Blackmagic Video Assist User Manual Recording Blackmagic RAW on Video Assist 12G HDR
With 12G video assist models you can record Blackmagic RAW from Canon C300 II, SIGMA fp, Leica SL2-S and a range of Panasonic, Nikon and Fujifilm cameras directly to your video assist. All you need to do is output a RAW signal via your camera’s SDI or HDMI out connection.
Connecting your camera to Video Assist 12G HDR
Connect your camera’s SDI or HDMI out to the SDI or HDMI in on your 12G video assist. On Canon C300 Mark II, you can use either the ‘rec out’ SDI or ‘mon’ SDI ports. On Panasonic S5, Fujifilm GFX100 and Fujifilm GFX100S you will need to use a micro HDMI to HDMI cable. On Panasonic EVA1, use the ‘SDI out’ port and on Panasonic S1H, SIGMA fp, Leica SL2-S and Nikon cameras use HDMI out.
On the video assist, set the codec to Blackmagic RAW and select the quality option you want to record. For detailed information on the Blackmagic RAW codec options available, see ‘Recording to Blackmagic RAW’ later in this manual. Now you can set your camera to output a RAW signal via the SDI or HDMI output.
It’s worth noting that Panasonic EVA1 requires the use of a 6G-SDI compatible cable. For Canon C300 Mark II, a 3G-SDI cable is fine.
Canon
Canon C300 Mark II
Click on the ‘menu’ button on the monitor unit to open the menu on the monitor.
Using the joystick or touchscreen menu if available, navigate to the ‘recording/media setup’ submenu and select the ‘rec out 4K RAW mode’ option.
Select the ‘4K RAW’ option, this is the only RAW output over SDI option on the Canon C300 Mark II.
Wait for the display to reboot and return to the menu.
Now select your color space by using the joystick or touchscreen to select ‘4K RAW color space’.
Select either ‘BT. 2020 gamut’ or ‘cinema gamut’. It’s worth noting that these are ‘baked in’ to the raw output, so selecting ‘cinema gamut’ will offer more latitude in post production.
Press the ‘menu’ twice to return to the monitor view.
📘TIP To make sure the RAW output is compatible with Blackmagic RAW, the gamma must be set to Canon Log 2. For more information on setting your gamut and gamma settings, refer to the Canon C300 Mark II instruction manual available on the Canon website.
Panasonic
Panasonic EVA1
Press the ‘menu’ button on the side of the camera to reveal the menu in the viewfinder.
Using the touchscreen or menu jog/dial wheel, select ‘system settings’ followed by ‘system mode’.
From the ‘SDI RAW’ option, select either S35 5.7K for native resolution, crop 4K or crop and mix 2K.
Press the ‘menu’ button to return to the previous menu.
When an ‘SDI RAW’ option is selected, the option to record internally is disabled. It’s worth noting that the SDI out option will be disabled when incompatible frame rates are selected, such as 50i and 59.94i. For more information on frame rates and which SDI RAW option is best for you, refer to the operating instructions available from the Panasonic website.
Panasonic S1H, S1, S5, S5II, S5IIX, GH5S, BS1H and BGH1
With the mode dial on the top of the camera set to creative video mode, press the ‘menu’ button on the side of the camera monitor to reveal the menu. For Panasonic BGH1 you will need to connect an external display or use the Lumix tether app to access the menu.
Using the joystick or control dial, select ‘image format’ followed by ‘HDMI RAW data output’ and select ‘on’.
An alert window will appear to let you know you know no internal recording will take place while the camera is outputting RAW via HDMI. Select ‘yes’ to proceed.
In the image format menu, select the ‘time code’ option and then set ‘HDMI time code output’ to ‘on’. Now time code will pass through to the Blackmagic Video Assist 12G HDR.
Press the ‘back’ button and select ‘record quality’ to select your resolution.
Now you are ready to record. For information on how to set your timecode options and turn on a clean signal, refer to the manual available on the Panasonic website.
