Among the slew of surprising NAB announcements this year comes one from Kinefinity that draws a whole different kind of "wow, I didn't see that coming." It seems the camera company isn't satisfied merely offering 4K RAW (and soon enough, 6K RAW) capture at extremely aggressive prices. Kinefinity also wants to upgrade your Blackmagic Cinema Camera or Production Camera 4K into a bigger, more functional workhorse. The Kine+ program is a third-party modification on a different level, adding interchangeable batteries, HDMI, additional power ports, and even a bit more heftiness to the external dimensions. Check below for our NAB 2014 interview with Kinefinity.
At $1000 and $1500 for BMCC and BMPC 4K owners respectively, this upgrade may not be worth it to you unless you're a pretty hardcore user. With the removable battery option (Sony NP-F), there may be less external rigging and building involved in your BMC kit, though that may be outweighed (no pun intended) by the added weight and greater size and, as commenters have pointed out, even less hand-holdability.
XLR ports are still URSA-only, even though you might think that'd be near the top of the list for an upgrade of this magnitude. That said the modified Tascam would pick up a lot of that slack, and the simultaneous wireless rec triggering is an almost understated perk for how useful it could be in the field. Last but not least, there's the issue of shipping to China, which is seeming to be a deal-breaker for many.
Regardless of all that, though, I think Kinefinity deserves credit for this offering. This is one definite case of a camera company listening and responding to the requests and complaints of users. Except that here it's, well, another camera company listening, and responding with a fairly audacious retrofitting strategy -- both of which are pretty surprising to see. We'll update as we have more information about the program and how you can send your camera in if you'd like the mod.
Link: Kinefinity -- Homepage
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