Blackmagic’s URSA Cine Immersive camera has transitioned from an announcement into something you can actually pre-order, with deliveries set to start in Q1 2025. At 8160×7200px per eye, capturing 3D at 90fps with 16 stops of dynamic range, this is hands-down the highest spec 3D Immersive rig ever produced — we’ve never seen this many pixels on a production camera. Of course, not all pixels are equal, but as you increase pixel count and sensor size, it becomes more and more difficult to get good results. Most companies in this league don’t even try.
So why are the specs so important? Let’s recap.
Great Immersive content needs a lot of pixels
I’ve spoken here before about the transcendent experience you can have in the Apple Vision Pro, and since I wrote that, I had it all over again watching Wild Hearts by The Weeknd. Great 2D films can move hearts, but great Immersive films can make your jaw drop, then drop further. There’s a shot in that music video which made me laugh in astonishment — it’s just magic.
While the immersion is very important, a big part of the experience is how good it looks, and when you need to capture a field of view many times wider than a standard lens does, you really need to step way beyond the bounds of UHD. If you’ve ever wondered why you need to capture more than 4K, here’s one great reason. Resolution is one reason why great-looking 360° video is so hard to come by in its native form; the pixels just end up stretched too thinly. Remember, even Canon’s executives believe you need a lot more.
“In order to reproduce video for Vision Pro, you need to have at least 100 megapixels… So at the moment, we can’t cater to that level of a requirement. But what I presume what companies who will be providing images for the Vision Pro will be required to have 100-megapixels with 60 frames per second.”
— Yasuhiko Shiomi, Advisory Director and Unit Executive of the Image Communication Business Operations, in an interview with PetaPixel
Running the maths, an 8K camera has 31.5 megapixels. The URSA Cine Immersive offers 117.5 megapixels with both eyes combined, at a higher frame rate. We’re there.
So how is the best-looking content on the Apple Vision Pro being made? Apple has the budget to assemble completely custom camera rigs, and while some of their content looks utterly amazing, technical limitations mean that some of their Immersive content looks merely “good”, because you can see the pixels. The excellent Apple Vision Pro app Explore POV uses a Canon rig with their 180° VR lens, upscaling the 8K output to 16K, and I suspect that setup will remain relevant for anyone with a smaller budget or who’s planning to travel extensively. After all, the URSA Cine Immersive probably isn’t something many people would want to lug up a mountain.
Let’s dissect the press release and dive into the key specs.
Pulling apart all the key points
The sensor delivers 8160 x 7200 resolution per eye with pixel level synchronization and an incredible 16 stops of dynamic range, so cinematographers can shoot 90fps 3D immersive cinema content…
Because Genlock is far from universal, most commonly used mirrorless cameras can’t easily be rigged up in a sub-frame-accurate dual-camera setup — and a beam-splitter just adds to the complications.
…to a single file.
This massively simplifies the post-production process as you don’t need to manage separate files for the left and right eyes, or spend time mashing them together into new ones. In fact:
The new Blackmagic RAW Immersive file format is designed to make it simple and easy to work with immersive video within the whole post production workflow, and includes support for Blackmagic global media sync. Blackmagic RAW files store camera metadata, lens data, white balance, digital slate information and custom LUTs to ensure consistency of image on set and through post production.
In a world where not all cameras even name their files in a predictable, useful way, it’s refreshing to see metadata given the importance it deserves. Immersive is complex enough, and this will make production easier.
The custom lens system is designed for URSA Cine’s large format image sensor with extremely accurate positional data that’s read and stored at time of manufacturing. This immersive lens projection data — which is calibrated and stored on device — then travels through post production in the Blackmagic RAW file itself.
Small differences between two lenses are inevitable, so the fact that the camera itself can calibrate and record those differences is huge. Both the commercially available 3D lenses I’ve worked with have included some level of vertical disparity, and it’s essential to correct for it.
A new version of DaVinci Resolve Studio set to release in Q1 next year includes powerful new features to help filmmakers edit, color grade, and produce Apple Immersive Video shot on the URSA Cine Immersive camera for Apple Vision Pro. Key features include a new immersive video viewer, which 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.