SIGMA
SIGMA fp
Make sure the camera is in cine mode by selecting the ‘cine’ switch on top of the camera.
Press the ‘menu’ button on the rear to open the menu.
Using the front dial, navigate to the ‘system’ sub menu and from the ‘HDMI output’ option, select ‘recorded image output’.
In the ‘output format’ sub menu, select ‘RAW’.
With RAW selected you can now choose your resolution and frame rate from the options. If you plan on editing Blackmagic RAW together with files recorded internally, make sure you turn the color mode setting off. This can be found in the shoot menu under ‘color mode’ or by pressing the ‘color’ button on the rear. Automatically disabled when using the HDMI output for external recorders, turning this off will prevent any color effects such as saturation or tonal changes being embedded in your SIGMA fp files or displaying on the camera’s LCD. Now both files will look similar when bought into DaVinci Resolve. For more information on available frame rates, resolutions and color mode, refer to the manual available from the SIGMA website.
📘TIP If you cannot see a video signal on your video assist when a Blackmagic RAW codec is selected, switch the codec on the video assist to ProRes. If the video signal now appears, it means your camera is not outputting a RAW signal correctly, or the color gamut is incorrect.
Leica
Leica SL2-S
Press the ‘menu’ button on the rear of the camera to open the status screen.
Using the touchscreen, joystick or rear dial, select ‘Video’ and press the menu button again to open the video settings.
On page 2 of the video settings open ‘Video Format / Resolution’ and choose ‘RAW (via HDMI)’.
You will be given a list of available frame rates and resolutions. Once selected, you will be returned to the ‘Video Format / Resolution’ sub menu.
Nikon
Nikon Z6, Z6 II, Z7 and Z7 II
Press the ‘menu’ button on the back of the camera.
Using the multi selector go to the ‘Setup Menu’, then navigate to ‘HDMI’ and choose ‘Advanced’.
In the ‘Advanced’ menu go to ‘RAW output options’, select ‘RAW output’ and set to ‘Enable (no recording to card)’. When the ‘RAW output’ option is enabled, the camera will no longer record to its internal media.
Navigate to ‘RAW output mode’ and choose a resolution from the list of options.
Go to ‘RAW output type’ and set to ‘Type B’.
Press the ‘menu’ button repeatedly to return to the main screen.
For more information on your camera’s RAW output, including supported frame rates and color gamuts, refer to your camera’s user manual available via the Canon, Panasonic, SIGMA, Leica or Nikon support sites.
Fujifilm
Fujifilm GFX100 and GFX100S
Rotate the dial on the top of the camera to select movie mode.
Press the menu/ok button to open the menu and select F-Log/HLG/RAW RECORDING option.
Using the joystick, scroll down to the HDMI RAW options. With Fujifilm GFX100 and GFX100S cameras you can record internally and via the HDMI out at the same time. So when selecting your HDMI RAW setting, pick the option you want to use for the internal recording.
To trigger recording on your Video Assist 12G HDR from the camera, navigate to HDMI Rec Control in the menu and turn it on. Now you can exit the menus to return to the main screen.
Fujifilm X-H2, X-H2S, X-T5 and X-S20
Rotate the dial on the top of the camera to select movie mode.
Press the menu/ok button to open the movie setting menu and select ‘HDMI output setting’.
Scroll down to the ‘RAW output setting’ and select ‘RAW output setting Blackmagic’. Within the menu, you can select your resolution as well as your frame rate.
To trigger recording on your Video Assist 12G HDR from the camera, go to ‘HDMI output setting’ navigate to ‘HDMI rec control’ and turn it on. Now you can exit the menus to return to the main screen.
It’s worth noting that Fujifilm cameras will power off after certain periods of inactivity. To prevent this from occurring, you can turn auto power off. For more information on auto power and selecting frame rates and aspect ratios, refer to the manuals available on the Fujifilm website.
Z Cam
Z Cam E2, E2-M4, E2-S6 and E2-F6
Press the ‘menu’ button on the top of the camera to open the various menus.
Select the ‘record’ sub menu to open the recording settings.
