolve-Friendly Switcher and SmallHD's 22-Inch OLED: This Week in Gear
Also: Speculation on Canon's EOS R5, Kodak's Big Pharma Ambitions, Raw Recording from the LUMIX S1H, and How Microsoft Is Backing Blender
Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro ISO: A Live Production Switcher Built for Post-Production in DaVinci Resolve
Blackmagic Design introduced the ATEM Mini Pro ISO ($895). It's another in the company's line of ATEM Mini desktop production switchers, but this one has a new "five-stream recording engine" that records clean feeds from up to four independent HDMI video inputs plus the live edit of the program, along with audio and media pool graphics. The idea behind saving the complete ISO files from each feed, of course, is that users can edit the program later using multicam mode in their favorite NLE software. A computer should treat an ATEM Mini Pro connected via USB like any other webcam, so Blackmagic is pitching the switcher at YouTubers looking to use multiple, higher quality cameras in their streams as well as at business presenters running teleconferences through Skype or Zoom. In an intriguing development, the ATEM Mini Pro ISO will also create a Resolve project file, allowing Resolve editors quick access to all the assets from a live production—and allowing users of Blackmagic cameras to relink to Blackmagic Raw files in post to create a much higher-quality version of their presentation for posterity. It's all part of Blackmagic's push to develop a production ecosystem with the multi-talented Resolve software at the center and a staggering variety of hardware offerings in orbit around it.
Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro ISO: press release | product page
SmallHD OLED 22: A New UHD Reference for Color-Critical Monitoring
New from SmallHD is the OLED 22 ($11,999, August), a 21.6-inch (55cm) 10-bit OLED UHD (3840 x 2160) reference monitor. The OLED 22 has an HDR waveform and scope display, dual and quad-view capabilities, and four 12G-SDI inputs and outputs, along with a single HDMI 2.0 in and out. It can cover 100% of the P3 color gamut and 135% of Rec. 709, the company said. The real selling point, of course, is the OLED screen, with those inky blacks that enable a claimed 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio despite only 350 nits of brightness coming out of the screen. (Once you go OLED, you may never want to return to mere LCD.) If you just want MORE LIGHT coming off that panel, you may be interested in the equally new Vision 24 (also $11,999, September), a 10-bit LCD 4K (4096 x 2160) HDR monitor. SmallHD calls it a “true HDR” display, supporting both PQ and HDR10 variations with up to 1000 nits of brightness via local-dimming techniques that create 2100 zones on screen. Less expensive variants include the Vision 17 ($8,999, September) UHD display, which can hit 1000 nits, and the Cine 24 ($5,499, August) UHD display, which reaches 1350 nits. (By the way, all those are “introductory” prices, the company says. The OLED 22, for instance, actually lists for $14,999.)
SmallHD OLED 22: product page
Is Canon’s EOS R5 Shipping in Volume?
Good question. We don’t know. PetaPixel, citing reports from “multiple outlets” including Canon Rumors and EOSHD, seems to think shipments have been throttled thanks to the overheating issue described here earlier this month, and suggested a recall may be in the cards. But at News Shooter, Matthew Allard is running a denial from Canon Australia. Meanwhile, PetaPixel is also reporting that Sony’s much-hyped A7S III also overheats when shooting 4K 60p video. So keep an eye on the temperature if you’re shooting with these cameras and you need to run them at 4K for more than 20 minutes at a time. If you want to know what it means in a real-world environment, take a look at No Film School’s exhaustive account of its own testing of the EOS R5 in various heat-generating scenarios.
Atomos Ninja V Now Records ProRes Raw from the Panasonic LUMIX S1H
We already reported that the Atomos Ninja V can record 16-bit raw footage from the Sony A7S III to 10-bit ProRes Raw, but Atomos also brought ProRes Raw recording to the Panasonic LUMIX S1H 5.9K full-frame mirrorless camera via free AtomOS and LUMIX firmware updates this week. Read more about the S1H’s capabilities in this Panasonic document, or watch the video below from Atomos to learn more about exactly how to set up the Ninja V with the S1H, with a Final Cut Pro X mini-tutorial thrown in for good measure.
Kodak Reinvents Itself … as a Pharma Manufacturer
The U.S. government said it was granting the Eastman Kodak Company a $765 million loan to launch Kodak Pharmaceuticals. The new arm of the company “will produce critical pharmaceutical components that have been identified as essential but have lapsed into chronic national shortage,” Kodak said. The photography giant’s stock spiked on the news, losing only some of that ground as the week progressed. Some investors remembered that the company has tried to reinvent itself before, including the ill-fated KodakCoin launch of 2018. Bloomberg ran a particularly skeptical headline: “Kodak Pivots to Drugs After Abandoning Photography, Crypto.” Whatever. As long as Kodak keeps providing motion-picture film to filmmakers who demand it, we’re happy.
Microsoft Joins Blender Development Fund
Microsoft has thrown some of its weight behind the open-source 3D graphics software package Blender, the Blender Foundation said this week. The computing giant, which became a Corporate Gold member of the Blender Foundation Development Fund on July 1, said it uses the software to make digital humans that can be used to train AI. A corporate gold membership represents a €30,000 annual contribution to the project, representing six months of developer time.