An immersive viewer in Resolve is coming soon for 2D screens, but can we use the Apple Vision Pro during the edit? Looking down the page…
Monitoring on Apple Vision Pro from the DaVinci Resolve Studio timeline.
Yes! This is a huge step up, and it’s going to make a massive difference in how Immersive is edited. It’s not 100% clear if it’ll be possible to view the camera feed live in the Apple Vision Pro, but we’ll see. It’s smart to focus on just one eye on the side display, with a toggle between left and right.
Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive comes with 8TB of high performance network storage built in, which records directly to the included Blackmagic Media Module, and can be synced to Blackmagic Cloud and DaVinci Resolve media bins in real time. This means customers can capture over 2 hours of Blackmagic RAW in 8K stereoscopic 3D immersive, and editors can work on shots from remote locations worldwide as the shoot is happening.
Hmm… 8TB for over two hours — let’s run some quick rough maths on a napkin (8000/2.25/60/60) to find a data rate about 1GB/sec, or 8000Mbps. When a camera generates files this big, at data rates this high, it’s probably wise to include a qualified storage system. If you’ve been looking for a clear example of why Thunderbolt 5’s 80Gbps+ speeds aren’t overkill, this is it.
Finally, here are the key bullet points:
Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive Features
- Dual custom lenses for shooting Apple Immersive Video for Apple Vision Pro.
- Dual 8160 x 7200 (58.7 Megapixel) sensors for stereoscopic 3D immersive image capture.
- Massive 16 stops of dynamic range.
- Lightweight, robust camera body with industry standard connections.
- Generation 5 Color Science with new film curve.
- Each sensor supports 90 fps at 8K captured to a single Blackmagic RAW file.
- Includes high performance Blackmagic Media Module 8TB for recording.
- High speed Wi-Fi, 10G Ethernet or mobile data for network connections.
- Includes DaVinci Resolve Studio for post production.
DaVinci Resolve Immersive Features
- Monitoring on Apple Vision Pro from the DaVinci Resolve Studio timeline.
- Edit Blackmagic RAW Immersive video shot on Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive.
- Immersive video viewer for pan, tilt and roll.
- Complete post production workflow for immersive with edit, color, audio and graphics.
- Export and deliver native files for viewing on Apple Vision Pro.
Availability and Price
Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive is available to pre order now direct from Blackmagic Design offices worldwide for $29,995 (US). Delivery will start in late Q1 2025. URSA Cine Immersive will be available from Blackmagic Design resellers later next year.
At US$30K the URSA Cine Immersive’s price is the same as its non-immersive sibling, the URSA Cine 17K 65, and while that’s a big sticker for regular humans considering a mirrorless purchase, it’s a drop in the bucket on a film set. This will be a rental for most independent shooters, but it’s certainly within budget for production companies. It’s quite a trick to make an Apple Vision Pro look cheap, but in this market, the perspective is more likely to be “the lenses are included for free?”
Should you jump in?
If you’ve been waiting for the best Immersive camera and you have a capable crew, this is the most capable camera we’ve seen by some margin. I would expect to see new models of the Apple Vision Pro become cheaper and the market for Immersive content to grow; it’s up to you if you want to get in now or wait to see how the market develops.
Either way, I think it’s fair to say that Blackmagic have a significant lead over other camera manufacturers here, and I’d be amazed if anyone else can get near these specs for anywhere near this price any time soon. In the same way that Apple Vision Pro is on the bleeding edge of display tech, the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive is on the bleeding edge of camera tech.
After all, the non-Immersive URSA Cine 17K 65 (check out our story here) has a colossal resolution of 17520×8040 on its 65mm sensor, while most other cinema cameras use, at most, an 8K sensor. The renowned Alexa 65 offers 6560×3102px. But Immersive requires more data than feature films do, and full, for-real-life, just-like-being-there reality is harder to capture than the beautiful, flat, 2D unreality of cinema. Time will tell whether this camera can actually transport you somewhere else, but if it can’t, it’s not for lack of trying.
If you’d like to draw your own conclusions, here’s the detailed press release. With luck, I’ll be able to bring you a hands-on review next year.
