Blackmagic Design has rolled out comprehensive manuals for the URSA Mini Pro, URSA Mini, and URSA Broadcast cameras. Each manual offers 11 different languages, including French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, and are available to download for free on the Blackmagic support page.
The instruction manuals include all the necessary information to set up each camera and details the menu structure, selecting a resolution and codec, as well as providing insight to working with Blackmagic RAW files in DaVinci Resolve.
Each manual offers 250+ pages of information, which may seem hefty, but all of it is worth knowing if you plan on operating the camera. The manuals are laid out nicely, providing high quality images and informative charts along the way, including record times for selected codecs. There is even a section for the Blackmagic RAW Software Development Kit, which allows you to write your own applications to use with the Blackmagic RAW format.
On top of that, the manuals detail how to integrate and build out the cameras using Blackmagic accessories like viewfinders, shoulder kits, external recorders, and studio converters. The manuals are available for free here.
Camera Setup 6.9.2
Blackmagic Design has also made available Camera Setup 6.9.2, which adds key new features for URSA Broadcast and the Studio Fiber Converters. As the name suggest, studio converters convert standard television industry connections for video, audio, power, talkback, and tally into a single SMPTE fiber optic cable.
If you've ever seen a news broadcast, live television or a sports broadcast, the single cable that comes off the camera is usually a fiber optic cable that runs into the studio or to a broadcast truck. Using a single fiber optic cable is not only convenient and offers a clean look, cameras can be placed up 1.2 miles (2 km) away from the production facility.
With Camera Setup 6.9.2 it adds a tally and call pass through to talkback converters, improved stability, and added the ability for Studio Converter to detect a software mismatch, among many others. On the camera side, the URSA Broadcast fixed focus and zoom demand lock ups on Fujifilm and Canon lenses and an issue with the focus ring on the Fujifilm LA16x becoming non-responsive.
Camera Setup 6.9.2 doesn't offer any updates to other Blackmagic cameras.
New features for Camera & Studio Fiber Converters
- Add language localization support
- Add tally & call passthrough to talkback converters
- Add ability for Studio Converter to detect software mismatch
- Improved startup stability
- Improved reference detection on startup
- Improved compatibility with third party talkback systems
- Fix occasional grey corruption on camera output
- Fix 3G-SDI shield for Arduino SDI camera control & tally passthrough
- Fix status light mismatches between fiber converters
- Fix false ‘failed update’ warning in the camera setup utility
- Fix loud noise switching XLR inputs from line to AES
- Fix camera 2 zoom bug
- General performance improvements
New features for URSA Broadcast
- Fix focus and zoom demand lock ups for Fujifilm and Canon lenses
- Fix Fujifilm LA16x focus ring becoming non-responsive
To download the latest software, visit the Blackmagic Design support page.
