Blackmagic Design Ultimatte 12 HD Compositing Processor

Blackmagic Design Ultimatte 12 HD Compositing Processor

Add an Ultimatte 12 to Each Camera

When you’re working live with multiple cameras shooting from different angles, it’s common for the green screens to suffer from variations. Plus the keyers built into live production switchers often have to be shared between cameras, which complicates keying because each camera sees the green screen a little differently. The Ultimatte 12 eliminates these problems because you get incredible technology at an affordable price, allowing each camera to have a separate Ultimatte. That means each Ultimatte can be tuned to a specific camera’s view! With a dedicated Ultimatte on each camera, your compositions can go well beyond what's possible with set design, so you can create whole new worlds!

Generate Live Virtual Environments for Broadcast

Whether you’re working in broadcast news, sports, film production, or magazine-style entertainment programming, Ultimatte 12 has the quality for incredibly life-like composites that place your talent into any scene! Plus the Ultimatte 12 include built-in frame stores so you don't need live video sources for all inputs. You can also use Ultimatte 12 to layer computer-generated augmented reality foreground objects into a scene, complete with realistic transparency that your talent can walk behind! Ultimatte 12 is also perfect for on-set pre-visualisation in film production because it lets actors and directors watch the scene while they’re shooting.

Create Realistic Fixed Camera Virtual Sets

Now you can create a massive broadcast set, even in small apartments or a basement! That's because the Ultimatte 12 have frame stores so you can load pre-rendered still frames from a 3D modelled broadcast set. This is a revolution in live production because you can now use a virtual set even if you don't have the space for a physical broadcast set! Plus without any external equipment! Just use multiple cameras, each with an Ultimatte 12 and a background frame loaded. As the backgrounds are pre-rendered, they can be more photorealistic than a traditional virtual set. If the cameras don't move, the backgrounds will look perfect! Plus Ultimatte 12 is low cost, so you can use more cameras!

Ultimatte 12 HD

A highly advanced chroma keyer in an affordable HD model. Full Ultimatte 12 quality processing gives you next-generation edge handling, amazing colour separation and better spill suppression.

New Algorithms and Expanded Color Space

The Ultimatte 12, have the same incredibly advanced image processing algorithms and a huge internal colour space! This means it produce identical quality compositions! The processing automatically generates internal mattes so different parts of the image are processed separately based on the colours in each area. It’s like having the power of multiple Ultimatte keyers all working together on the same image! You get fine edge detail where it’s needed the most, like on hair, and smoother transitions between colours or other objects in the scene. Everything is handled by new math and sub-pixel processing that’s designed for incredible quality and clarity.

Automatic Scene Analysis for One Touch Keying

When it comes to living production, you need to work fast. Ultimatte 12 features one-touch keying technology that analyses a scene and automatically sets over 100 parameters so you get great keys without having to do a lot of extra work! The first step is to ensure your scene is well lit and that the cameras are properly white balanced, then you simply activate the auto key and Ultimatte will do all the work for you! Plus it include Screen Correction to compensate for unevenly lit green/blue screens. One touch keying is dramatically faster and helps you accurately pull a key with minimum effort. That leaves you free to focus on the program, while Ultimatte 12 takes care of the rest!

Add Translucent Layers and Broadcast Graphics

Adding additional translucent objects, such as coloured or tinted glass and computer graphics, is virtually impossible with a traditional keyer. That’s because you can’t subtract a blue or green screen out of a semi-transparent coloured object without changing the object’s original colour. Now, with Ultimatte 12, you get a revolutionary new layer compositing mode that lets you add tinted objects on top of the foreground image. That allows a whole new generation of realistic translucent glass looks in broadcast graphics! This means that when you look through the object, or your talent walks behind it, the tinted colours are accurately preserved, making the shot look completely realistic!

Faithfully Reproduce and Retain Difficult Colours

With Ultimatte 12, you get new advanced flare, edge and transition processing so you can remove the background, without affecting the colours you want to keep! What this means is you’ll be able to retain and faithfully reproduce colours that are impossible on other keyers, such as a bright yellow dress in front of a green screen! Ultimatte 12 is smart enough to isolate and treat different parts of the image separately, while also keeping the colour transitions between areas smooth. You get the highest quality compositing, so the final output looks photorealistic. Unlike other keyers, Ultimatte 12 delivers crisp clear images with vibrant colours that pop!

