Blackmagic Camera 10.0 brings 4-channel audio to URSA and PYXIS

Blackmagic Design has published Blackmagic Camera 10.0, a firmware release for three of its cameras: the URSA Broadcast G2, the PYXIS 6K and the PYXIS 12K. The two main changes are more audio channels inside the video file and a much longer pre-record buffer.

Four audio channels in the clip

Until now these cameras recorded two audio channels. Version 10.0 raises that number to four, so two extra tracks are stored in the same file as the picture. Crews can keep separate tracks for presenters, ambient sound or a scratch microphone without moving that work to an external recorder.

All four channels are written in sync with the video. For broadcast work this means no manual syncing of sound during editing.

Pre-record from 5 seconds to 10 minutes

The second headline feature is pre-record. The camera writes footage to the media card in the background all the time. When the operator presses record, it keeps a chosen amount of that cached material and places it at the start of the new clip. The buffer can be set anywhere from 5 seconds up to 10 minutes.

Only the selected stretch before the button press is saved. This uses less storage than leaving the camera rolling, while still catching events that begin before recording starts.

Other changes

• New Camera Control REST API commands for the URSA Broadcast G2 and PYXIS models.
• Improvements to Blackmagic Cloud functions.
• Better B4 lens support on the URSA Broadcast G2.

Blackmagic Camera 10.0 can be downloaded for free from the Blackmagic Design support page. Presets and LUTs may be reset during installation, so users are advised to export them before updating.