Blackmagic Design

History

The company was founded in 1984 by Grant Petty. On November 2002, the company introduced DeckLink, a QuickTime-based PCI capture card that was the first to offer uncompressed 10 bit video. Version 2.4 for the device was available in February 4, 2003, and added full compatibility for 8 and 10 bit uncompressed Digital Voodoo format and color correction. On February 18, the successor to the DeckLink, DeckLink 2, was released. Microsoft Windows support was added on March. In April, two variants of the DeckLink, the SP and Pro, were announced. Full support for Adobe Premiere Pro and Microsoft DirectShow was released in March 2, 2004 and the Extreme model was announced on March 19. The DeckLink HD Plus,Workgroup Videohub and DeckLink Multibridge were jointly announced on September.

In April 2005, the company announced the Multibridge family of PCIe bi-directional converters and the FrameLink family of DPX-based software. The PCIe variant of the DeckLink Extreme was then announced in September. In January 2006, a software update gave full compatibility with the Adobe Creative Suite, then Adobe Production Studio. In April, the Multibridge Pro and DeckLink HD Extreme were announced, as well as production software for television entitled Blackmagic On-Air.

In 2009, the company acquired the assets of Da Vinci Systems, a former company that had won Emmy Awards for film colouring and restoration equipment. In July 2010, the company acquired Echolab, a manufacturer of vision mixers. In 2011, the company acquired Teranex, a developer of video processing products.

At the NAB Show in April 2012, Blackmagic announced the Cinema Camera, featuring interchangeable EF mount lenses. Due to popular demand, they also announced at IBC, in September, a passive Micro Four Thirds mount to the Cinema Cameras. At IBC 2014 Blackmagic Design announced a production friendly PL-Mount version of the Camera. In July, Blackmagic acquired Cintel, a manufacturer of professional post-production equipment, for transcribing film into video or data formats.

Again at NAB in April 2013, the Production Camera 4K, the first of their cameras to support 4K, was announced. Alongside the Production Camera 4K, the company also announced the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, a highly compact camera which records to SD cards in digital Super-16 1080p RAW or ProRes, has 13 stops of dynamic range, and is compatible with active MFT mount lenses.

At NAB in April 2014, the company announced the URSA camera. In February 2014, the company announced and released the Intensity Pro 4K PCIe card. On April 2015, the company announced the Micro Cinema Camera, a miniature version of the Cinema Camera which allows it to be mountable on drones, releasing the product in July, and the URSA Mini. In September, the company announced the acquisition of eyeon Software, the original authors of Blackmagic Fusion, previously eyeon Fusion. On September 2016, Fairlight announced that Blackmagic had acquired them. On November, the company was reported to open a production facility at Batam in December.

URSA

The Blackmagic URSA is a digital movie camera developed by Blackmagic and is the first commercial 4K movie camera to be user-upgradeable in terms of additional equipment.

Cinema Camera

The Cinema Camera is a digital movie camera developed by Blackmagic. It's 2.5K sensor allows enough oversampling for clean 1080p or 2K output and is announced to have a dynamic range of 13 stops. The camera records to conventional PC 2.5" solid-state drives, in either uncompressed RAW CinemaDNG or Apple ProRes and Avid DNxHD lossy formats. Apart from a few buttons the camera is accessed via its touchscreen display.

Production Camera 4K

The Production Camera 4K is a variant of the Cinema Camera, and records at full 4K at 30 fps. The camera also includes an optional video output via the world's first 6G-SDI connection. The company also announced a line of 4K support products to accompany its release. Among other new features are a larger Super 35mm sized sensor and a global shutter.

Compared to the original Cinema Camera, some of its specifications are inferior. The Production Camera's sensor is rated natively at 400 ISO versus 800 ISO for the first Cinema Camera, and exhibits more image noise at its maximum ISO setting of 800 than the first Cinema Camera does as ISO 1600. The Production Camera has 12 stops of usable dynamic range compared to 13 stops for the Cinema Camera, specifically losing detail in highlights.

Pocket Cinema Camera

The Pocket Cinema Camera is a variant of the Cinema Camera. The camera has 15.4mmx8.8mm image sensor size. The camera can take video at 23.976p, 24p, 25p, 29.97p, and 30p. It has a built-in stereo mic and 3.5mm audio jack. It cannot take photos, but has a time-lapse function. The camera uses a 12.5mmx7mm sensor with a crop factor of 2.88x—smaller than Micro Four Thirds sensor, which makes it difficult to shoot wide angle images, even with wide-angle lenses.

Micro Cinema Camera

The Micro Cinema Camera is a variant of the Cinema Camera. It has a 16mm image sensor and can record up to 1080p video at 30 in Global Shutter mode and 60p in Rolling Shutter mode in RAW or ProRes format. It has an HDMI, 3.5mm audio and expansion port. It also has support for the Canon LP-E6 battery and is the only camera made by Blackmagic to be mountable on drones.