By Troy Smith
The concept of taking pictures video on our cameras (or telephones) and having it robotically imported into our modifying software program was a dream however is now a actuality. One of many firms that gives this functionality is Blackmagic Design with its Blackmagic Cloud, Blackmagic Cloud Retailer, Blackmagic Digital camera and DaVinci Resolve.
Blackmagic Cloud Retailer is quick high-capacity cloud-based community storage {hardware} that’s designed to deal with giant media recordsdata. It consists of the Blackmagic Cloud service, which features a free plan with 2GB of storage. The paid plans start at 500GB of storage for $15 per thirty days and go all the way in which as much as 1PB for $30,000 per thirty days.
Blackmagic Cloud Retailer is cloud-based storage to your media. The free plan consists of 2GB of storage. The paid plans start at 500GB of storage for $15 per thirty days and go all the way in which as much as 1PB for $30,000 per thirty days.
Let’s dig in…
Blackmagic Cloud Retailer Mini (8TB)
Blackmagic presents all kinds of community storage in its Cloud Retailer lineup. For this evaluation, we’re going to deal with the entry-level Cloud Retailer Mini 8TB (there may be additionally a 16TB model). If 16TB is just too small, you would go for the Cloud Retailer Max, which is available in 24TB or 48TB fashions.
The Cloud Retailer Mini can hook up with the web with both a 10G or 1G Ethernet port. It’s potential to entry the Cloud Retailer Mini over your wi-fi community or plug it immediately into your laptop. Contained in the Cloud Retailer Mini, there are 4 2TB flash reminiscence playing cards, which offer the Mini with excessive pace and sturdiness.
As soon as I plugged the Cloud Retailer Mini into the web with the Ethernet cable and related it to my laptop by way of USB-C, it was time to arrange my storage. I downloaded the Cloud Retailer setup software from the Blackmagic assist web page. There may be an choice to retailer your initiatives on Blackmagic Cloud Sync, Dropbox Sync or Google Drive Sync. I opted for Blackmagic Cloud Sync as a result of I needed to remain within the Blackmagic ecosystem.
Whereas your laptop doesn’t should be related to the Cloud Retailer Mini by way of USB-C or Ethernet, my expertise with Resolve was a lot better when my laptop was wired to the exterior drive. The Cloud Retailer Mini should at all times be related to your web by way of Ethernet. There isn’t any Wi-Fi choice for the Cloud Retailer Mini.
It’s fascinating how the Cloud Retailer Mini presents high-performance community storage for video modifying. I used DaVinci Resolve’s proxy recordsdata for modifying, which allowed my digicam media to sync for instant publish work. Its quick, flash-based reminiscence core permits a number of customers to work concurrently.
An attention-grabbing characteristic is the HDMI port on the again of the unit, which lets you plug a show immediately into the field with the intention to monitor the visitors. It is possible for you to to see who’s accessing the media and what number of recordsdata are being added or deleted in actual time. That is only a visible illustration; there isn’t any potential to handle customers or disks.
Including Blackmagic Cloud into the combination means the Resolve mission can sync media to completely different places, which permits a quick modifying expertise at every location. It’s widespread information that web speeds and connections might be flaky — to not point out the latency when attempting to play again recordsdata. Blackmagic solves this downside by syncing media to a consumer’s native storage, thus eradicating the burden of gradual playback and latency. All customers have an area copy of the recordsdata, and the Cloud Retailer retains everybody’s recordsdata in sync on a regular basis.
Utilizing the Blackmagic iPhone Digital camera App
To amass my media, I selected the Blackmagic Digital camera iPhone app. The app is free and has many nice options to spice up your iPhone digicam sport. You too can select one in every of Blackmagic’s cameras to seize your media. One cool choice the iPhone app’s “Stay Sync” perform, which live-syncs your media to the Cloud Retailer Mini and to your Resolve mission. Once you allow Stay Sync, log in to your Blackmagic Cloud account on the iPhone app and permit “Distant Digital camera Entry” in your Resolve Venture. By doing this, the media you shoot will probably be uploaded robotically to your Cloud Retailer Mini and populate within the Digital camera Uploads folder in your Resolve mission.
The footage you shoot not solely robotically uploads to your storage, but it surely additionally robotically imports into your modifying system. And did I point out that the digicam can add proxies and the unique media recordsdata? I don’t need to sound like an outdated geezer, however again once I began, we shot on tape, and we digitized the media in actual time to get the footage into our NLE. I used to be one of many many assistant editors who labored all night time digitizing footage so the editors can be able to work within the morning.
The present workflow is to repeat digicam playing cards to exterior drives after which import the footage right into a shared storage system, the place a number of NLEs can entry the media. All of that is quicker than actual time. Having the ability to shoot media and concurrently add it to each an exterior drive and your modifying system turbocharges your time from acquisition to edit.
Let’s say you may’t (or don’t need to) have your media robotically uploaded to your mission or to Blackmagic Cloud Retailer Mini. That’s fantastic. Simply flip Stay Sync off, and you may manually add your clips to Cloud Retailer Mini at a time of your selecting.
There are some caveats to this workflow, and measurement does matter. When you select the most important measurement on the iPhone app (4K 30fps ProRes 422 HQ file measurement), then your media will take longer to add. I selected HD 1920×1080 30fps HEVC H.265 for its pace and smaller file measurement. When working in 4K, the workflow can decelerate.
Execs and Cons
What’s to not like concerning the direct entry from digicam to storage to modifying software program? I’m extraordinarily impressed with Blackmagic’s ecosystem and the way properly every thing works collectively.
Execs
- The Cloud Retailer Mini transfers recordsdata quick (when utilizing smaller file sizes).
- Many customers have requested for a strategy to share initiatives apart from by way of Dropbox Sync or Google Drive Sync. Blackmagic answered the decision by introducing its personal mission storage known as Blackmagic Cloud Sync.
- The setup is simple. Simply plug and play.
- It presents a stable design and high quality really feel. The unit is gentle and simply moveable (not rack-mounted).
- You could have the choice to make use of an HDMI community show.
Cons
- It solely presents RAID 0 storage.
- There’s no energy provide, USB-C or Ethernet Cables included within the field.
- There’s no wi-fi web choice. It should be plugged in to a router.
Ultimate Ideas
Though I’m keen on the Blackmagic Cloud Retailer Mini, there are some things I want it might do.
Screenshot
As talked about above, the drive is just RAID-0, which implies if it dies, so does your media — a minor inconvenience if in case you have saved your media in one other location, however devastating if it’s your solely copy. Please preserve that in thoughts, and at all times have a backup.
It could be nice if it had wi-fi web and didn’t should be hard-wired into your web router.
However total, I’m delighted with the Cloud Retailer Mini. I like having the ability to shoot media and have it robotically uploaded to my Cloud Retailer Mini and imported into Resolve.
Troy Smith has over 25 years of expertise as a colorist and on-line editor. He’s additionally a founding board member of the Colorist Society Hollywood, an area chapter of the Colorist Society Worldwide.
