URSA Cine features advanced software that is designed to make using your camera super fast and more intuitive than ever! All important camera functions can be accessed with a single tap on the heads up display, there’s an elegant digital slate that makes metadata entry a breeze, and a dashboard that uses simple tap and swipe gestures for record settings, monitoring, audio, camera setup, presets and 3D LUTs. Each camera feature runs as a separate high performance app which means that you get greater stability than other simple camera software! Best of all, we’ll be able to add even more great new features in the future!
Find Reseller
The heads up display, or HUD, contains critical information such as the frame rate, iris, timecode, shutter angle, white balance, ISO, audio levels and more. You can show or hide the heads up display by simply swiping up or down. For example, you can adjust settings such as white balance by simply touching the WB indicator, or change the audio levels by touching the audio meters. Everything is interactive, so if you tap any item you can instantaneously change its settings without having to search through confusing menus!
URSA Cine lets you turn different monitoring tools on and off with a few simple taps! Tapping the monitor icon brings up an overlay for toggling between and adjusting settings. You can adjust zebra settings for checking exposure of highlights or mid gray, focus assist tools, frame guides, grids and more!
You can capture dynamic high speed and slow motion effects by independently adjusting project and sensor frame rates! Simply tap the “FPS” indicator to change the project frame rate, which is the play back speed, then enable the “off speed” or sensor recording frame rate for high speed or slow motion capture!
URSA Cine features the most intuitive shutter angle controls of any camera! You can use them to affect the amount of motion blur or to compensate for varying light conditions. Select from common shutter angles, enter manual angles or let URSA Cine automatically suggest flicker free shutter angles for you!
Adjusting the iris, which controls the amount of light that passes through the lens is simple! If you have an automatic lens, just tap on the indicator and it will display options for your compatible lenses and let you configure different iris based exposure modes!
The timecode display at the top center has a variety of options that tell you everything you need to know with just a quick glance. You can see the duration of your clips, it turns red when recording, lets you monitor timecode and also features status indicators for windowed sensor mode, time of day timecode, external timecode and more!
If you are recording to Blackmagic Cloud, the name of your selected project will appear above the timecode display on your camera’s HUD. If it is blue you have an internet connection, if it is grey you are offline but still recording to a project and ready to upload. The next time you record a clip or have an internet connection, your camera will automatically start uploading media to the selected Blackmagic Cloud project.
URSA Cine has incredible light sensitivity and is designed to give you the best possible image based on the available light! Tapping on ISO lets you quickly change the setting while still viewing the image. That means you can see how different settings affect the image instantaneously because you don't have to switch back and forth between a separate settings screen and the image!
URSA Cine makes it super fast to change the white balance! Tapping the WB indicator brings up a list of common color temperature presets such as bright sunlight, incandescent, fluorescent and more. You can enter values manually and compare custom white balance setting to the last preset by simply tapping it on and off! You can even auto white balance using a white card so you can compensate perfectly for any lighting condition.
When live streaming, you can see the connection being used for streaming, for example Ethernet, built in Wi-Fi or a 4G or 5G smartphone. A duration counter shows the duration of your stream and a data rate using megabits per second.
With URSA Cine, you can choose exactly how you want to view your battery status! The battery indicator at the top right of the HUD will show battery life remaining in either percentage, voltage levels or battery bars. When plugged into mains power, the battery indicator will say “AC” or show that the battery is being charged.
URSA Cine features a digital “slate” and incredible metadata features that make it extremely fast to add metadata to any shot! Simply swipe left or right to bring up the digital slate. Plus, if you start and stop recording, URSA Cine automatically increments the take number so you don’t have to enter them manually for each shot. You can also set your reel numbers to increment automatically each time you format a card. In addition, lens metadata is automatically detected from electronic lenses or it can be entered manually, along with production specific information, technical information and much more! All of this metadata is saved with the files and available in post production when editing and color correcting with software such as DaVinci Resolve!
The URSA Cine dashboard has six tabs with elegant, simple to understand interfaces that give you quick access and complete control over every setting and feature on the camera! Simply tap on the record, monitor, audio, setup, presets, or LUTs tab to access everything with just a few taps. The unique design of the interface offers visual consistency that puts items in the same logical order every time so you can quickly learn where settings are and remember how to change them!
The record tab gives you a revolutionary, fast to use interface for selecting the recording format, resolution, frame rate and more! Simply tap on your desired resolution and aspect ratio for capture and the appropriate Blackmagic RAW compression quality settings will light up underneath them so your can make your selection. The record tab also lets you adjust the dynamic range for film, extended video or video. You can set the sensor mode, frame rate, preferred media recording options, time lapse setting and more!
The monitor tab gives you total control over what is displayed on the built in LCD touchscreens, the viewfinder port and the two SDI outputs. Each output can have independent overlays and you can select to send a clean feed, zebra, focus assist, frame guides and more to any or all outputs. You can even set the resolution and choose LUTs for each output! In addition, you can also set to scale down the image display so that the interactive HUD is outside of the image area and is not covered by it. URSA Cine can even perform an anamorphic de-squeeze when shooting with anamorphic lenses! Best of all, you can define different display status text for the cinematographer and the director, and then send that information out to different outputs, so the right people see the right information!
You can quickly adjust audio levels using the interactive HUD, but for complete control over audio settings, you can also use the audio tab on the dashboard. You can change inputs from camera mic to XLR, adjust headphone and speaker levels, mic levels, low cut filter and more. When adjusting audio input settings, you can choose whether you want to use mic or line levels independently for channel 1 and 2, turn on 48v of phantom power so you can use microphones that are not self powered, and adjust the gain.
URSA Cine makes it super fast to get your camera out of the box, set up and ready to go! The setup tab on the dashboard lets you set your date and time server, select the language, shutter measurement, sensitivity measurement, electrical system, timecode and more. If you want to create a wireless link for monitoring a shoot remotely, then you can stream to a Blackmagic ATEM Streaming Bridge, which is an H.264 decoder that converts the video stream back to SDI video. You can even completely customize the behavior of the camera’s external F1 and F2 buttons to trigger presets, adjust values up and down, or to toggle certain features on and off!
Different operators like to set up their cameras in different ways. Plus, different shows also can require different setups too! With URSA Cine, you can create and save 12 custom presets by using the presets tab in the dashboard. Presets can even be saved to USB disks or CFexpress cards and loaded on different cameras, making it fast to set up multiple cameras so they all have the same settings! If you often switch cameras, you can save your own presets to a CFexpress card or USB‑C disk and load them on any URSA Cine on any shoot!
3D color lookup tables (LUTs) are used to adjust the color of the output so the director or cinematographer can see a certain “look” as they’re shooting. LUTs are extremely useful when shooting RAW or when using “film” dynamic range, both of which generally look flat when they’re shot. By using LUTs, the director and cinematographer can get a better idea of what the footage will look like after it has been color corrected in post production with software such as DaVinci Resolve. URSA Cine can apply 3D LUTs independently to the LCD touchscreens, the viewfinder and SDI outputs allowing them to be used for high end feature film work.
