Blackmagic Design announced new features for Blackmagic Cloud, which are now available free of charge at cloud.blackmagicdesign.com .
The Blackmagic Cloud storage app has a new icon view that lets you scrub through thumbnails to preview your footage, there’s also a new inspector panel that makes it easier to see clip metadata, and you can now share presentations via URL with clients that are not Blackmagic Cloud members for collaboration and group chat.
New icon view for Blackmagic Cloud storage app
The Blackmagic Cloud storage app has a new icon view that can be selected at the top right of the window. In this view, customers can hover over the thumbnail icons of media files and scrub the thumbnails to scroll through the clips. When customers switch to list view, the icons will reflect the current contents of the media, making it easy to see what clips are included in Blackmagic Cloud.
Most media formats have already been converted to image icons, but there is more in the process that will be completed soon. Blackmagic Cloud supports thumbnail generation from a wide range of common media file formats. Unsupported formats will display a generic icon.
Inspector Panel for Metadata
In addition, the Blackmagic Cloud storage app window now has a new inspector panel for metadata on the right hand side, so when you select the info icon in the top right, you can open a tab to see the metadata for the selected clip, and there’s also a scrollable view of the clip’s media with the mouse, making it easier to select a clip in the list.
Share presentations with non-members
Blackmagic Cloud Presentations now includes a new feature that allows customers to invite clients to a presentation via a URL. This means when customers choose to share a presentation with a client who is not a Blackmagic Cloud member, a URL is generated that can be copied and pasted into an email. Customers can quickly share presentations with clients for easy collaboration and even include group chat.
The Blackmagic Cloud login window is available in several languages: German, Chinese, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Turkish and Ukrainian.
Blackmagic Cloud lets customers share DaVinci Resolve projects worldwide so they can collaborate with the world’s best editors, colorists, VFX artists and audio engineers for a truly global workflow. Blackmagic Cloud is built into DaVinci Resolve, as well as most Blackmagic Design cameras and the free Blackmagic Camera app for iPhone and Android.
About Live Sync
The key to Blackmagic Cloud is that the latest Blackmagic cameras, including the Cinema Camera 6K, PYXIS, URSA Cine and URSA Broadcast G2, can record full resolution HD proxies in H.264. These files are simultaneously recorded and live synced to the Blackmagic Cloud and then live synced to all DaVinci Resolve workstations connected to the same cloud project. All the cinematographer needs to do is connect a project, which is visible in the camera’s user interface, and it all happens automatically.
Simply log into the Blackmagic Cloud on your camera before recording and select a DaVinci Resolve project and the recorded files will be synced live to all connected DaVinci Resolve workstations. Colorists can apply color correction while the editor is editing. When multiple cameras are recording at the same time, the new multi sync feature displays all cameras in a multiview so the editor can select the best angle.
This workflow is similar to live streaming to editing software. Once the user starts playback, the media is synced to the viewer at the point of the playhead so it never stops playing. As each segment of the clip arrives, the playback indicator moves back and you can see the clip get longer. If a clip is currently being recorded with a remote camera, a red recording indicator will appear on the clip’s icon in the bin.
This means that once the camera starts recording, editing and color correction can begin on the remote DaVinci Resolve system while the shoot is ongoing, and the on-set DaVinci Resolve system can review the color grade as soon as the camera finishes recording. This eliminates the need for complex color grading setups on set because post production facilities can work with large DaVinci panels and color accurate monitors. The on-set DaVinci Resolve system can be used to play back the color graded shot the moment the shot is finished shooting. It’s a parallel workflow where post production and shooting can happen simultaneously.
For news coverage, cameras such as the URSA Broadcast G2 can start recording at the exact moment a historic event is occurring and sync up to the editing system, meaning editors can start editing the news the moment filming begins, without having to wait for recording to finish, and the news can be aired within seconds.
If a broadcaster decides to play the media on air during recording, all they need to do is go back a few seconds in the DaVinci Resolve viewer and press play. DaVinci Resolve will then play the media in a way that is very similar to how it would be streamed live, with DaVinci Resolve acting as the media decoder and player.
Partnership with NVIDIA
“Blackmagic Design is excited to partner with NVIDIA to bring their new 3D effects to the 3D world,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design.
“Since we launched Blackmagic Cloud, we’ve been continually updating and adding new features to make it easier for our users to share and collaborate on projects on a global scale, and we’ve received ongoing feedback from our users. We’re excited to now be able to preview clips with thumbnails, view clip metadata and allow non-Blackmagic Cloud members to view clips using a simple URL,” said Petty.
