New family of Ultimatte 12 keyers from Blackmagic 

Blackmagic Design’s IBC announcements have majored on four new models of its Ultimatte 12 keyer, including a new Ultimatte 12 HD Mini aimed at ATEM Mini customers.

Blackmagic Design’s new Ultimatte 12 models are designed at lower cost while retaining the usual Ultimatte high quality processing for edge handling, greater color separation, color fidelity, and better spill suppression. There are four new models. The Ultimatte 12 HD, Ultimatte 12 4K and a ‘massive’ Ultimatte 12 8K model allow customers to get a unit for whatever television standard they are using, while a new lower cost Ultimatte 12 HD Mini model with HDMI connections comes in at only $495. 

The Ultimatte 12 HD Mini was specifically designed to let ATEM Mini customers get the benefits of broadcast quality keying when it comes to building fixed camera virtual sets. All models of Ultimatte 12 include built-in frame stores, allowing users to key using stills for backgrounds, eliminating the cost of external equipment; all compositing can be done in the Ultimatte itself.

There is no increase in features as price rises here; all models produce identical quality compositions. The processing automatically generates internal mattes so different parts of the image are processed separately based on the colors in each area. This means customers get fine edge detail where it’s needed the most, like on hair, and smoother transitions between colors or other objects in the scene. Everything, says Blackmagic, is handled by new maths and sub pixel processing that’s designed for quality and clarity.

One touch keying analyzes a scene and automatically sets over a 100 parameters so users get great keys without having to do a lot of extra work and enabling customers to accurately pull a key with minimum effort.

Improved flare algorithms can remove green tinting and spill from 'anything', also meaning users don’t have to worry about shadows or transparent objects with reflections. Ultimatte 12 automatically samples the colors, creates seamless mattes for walls, floors and other parts of the image, and then applies the necessary corrections.

The Ultimatte 12 4K and Ultimatte 12 8K models feature advanced 12G-SDI connections so users can operate with current HD video formats as well as future Ultra HD and 8K video formats. 12G-SDI gives customers high frame rate Ultra HD via a single BNC connection that also plugs into all of their regular HD equipment.

Ultimatte 12 HD Mini meanwhile has a special feature that allows conversion of SDI camera control to HDMI. This means, for example, an ATEM SDI switcher can control a HDMI connected Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera. All ATEM switchers send camera control over SDI, and this Ultimatte model can translate it to HDMI for the camera. Users can then add a camera number in the Ultimatte utility to get control of the camera color corrector, tally and even remote record trigger. Which is all pretty neat.

All Ultimatte 12 models also include the free Ultimatte Software Control for Mac and Windows and are available now. The Ultimatte 12 HD Mini will be priced at $495, Ultimatte 12 HD is $895, Ultimatte 12 4K is $2,495, and the Ultimatte 12 8K is $6,995.