Using the up and down buttons, scroll down to the ‘RAW over HDMI’ setting and select ‘on’. When the dialog box appears, press ‘ok’ to return to the quick setting menu.
To set your camera resolution and frame rate, return to the ‘record’ sub menu and configure your camera in the ‘resolution’ and ‘project FPS’ options.
To ensure uninterrupted recording on your video assist, it is important to turn off the ‘auto power off’ setting. For more information on auto power, refer to the manuals available on the Z Cam website.
Blackmagic RAW
Blackmagic Video Assist 12G HDR supports Blackmagic RAW recording from cameras made by other manufacturers. Preserving the quality of sensor data from the cameras, this format offers superior image quality, wide dynamic range and a broad selection of compression ratios. Blackmagic RAW features all the user benefits of RAW recording, but the files are very fast because much of the processing is performed in the video assist.
Blackmagic RAW also includes powerful metadata support so the software reading the files knows your camera settings. If you like shooting in video gamma because you need to turn around edits quickly and you don’t have time for color correction, then this metadata feature means you can select video gamma, shoot in video gamma, and the file will display with video gamma applied when you open it in software. However underneath, the file is actually film gamma and the metadata in the file is what’s telling the software to apply the video gamma.
So what all this means is if you want to color grade your images at some point, then you have all that film dynamic range preserved in the file. You don’t have your images hard clipped in the whites or the blacks, so you retain detail and you can color grade to make all your images look cinematic. However, if you don’t have time for color grading, that’s fine because your images will have the video gamma applied and look like normal video camera images. You are not locked in on the shoot and you can change your mind later during post production.
Blackmagic RAW files are extremely fast and the codec is optimized for your computer’s CPU and GPU. This means it has fast smooth playback and eliminates the need for hardware decoder boards, which is important for laptop use. Software that reads Blackmagic RAW also gets the advantage of processing via Apple Metal, Nvidia CUDA and OpenCL.
This means that Blackmagic RAW plays back at normal speed like a video file on most computers, without needing to cache it first or lower the resolution.
It’s also worth mentioning that lens information is recorded in the metadata on a frame by frame basis. For example, when using compatible lenses, any zoom or focus changes performed over the length of a clip will be saved, frame by frame, to the metadata in the Blackmagic RAW file.
Recording to Blackmagic RAW
Blackmagic RAW works in 2 different ways. You have a choice to use either the constant bitrate codec, or the constant quality codec.
The constant bitrate codec works in a similar way to most codecs. It tries to keep the data rate at a consistent level and won’t let the data rate go too high. This means even if you are shooting a complex image that might need a bit more data to store the image, a constant bitrate codec will just compress the image harder to make sure the images fit within the space allocated.
This can be fine for video codecs, however when shooting Blackmagic RAW you really want to ensure the quality is predictable. What would happen if the images you were shooting needed more data, but the codec just compresses harder to make a specified data rate? It’s possible you could lose quality, but not be sure it’s happening until you return from a shoot.
To solve this problem, Blackmagic RAW also has an alternative codec choice called constant quality. This codec is technically called a variable bitrate codec, but what it’s really doing is allowing the size of the file to grow if your images need extra data. There is no upper limit on the file size if you need to encode an image but maintain quality.
So Blackmagic RAW set to the constant quality setting will just let the file grow as big as it needs to be to encode your images. It also means the files could be larger or smaller depending on what you are shooting. I guess if you leave your lens cap on the lens, you won’t waste space on your media!
It is also worth noting that the quality settings for Blackmagic RAW are not obscure names, but are more meaningful as they are derived from what’s happening technically. So for example when you have selected the constant bitrate codec, you will see quality settings of 3:1, 5:1, 8:1 and 12:1. These are the ratios of the uncompressed RAW file size vs the file sizes you should expect when shooting in Blackmagic RAW. 3:1 is better quality as the file is larger, while 12:1 is the smallest file size with the lowest quality. Many users of Blackmagic RAW find that 12:1 has been perfectly ok and they have not seen any quality limitations. However it’s best to experiment and try various settings for yourself.