Key and Composite Images with Shadows and Transparency

The improved flare algorithms in Ultimatte 12 can remove green tinting and spill from anything, which is one of the reasons why Ultimatte 12 creates true, realistic-looking virtual environments! That also means you don’t have to worry about shadows or transparent objects with reflections. Ultimatte 12 automatically samples the colours, creates seamless mattes for walls, floors and other parts of the image, and then applies the necessary corrections. Shadows are properly mapped and composited onto the new background, the spill is removed, and transparent objects are handled with perfection!

Wide Range of Video Connections

Ultimatte 12 features up to 7 different input connections, depending on the model, that are used for compositing different source elements together. These include foreground and background, along with holdout and garbage mattes, as well as additional layer inputs for superimposing additional images over the composited image. Ultimatte 12 even lets you use sources that are not synchronised when working with static shots! With the new Ultimatte 12 models, you can even operate without video sources because the internal frame stores let you load backgrounds and other elements internally! That dramatically lowers the cost of building Ultimatte-based broadcast systems!

Use Multiple Ultimatte Units on a Single Monitor

All Ultimatte 12 models feature a monitor cascade feature that lets you view the monitor output from up to eight Ultimatte units on a single SDI display. Simply connect up to eight Ultimatte units via an SDI daisy chain using the monitor input and monitor output connections, with the last Ultimatte unit then plugged into an SDI monitor. Then when you switch to monitor any specific Ultimatte unit using the Ultimatte Software Control or the Smart Remote 4, the monitor output will then clean switch, with almost zero latency, and be passed down the chain for display on the monitor. This greatly simplifies monitoring, even when working with lots of Ultimatte-equipped cameras.

Control HDMI Cameras from SDI Switchers

The unique Ultimatte 12 HD Mini model has a special feature that allows the conversion of SDI camera control to HDMI. This means an ATEM SDI switcher can control an 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. Just connect SDI from the Ultimatte out to the switcher input, the switcher program out to the Ultimatte SDI input, and then the HDMI connects to the camera. Now add a camera number in the Ultimatte utility to get control of the camera colour corrector, tally and even remote record trigger! Plus you also get camera control with HDMI when used with switchers such as ATEM Mini!

Includes Free Ultimatte Software Control

The Ultimatte 12 include the free Ultimatte Software Control for Mac and Windows. The main window has menus arranged in sections that perform different functions. Although the interface can look intimidating at first glance as it has so many different buttons and settings, it won’t take long to master, so you will quickly learn to move between settings instinctively as you build your composition. Because Ultimatte Software Control runs on a computer, you can upload the Ultimatte 12 frame stores! All settings and still frames are saved in flash memory so are preserved when the power is turned off. 

Main Menu Buttons

Tap the menu buttons along the top of the window to select the different input sources you want to adjust. You can also select the matte for making adjustments to the primary matte, and configure your Ultimatte 12.

Functions, Groups, Information and File Control

The functions section provides specific Ultimatte settings that can be selected, enabled or disabled. For example, one of the most common controls is reset, which is located in this section if you need to restore a particular setting to its default state.

The groups section of the interface contains the majority of the settings menus. For example, if you want to adjust the foreground flare controls, then simply click the foreground button, then click the Flare 1 button. The flare controls will now be visible on the main window side controls for adjustment.

The information and file control section lets you save preset files and configure some of the settings on your Ultimatte. Simply click the folder icon to save a preset! Plus settings can be copied between different models of Ultimatte 12. You can also view status and configuration by clicking on the small information icon.

Status Bar

You can see all the Ultimatte units being controlled by the Ultimatte Software Control by looking at the status bar at the bottom of the main window. The status of each unit icon will illuminate green when identified on your network. When a unit is selected for control the icon will illuminate blue.

Monitor Out

This is one of the most important controls and will set what images are displayed on a video monitor connected to your Ultimatte’s monitor output. You can change the monitor display between program out, foreground input, background input, combined matte view, internal matte view and fill out.