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Blackmagic designs has announced a variety of professional ‘scopes’ will be added to its Video Assist 4K monitor/recorder. In the meantime, the company has also added support for ten extra languages.
Firmware v2.5, due in June, will add waveform, RGB parade, vectorscope and histogram options to the device. These can either be displayed on a black background, overlaid on top of the video feed or shown as picture-in-picture frames.
Waveform, RGB parade and vectorscope are tools used by video professionals for quickly assessing exposure and color. These are powerful tools, each of which gives a different way of understanding the brightness and color makeup of the footage, to help set up and monitor your video as you capture it.
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| ‘Scopes’ being added to the Video Assist 4K include this RGB parade, showing the spacial distribution of per-channel brightness values within the scene, helping with exposure and color balance. |
We were recently impressed when the Panasonic DC-GH5 became the first camera we’ve reviewed to provide in-camera scopes, but the addition of these functions to the Video Assist mean that they’re now accessible to anyone shooting with a camera offering HDMI output.
Update v2.4, available today, adds support for ten additional languages, meaning the device can now be operated in: Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish.
The latest firmware can be downloaded from the Blackmagic Designs website.
Press Release:
Blackmagic Design Announces New Professional Scopes and Multi Lingual Support for Video Assist
New software update supports 10 additional languages, plus a beta demonstration of full professional scopes for professional monitoring.
NAB 2017, Las Vegas, Nevada – April 24, 2017 – Blackmagic Design today announced the immediate availability of Blackmagic Video Assist 2.4 update which adds support for multi-lingual support for 10 separate languages. This means customers can now use Video Assist in their native language. This update is available now as a free update for all Blackmagic Video Assist and Blackmagic Video Assist 4K customers.
Also demonstrated at the NAB 2017 show are powerful new professional scopes operating on the Blackmagic Video Assist 4K model, including waveform, RGB parade, vectorscope and histogram that can be viewed full screen for accurately evaluating video signals passing through Blackmagic Video Assist 4K. These scopes are shown as a development preview and will also be available in June as a software update free of charge for all Blackmagic Video Assist 4K customers.
Customers can see a beta demonstration of the new language support and preview the new professional scopes on Blackmagic Video Assist 4K at the Blackmagic Design NAB 2017 booth at #SL216.
The new scopes make the Blackmagic Video Assist 4K model perfect for live production monitoring, as portable test scope for broadcasters, and even for balancing color when color grading using the RGB parade scope.
The new localized Video Assist adds interface support for Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. This broad language support now makes it easier for more customers to use Video Assist anywhere in the world.
“Video Assist has become an indispensable part of everyone’s production kit,” said Grant Petty, Blackmagic Design CEO. “It’s the perfect portable field monitor and recorder. The addition of full blown professional scopes makes it even more exciting and useful for customers. Plus, the new multi-lingual interface will make it easier for non-English speaking customers to use it!”
Availability and Price
Blackmagic Video Assist 2.4 update is available now from the Blackmagic Design website free of charge for all current Blackmagic Video Assist and Blackmagic Video Assist 4K customers. Blackmagic Video Assist 2.5, which will support scopes on the Blackmagic Video Assist 4K model will be available in June.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)