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A black magic camera with... meters!


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Ya, Blackmagic released Blackmagic Camera Utility 1.9. These features:

 

Blackmagic Production Camera 4K
  • Add histogram, time remaining and audio level indicators
Blackmagic Cinema Camera
  • No changes
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera
  • No changes
Blackmagic Studio Camera
  • No changes

 

 

A video detailing the changes (I think) and links to the Mac and Windows version of the update can be found here:

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support

 

Presumably/hopefully these features will be added to their other cameras soon.

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Why the hell can't camera makers include a market at -20? No one uses -12.

-12dbfs has been and is still used as a reference point to compensate for poorer record electronics. It was the test reference level for the published specs for the HHb Portadat of years past.

Eric

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and the utility of tone is greatly diminished in the digital world.

 

use of has

need for has not, I can't count the number of times I've been "called" when a mix handed back to picture for marring and output to tape was tone hot.  Ever time they did not bother to check their output assingments/panning so it was summing mono/hot

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Why the hell can't camera makers include a market at -20? No one uses -12. 

 

What Rado said. Just feed tone at -12dBFS for alignment on the -12dB mark in the camera. Just remember that if you record some of the tone down (which you probably should), that you write it somewhere and let post know so that there isn't any issues down the road.

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ok ok, the whole -20 -12 debate. Rado had a very simple solution to the "problem", and the Senator wasn't helpful as usual. -12 may have BEEN a normal thing for many years, in years past, but -20 is certainly "more normal" these days, so I would too be a little surprised to see -12, if I hadn't also seen plenty of other odd markers in camera audio levels (-18, -15, -14, etc) all in dBFS. For someone who is used to seeing -20, this would be a surprise, so keep that context in your mind before you judge someone for reacting guys :)

 

And just to make a simple point about being over reliant on metering: On a recent job, I and another team were told to mix to camera, which was our beloved BMC 4K with its distinguished 1/4" TRS inputs and no metering. The purpose was to have the mix already married to the picture because as soon as it was shot, the picture would be handed off to post where it would be edited down and rendered out, and within less than an hour, be presented to a huge live audience and broadcast simultaneously. Our common sense solution was to play audio at full gain on the camera and then level it down to where it sounded right and was no longer clipping. Needless to say we had zero issues, no audio was needed to be resynced, our mixes were adequate for their purpose, and everyone was happy. In a high pressure run and gun situation with little to no prep time and little direction from production, this went rather smooth and our high end clients were happy.

 

The camera operators on the other hand strongly detested using this specific camera for that style of shooting, and had very few good things to say about their performance, so you guys can take that one to the bank if you like!

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I played some average level dialogue from a previous recording, and made sure the camera gain was at maximum. Then stepped it down until it seemed appropriate. I know a lot of people will have trouble without the crutch of a guideline or marker, but this was a simple solution that the other sound mixer and myself came up with, and it worked very well.

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  • 7 months later...

Hey guys, I am a bit of a newbie to production sound but I am always trying to learn, so please be patient if I am asking dumb questions. I have never had many problems calibrating mixes to other cameras but it seems the Black Magic production cam is a bit more complicated. 

 

Rado mentioned above that in order to match levels on the BM camera, simply change your output tone to -12dbfs and match it up on the camera using the cam's preamps. This is what I did, but I then noticed that my near 0dBfs peaks were hitting quite low on the cam meters (I can't remember exactly where but somewhere around maybe -6dBfs). I then attempted to send another reference tone output @-6dBfs to see if it was matching on the BM meters, but to my surprise, the meters were not aligned at -6. Instead they were much lower. 

 

I am wondering if this has something to do with internal settings of bit depth on the black magic or if I am maybe doing something else wrong. After all, if I can't align a healthy signal in the camera, something is not optimally configured. 

 

Any help would be appreciated. 

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Feed the camera tone at -12.

EASY.

Or if you really need -20:

Feed the camera tone at -12..Align to the  -12 mark. Now reduce the tone level to -20.

Here is your -20 mark.

.

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated. I am supposed to work with this camera on a regular basis with the same company, and it would be great if I could figure this out before tomorrow when I will need to use it again. Rado, do you have anything to offer more than what you have already said?

When I send -12 tone to the BM and line it up to -12 on the meters everything is fine, but then when I turn my tone knob to -6 it does not correspond to -6 on the camera's meter. Instead it is somewhere more like -10. The point being, when I align everything up, the reference tone when changed does not follow the same kind of change on cam meter. It is like we are dealing with two metrics of dBFS. My mixer's meters and the cam meters seem to measure increments of decibels completely differently. 

This is so frustrating because I tried so many times and I don't know what to do next. Thanks in advance. 

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...

This is so frustrating because I tried so many times and I don't know what to do next. Thanks in advance.

Forgive my directness, but it's time to learn gain staging and to quit trying to just paint by numbers.

What is the max level before distortion of each stage that your sound signal will travel through? How much headroom do you wish each stage to have? Your signal will only be as good as the weakest link of the audio chain it's traveling through.

A starting point (back to the numbers) is to increase a reference signal until a given stage hits its "brick wall," and then decrease the nominal level by 20dB.

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Forgive my directness, but it's time to learn gain staging and to quit trying to just paint by numbers.

What is the max level before distortion of each stage that your sound signal will travel through? How much headroom do you wish each stage to have? Your signal will only be as good as the weakest link of the audio chain it's traveling through.

A starting point (back to the numbers) is to increase a reference signal until a given stage hits its "brick wall," and then decrease the nominal level by 20dB.

Again, please excuse my ignorance, but how would I do this differently? Would I send reference tone of 0dB,  line it up to the 0dB mark on the camera meter by adjusting the camera's preamp, and then decrease the reference tone on my mixer by 20dB? 

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Again, please excuse my ignorance, but how would I do this differently? Would I send reference tone of 0dB,  line it up to the 0dB mark on the camera meter by adjusting the camera's preamp, and then decrease the reference tone on my mixer by 20dB? 

But was I correct with my method I explained in my last comment?! Or is this wrong??

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Find the spot on the BM where clipping happens and then back off enough to give yourself the headroom you want.  If you're going to be working with the camera a lot, get your hands on it for a test.  There should be an hour at the beginning of the day after you're all set up and before camera is ready to roll to do a couple of tests.  Use your ears, and only check the meters as dummy check to confirm what you hear.

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