When using Blackmagic RAW in constant quality you will see the settings are Q0, Q1, Q3 and Q5. These are the compression parameters passed to the codec and they are setting how much compression is applied in a more technical way. This setting is different because the codec operates differently between constant bitrate vs constant quality. In this constant quality setting, you really cannot tell what the file size ratio will become as it varies a lot based on what you are shooting. So in this case the setting is different and the file will become the size needed to store your media.
Constant Bitrate Settings
The names for 3:1, 5:1, 8:1 and 12:1 represent the compression ratio. For example, 12:1 compression produces a file size roughly 12 times smaller than uncompressed RAW.
Constant Quality Settings
Q0, Q1, Q3 and Q5 refer to different levels of quantization. Q5 has a greater level of quantization but offers a greatly improved data rate. As mentioned above, the constant quality setting can result in files that grow and shrink quite a lot, depending on what you are shooting. This also means it’s possible to shoot something and see the file size increase to beyond what your media card can keep up with. It could result in dropped frames. However the benefit is that you can instantly see if this happens on a shoot and then investigate your settings vs quality.
Blackmagic RAW Player
The Blackmagic RAW player included in your Blackmagic camera’s software installer is a streamlined application for reviewing clips. Simply double click on a Blackmagic RAW file to open it, and you can quickly play and scroll through the file with its full resolution and bit depth.
When decoding frames, the CPU acceleration in the SDK library supports all main architectures, including GPU acceleration via Apple Metal, Nvidia CUDA and OpenCL. Blackmagic RAW player is available for Mac, Windows and Linux.
Sidecar Files
Blackmagic RAW sidecar files let you override metadata in a file without overwriting embedded metadata in the original file. This metadata includes the Blackmagic RAW settings as well as information on iris, focus, focal length, while balance, tint, color space, project name, take number and more. Metadata is encoded frame by frame over the duration of the clip, which is important for lens data if the lens is adjusted during a shot. You can add or edit metadata in sidecar files with DaVinci Resolve or even a text editor because it’s a human readable format.
Sidecar files can be used to automatically add new Blackmagic RAW settings to a playback simply by moving the sidecar file into the same folder as the corresponding Blackmagic RAW file. If you move the sidecar file out of the folder and reopen the Blackmagic RAW file, the changed settings are not applied and you see the file as it was originally shot. Any software that uses the Blackmagic RAW SDK can access these settings. Changes made are saved in the sidecar file and can then be seen by Blackmagic RAW Player or any other software capable of reading Blackmagic RAW files.
When shooting video gamma, the file stays in film gamma, and the metadata tells the Blackmagic RAW processing to display using video gamma. Video gamma is great when you don’t want to grade the image and want to deliver content quickly, however if you want to pull up the black parts of the image, or pull down the white areas, all the detail is retained. You never clip the video and all the detail is still there if you want to access it at any time.
Blackmagic RAW in DaVinci Resolve
Settings can be adjusted for each Blackmagic RAW file, and then saved as a new sidecar file from the ‘Camera RAW’ tab in DaVinci Resolve for creative effect or optimized viewing. This also means you can copy your media for another DaVinci Resolve artist and they will have access to your modified gamma settings automatically on import.
For more information on how to use Blackmagic RAW in DaVinci Resolve, see the ‘Using DaVinci Resolve’ chapter in this manual.
Blackmagic RAW Software Development Kit
The Blackmagic RAW Software Development Kit is an API developed by Blackmagic Design. You can use the Blackmagic RAW SDK to write your own applications to use the Blackmagic RAW format. This SDK library can be used by any developer to add support for reading, editing, and saving Blackmagic RAW files. The Blackmagic RAW SDK includes all the generation 4 color science so you can achieve organic cinematic images across any app that supports it. The Blackmagic RAW SDK supports Mac, Windows and Linux, and is available as a free download from the developer page of the Blackmagic website at
The following diagram illustrates the components of the Blackmagic RAW API:
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