Blackmagic Design Unveils Spatial Video Camera for Shooting Apple Vision Pro Content

[MacRumors]

Blackmagic Design has announced the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive camera designed for shooting spatial video content for Apple's Vision Pro headset.

The URSA Cine Immersive camera features a custom stereoscopic 3D lens system with dual 8K sensors, capable of capturing a 180-degree field of view with spatial audio support. It is designed to capture content with a resolution of 8,160 x 7,200 per eye and offers 16 stops of dynamic range to ensure detail and color accuracy in every frame, with the ability to shoot stereoscopic 3D immersive cinema content at 90 frames per second.

The URSA Cine Immersive is constructed with a magnesium alloy chassis and a carbon fiber polycarbonate composite skin. It includes dual 5-inch HDR touchscreens and an external color status LCD screen. Connectivity options are extensive, including 12G-SDI out, 10G Ethernet, USB-C, and XLR audio ports, along with an 8-pin Lemo connector for power.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1800273164867658228

An 8TB Blackmagic Media Module comes built-in, which can store around two hours of 8K stereoscopic video recorded in Blackmagic RAW. The camera also supports Cloud Store, allowing for fast media upload and synchronization via the 10G Ethernet connection.

Simultaneously, Blackmagic Design is updating DaVinci Resolve to better support the creation of Vision Pro content. The updated editing software will feature a new immersive video viewer, allowing editors to pan, tilt, and roll clips for viewing on 2D monitors or directly on the Apple Vision Pro headset.

Blackmagic has not yet announced the price of the URSA Cine Immersive camera. For reference, the Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K is priced at $14,995 without a lens, suggesting that the new immersive camera could be similarly priced plus the cost of the twin lens system.

Article Link: Blackmagic Design Unveils Spatial Video Camera for Shooting Apple Vision Pro Content

 

[mukiex]

Is it just me or are all these consumer cameras putting the sensors way too close to each other? What do the 180 degree stereoscopic production studios using?

 

[vegetassj4]

$14,995? For that much I could get some Mac Pro wheels AND a polishing cloth.

 

[Blackstick]

$14,995? For that much I could get some Mac Pro wheels AND a polishing cloth.

Most of these are rented and it's a tax deductible expense for the production.

 

[the future]

I wish they modelled the rest of the device body after WALL-e as well, not just the eyes.

 

[gatorvet96]

Is it just me or are all these consumer cameras putting the sensors way too close to each other? What do the 180 degree stereoscopic production studios using?

Most human eyes that see perfectly well in 3D (and who these are designed for) are only a few inches apart, so seems to be right to me.

 

[Surne]

0/10, eyes are too close together.

 

[artifex]

I wonder what the weight of that assembly is expected to be, since there's an image in the ex-twitter post showing it on a drone.

 

[gatorvet96]

0/10, eyes are too close together.

How far are your eyes apart?

 

[neuropsychguy]

How far are your eyes apart?

 

[iLuddite]

Damn, Wall-E looks like that?

 

[filmantopia]

Availability of equipment like this is a critical step toward there being more content for AR/VR devices like Vision Pro. We don't know if or when such products will receive mass adoption, but if it will happen it first needs things like this.

 

[TigerNike23]

Are we really gonna try 3D again? Didn’t it flop in TVs and phones (looking at you, HTC) 10 years ago?

 

[mrgraff]

I wonder what the weight of that assembly is expected to be, since there's an image in the ex-twitter post showing it on a drone.

Judging by other URSA models, I'd guess around 10 pounds.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Is it just me or are all these consumer cameras putting the sensors way too close to each other? What do the 180 degree stereoscopic production studios using?

Yesterday's example appeared to support this concept. However, this thing is only close together at the virtual "nose", which is where our human eyes are also closest together. At the other end near the virtual "temple" I suspect each lens is further out than the outer edge of our human eyes. I'm looking at that picture and wild guessing but I bet the outer edge of each lens is probably somewhere between about 6.5" and maybe 8" or so wide.

I picked up some sunglasses as a point of comparison. The inner edges are pretty close together- like how this lens looks- and the outer edges are pretty far out- like how this lens looks. Slip on the sunglasses and look towards my nose or far out and I see lens in the full view- as I would expect video shot with this thing to look at the extremes towards my nose or far left & right.

So to me- unlike yesterdays Canon example- these look like there is plenty of room to fit in even widely-spaced eyes and still catch what is further left & right in the periphery. Nevertheless, I'm going to guess the Canon model works fine too- just not at this resolution... which will obviously max out the view for Vpro.

Where I'd really like to see this go is full 360˚, high resolution capture so that Vpro and similar user could basically look wherever they want and see what is there. As is, everything is basically capturing what is out in front but there are cheaper 360˚ videos all over YouTube and similar where one can click and drag to look up down, left, right and even behind... like this one...

I didn't check this one but others like it when viewed with iPhone or iPad will let you simply rotate the device around to see other views (presumably the gyros sense you "rotating to what you want to see"... which would be akin to turning your head in Vpro to look over there, or back there, or up there, etc. To me, this would be the ultimate destination for Vpro video. Slip on the goggles, look anywhere you want and there is captured views there.

I presume that's much more robust video capture technology in spite of the presumably cheapie capture examples like that example I shared. Nevertheless, I'd like to see this go there where some kind of ball camera could capture 360 degrees at the same time so viewer is not limited to mostly 180 degrees out front.

 

[Timo_Existencia]

Are we really gonna try 3D again? Didn’t it flop in TVs and phones (looking at you, HTC) 10 years ago?

Well...humans have had 3D vision for 200,000 years. 2D vision has only existed for 200 years.

 

[VPsmith]

Sweet Jesus the corn that can be made with this camera!

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

I feel like i want to walk this around my local park.

 

[coffeemilktea]

I swear this looks like something out of Star Wars... I think I've seen a droid with this head. 🤖

 

[rikki_t]

I would think the sensors are much smaller than the lenses and are the correct distance apart, as they are positioned to take light from each leases centre only

 

[nocsi]

That’s cool. But i’m looking for something more discrete and easily mountable in my airbnb bathrooms.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Sweet Jesus the corn that can be made with this camera!

Too bad the corn crop is so poor these days. In the end quantity aways comes at the expense of quality, as commodification demands the cheapening of every good thing.

 

[irj]

Are we really gonna try 3D again? Didn’t it flop in TVs and phones (looking at you, HTC) 10 years ago?

I don't really care about 3D in general, but the Apple Vision demo had some shots in it that were jaw dropping. It felt like being in the room with the other people in the scene. For travel videos or other (ahem) immersive content it is definitely going to be a thing as soon as pricing comes down.

 

[mannyvel]

One of the reason people bought 4k TVs (or at least a few) was to see their photos on a screen that had decent resolution. Wonder if the AVP is going to become another odd venue for people's pics.

 

[timborama]

Availability of equipment like this is a critical step toward there being more content for AR/VR devices like Vision Pro. We don't know if or when such products will receive mass adoption, but if it will happen it first needs things like this.

Ya, just like 3D television 🙄