- "But Linus, YouTube doesn't even support 12K video."
I know there's gonna be some of you out there
thinking that exact thing.
So let's get this out of the way.
We know nobody has a 12K display, okay.
The real reason someone might want to shoot in 12K
are the same reasons that we switched to 8K, back in 2017.
Capturing more detail in the first place
helps immensely with post-production work,
and it gives the editor more flexibility to reframe shots.
And of course, the sharper the source footage,
the better the final output.
And of course, there's one other important reason,
we just love playing around
with the latest high-tech gizmos.
And (gasping) speaking of which, look at this,
a Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K, got it right here.
Oh yeah, this puppy makes it super easy to shoot 12K video.
And that is a huge deal.
"I mean, come on Linus, that sounds like what?
Maybe 50% more than 8K, right? Right?"
Wrong, 12K is over double
(fire exploding) the pixel count of 8K,
80 million pixels per frame. (fire exploding)
So get ready then, for the sharpest LTT videos
you've ever seen, right, right?
(bubbly music)
Well, okay, shooting 12K might be pretty simple.
Editing it on a mere mortal workstation?
That's another story.
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(gentle music)
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We realized that it was a pretty bold choice
to buy six 12K cameras, as soon as they were released.
I know, I know, don't pre-order, right?
But the thing is, the URSA Mini Pro 12K
has a lot of other features, aside from the resolution,
that make it perfect for a new set
that we're building for ShortCircuit.
And well, given Blackmagic's typical supply constraints,
we felt that we either had to go all in,
or wait months to get enough hardware
to finish up our build.
We knew that we were gonna run into some roadblocks.
I mean, to say our transition to Red cameras was smooth,
would be a bold faced lie.
But actually, compared to the truckload of early issues
we experienced with Red hardware and software,
our early 12K workflow testing,
with the Blackmagic URSA Mini, was significantly smoother.
That's partially because our current editing stations,
with Ryzen 3960X Threadripper processors,
128 gigs of RAM, and 8 gig RTX 2080 graphics cards
seemed to be good enough to edit 12K video,
without any upgrades.
Look at this Premiere timeline.
It's quick and responsive, at 1/8 resolution,
which by the way, is still pretty sharp at this size,
when you've got 80 megapixels per frame to start with.
So, it looks like we're good on the hardware side.
As it turns out, the 12K early adopter tax
is collected in software.
In our initial tests with the URSA Mini 12K,
our shooters quickly discovered a bug,
where the sensor wouldn't initialize after video playback,
unless you changed the settings.
I mean, it's not a game breaker,
but it's definitely pretty annoying.
However, another YouTuber we talked to
had a different issue involving their URSA Mini 12K,
where it would just start to record, seemingly at random,
for what is supposedly a professional tool.
That kind of unpredictability is disconcerting,
to say the least.
And we're just getting started.
Instead of recording in a well-supported
industry standard format, like H.265,
or ProRes, Blackmagic uses a proprietary codec,
called Blackmagic RAW.
Now the advantage is that, like other RAW,
or compressed RAW formats,
it allows you to retain extra information,
without the unreasonable storage requirements of true RAW,
and change metadata, like white balance, and ISO, in post,
after you've shot it, that's great.
The disadvantage, and this is where we hit
our first major roadblock,
is that the URSA Mini Pro 12K only supports shooting video
in BRAW, and well, our other applications didn't like that.
For instance, Kyno, the program we use
to ingest, inspect, and backup our footage,
doesn't currently support BRAW,
they've been told to hold off on supporting it,
until Blackmagic software comes out of beta.
So, we'll have to wait until that happens,
or completely change our ingest procedure.
Also, Adobe Premiere, our video editing program of choice,
is able to work with BRAW,
but there are some hefty software issues to work out,
which we'll get to in a minute.
The thing is, BRAW is really meant to be used
in Blackmagic's own editing software, DaVinci Resolve.
And if you're after a completely seamless,
synergistic experience, that can be found
using Resolve on a Mac.
On both our 5K iMac, with 16 gigs of VRAM,
and our lowly Mac Mini, with Intel graphics,
12K BRAW footage plays back (tongue clicking) just fine,
when you set the timeline to 4K.
Even when we set the timeline to native 12K,
Resolve could still play back the footage,
although it was choppy enough to be unusable.
Blackmagic claims that the experience works,
using a graphics card,
with as little as four gigs of VRAM though.
Wow.
Unfortunately on Windows, it's a different story.
Resolve instantly stops playback of 12K footage,
with a warning about insufficient video memory,
until you install a card with 12 gigs of RAM.
Then, 'cause get this, Blackmagic actually recommends
24 gigs of VRAM.
Are they in cahoots with Nvidia,
to get us to buy RTX 3090s?
