Blackmagic Design Video Assist 5" 12G HDR

I got it because I wanted to be able to shoot BRAW with my Panasonic camera. It works flawlessly in that regard so no complaints. The build quality is good and screen brightness is also great. My only complaint is the lack of a custom button to switch stuff like false colors on off. So everytime you want to see some function you need to access the menus via the touch screen. But other then that everything is great. It can be a bit battery hungry but well since it has a bright screen and also records at the same time it is to be expected.

While the biggest impact it has had on my video recording is the provision of a larger (and more manoeuvrable) screen for monitoring than the one on my camera, I primarily bought this as a recorder. This model can record to either SD card or external SSD drive: you can choose which is your primary drive and when that fills up it can switch to the other).

Having said that, it has a wonderful range of monitoring tools (just see the specs) and the video screen is bright and provides incredibly crisp and bright visuals. I haven't delved deep into colour reproduction quality, but it's sufficient for my basic needs.

It has two plates for Sony NPF batteries, but can operate on just one. If two are plugged in, it will drain one first and then the other, which presumably allows swapping out of dead batteries (I haven't had need to do this yet, as my 970s seem to be good for 90-120 minutes, so haven't run out yet).

This has HDMI pass through as well, but encountered some difficulties here. Specifically I thought I could pipe the 4k feed from my camera to this for recording, and pass the signal through to my wireless HDMI transmitter. However, the latter cannot handle more than 1080p - and while the camera and the transmitter seem to negotiate a 1080p signal even when the camera is set to send out 4k, this does not happen with the Video Assist. I'm not too experienced with video products, so this might not be a surprise to anyone else but me. It's not a huge problem though.

The VA comes with 6 1/4" threads - evenly space on top and bottom. The USB-C connection is on the 'bottom' of the VA (thoug note that you can configure the VA to automatically flip the screen if it detects it is upside down) and, as reviewers on other sites have noted, this is uncomfortably close to the 1/4" threads. In particular, it rules out a great many monitor mounts being used on 2 of the 3 threads on the base!

Note that sound monitoring always seems to be on. To workaround this, I've configured it to monitor some of the other 16 channels it supports that are not used by the camera. This doesn't affect recording.

Finally note that a recent software update means that this allows you to use your camera as a webcam via the monitor's USB-C connection! Not a reason to buy this perhaps, but certainly a need additional function.

Connaissante déjà l’ancienne génération de Video Assist pour l’avoir utilisé, j’étais depuis deux ans sur un Ninja V (pour enregistrer en 10bit avec mon Z6).

Pas pleinement satisfait de mon Ninja V, je suis donc revenu chez BM et la nouvelle génération de Video Assist 12G. Après une semaine d’utilisation, je ne regrette rien !

J’ai aimé :
- Logiciel interne très agréable, je m’y retrouve plus vite que sur le Ninja V. BlackMagic a eu la très bonne idée de faire des menus bien visibles avec des « grand boutons », ce qui permet par exemple de modifier rapidement un réglage en plein tournage.
- Pour passer de l’enregistrement à la lecture (et inversement) il n’y a aucun délai d’attente contrairement au Ninja V.
- Petit haut parleur bien utile pour la lecture sans casque
- Enregistrement sur SSD externe top (un T5 me concernant). J’avais peur que cela soi moins pratique que le Ninja V mais finalement c’est équivalent.

J’ai moins aimé :
La sortie USB-C. Avec un SSD branché il faut faire attention de ne pas arracher le câble. Cependant j’ai résolu en grande partie le problème avec un angle usb-c !