Blackmagic Partners Apple For 8K 3D

Blackmagic Design has released details of a forthcoming stereo 3D video camera that will be able to capture up to 8,160 x 7200 pixels for each eye – that’s 77% more pixels than the 33 megapixels of 8K UltraHD. The extra pixels come from the squarer aspect ratio (8K UltraHD is 4360 pixels high).

Apple mentioned the new camera in its Worldwide Developer Conference and highlighted that it is intended to allow the creation of stereo 3D 8K content suitable for the Apple Vision Pro headset. Apple said at its event that is partnering with Blackmagic to build a new workflow based on the new camera, DaVinci Resolve and Apple’s compression. 

Camera specialists have speculated that the new URSA Cine Immersive camera is based on the 17K camera that Blackmagic showed at the NAB show. Details are thin at the moment, but the camera is expected to support 16 stops of dyamic range and capture at up to 90fps. Content will be captured into a new version Blackmagic’s RAW format, Blackmagic RAW Immersive. The camera will have a fixed custom lens system that will be pre-installed in the body. 

Blackmagic also said that there would be a new version of its DaVinci Resolve editor to allow editing of 3D content. The firm said that 

“customers will be able to edit Apple Immersive Video shot on the URSA Cine Immersive camera. A new immersive video viewer will let editors pan, tilt and roll clips for viewing on 2D monitors or on Apple Vision Pro for an even more immersive editing experience. Transitions rendered by Apple Vision Pro will also be able to be bypassed using FCP XML metadata, giving editors clean master files. Export presets will enable quick output into a package which can be viewed directly on Apple Vision Pro”.

More details are available in the firm’s press release and price and delivery are still to be confirmed.

Canon, which has also developed a 3D stereo lens for its R5 and R5C cameras and  has previously said that you really need 100 megapixels to match the capability of the Apple Vision Pro in immersive video. 

(Some readers might wonder why you need 8K when the Apple displays are around 4K square? The key is that the 8K video allows you to look around wider than the display area, so you need a lot more resolution to map to 180 degrees. The 4K displays are effectively windows on the wider 8K content).