You can't even buy RTX 3090s, come on.
This is just cruel.
Okay, well then what about Premiere?
Well, thanks to the latest beta version
of Blackmagic's BRAW plugin, you can import
and edit 12K footage, from the URSA Mini Pro 12K.
And, with GPU Acceleration, playback isn't perfectly smooth,
at full 12K, but it is serviceable.
Until the moment you want to apply
any color correction using Lumetri.
As soon as you open up the panel,
you (fingers snapping) instantly lose hardware acceleration,
causing about 90% of your frames to be dropped.
Even if you are running a Threadripper,
and your rendering times, to absolutely fall off a cliff.
What? Here's, where it gets crazy.
The quickest way to fix timeline performance in Premiere
is to change your timeline from 12K down to 4K,
and then drop the preview window down to 1/4 scale.
This does improve timeline responsiveness, as we'd expect.
But it doesn't help at all
with the color correction problem.
The solution to that was to follow
Blackmagic's Resolve guidance,
and then install a 24 gig graphics card.
But, but, Premiere's usage of VRAM isn't even that high.
And the rabbit hole goes even deeper.
If we drop our recording resolution down
to 12288 by 5112, it works fine,
with just eight gigs of VRAM.
So, why would we need three times as much?
And get this, even if we record at full res,
if we use Lumetri, on an adjustment layer,
instead of on the clip itself, it also works fine.
Damn you, software bugs.
The bottom line then is that for whatever reason,
Blackmagic just cannot seem to get their BRAW plugin
to a stable place, and it's been an ongoing issue.
One version'll work, then the next one will introduce bugs
before being fixed again,
a couple of months later in a new version.
As for the current version, well, it's pretty broken.
For example, copying and pasting RAW settings
from one clip to another, is a guaranteed way
to draw out a bug.
You might lose the ability to edit the RAW settings,
or a clip might take on the settings
of the clip preceding it,
or your program might just straight up crash.
Some folks get around this
by sticking to a version that works,
until the rest of the community
finishes beta testing for them.
But, to edit the URSA Mini 12K's footage,
Premiere requires the latest version of Blackmagic's plugin,
which is the first to support 12K BRAW files.
So unfortunately, that's not an option for us.
Which wouldn't be a problem,
if the camera could at least record in ProRes, or DNxHD,
(buzzing) like its predecessors,
(buzzing) but it can't.
And whether it's for technical reasons,
or just because they don't want to,
Blackmagic apparently has no plans to support other codecs
that they were willing to tell us about.
So then, with a camera that requires the use
of a jenky plug-in, to edit its footage,
what's an aspiring 12K content creator to do?
Enter Autokroma, they're a company, AKA two guys,
who have been developing their own
BRAW enabling plugin for Premiere, called BRAW Studio,
for the last two years.
And shockingly, even though it's a third-party plugin,
made by two guys, our experience is
that it's more stable, offers more functionality,
and has better support,
because Autokroma actually answers emails, which is neat.
They helped us iron out some initial wrinkles,
and it looks like with their plugin,
editing BRAW in Premiere is stable enough for us
to consider making it part of our workflow.
But wait a second, I mean, isn't that ridiculous?
Why is it necessary to buy a $59 third-party plugin
to be able to actually edit footage,
from a brand new $10,000 camera?
We don't know, maybe Blackmagic has Apple dreams,
you know, where you film on a Blackmagic camera,
using a Blackmagic codec, then edid in a Blackmagic program,
using Blackmagic hardware, which is neat.
You know, good for you, Blackmagic.
But if you want my advice,
make sure that your products work both in
and out of your ecosystem.
'Cause think about it, if I were to dip my toes in the water
with a purchase like this,
only to find out that the experience totally sucks,
unless I give you even more of my money
to change out all of our other stuff,
and then maybe it'll be great?
That's not a great first impression, is it?
So while Blackmagic's Premiere plugin is free,
the time and frustration that its instability cost us
is worth much more than BRAW Studio's $60 price tag.
So, for now, we're not gonna be shooting
every video in 12K, but with Autokroma's plugin,
and the adjustment layer work around,
we can slowly bring it into our workflow,
while we wait for Blackmagic to fix the bugs.
And also for graphics cards with enough VRAM
to actually be in stock.
But you know what? Maybe just forget it.
Why don't we just all switch to Mac?
Brandon, switch to Mac. (yelling)
- [Brandon] Oh no, no.
- Come on, just like I'm gonna switch
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If you guys enjoyed this video, maybe check out the,
you know what, let's take a trip down memory lane,
and check out the unboxing of our first 8K camera.
Ah yes.
It was enraging.
To put it in perspective, guys,
one of those cameras cost about as much
as five of these.
And it was only an 8K? What a rip.