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Blackmagic’s URSA Broadcast G2 is designed as three-cameras-in-one—a 4K production camera, a 4K studio camera, or a 6K digital film camera.
Northwoods Community Church holds Sunday services live on three campuses in Peoria, Canton, and Chillicothe, Illinois. The services are also available online live and recorded and that takes plenty of post-production mid-week. In the past, that meant a lot of camera changes. But when the video team recently tried out Blackmagic Design’s URSA Broadcast G2 Camera, they found it could switch between weekends and mid-week production with ease.
“We don't have dedicated midweek production cameras and broadcast cameras, says Northwood’s Content Creator and Storyteller Seth Potter. “So, we've had to deal with some of the challenges of, ‘oh, you have to change all your settings over and you might have to unrig your camera for your midweek shoot.’ And the fact that this can do both was really cool. And it wasn't a headache at all. We could use the same cameras for both situations.”
Blackmagic’s URSA Broadcast G2 is designed as three-cameras-in-one to allow it to work as a 4K production camera, a 4K studio camera, or a 6K digital film camera. It uses the lenses and batteries most churches already own and allows recording to common SD cards, UHS-II cards, CFast 2.0 cards, or external USB disks, using common file formats such as H.265, ProRes, and Blackmagic RAW, making it compatible with all video software and broadcast media management systems.
“What stood out to me was it had a broadcast focus and that was very clear. It was a broadcast first camera. But in post-production, it held its own,” Potter adds.
“Yeah, the first thing I noticed was the build quality of the camera and then all the I/O on it...," says Northwoods Video Engineer Aaron Larson.
Northwoods Video Engineer Aaron Larson says right out of the box he could tell this was a higher quality camera. “Yeah, the first thing I noticed was the build quality of the camera and then all the I/O on it, CFast, SD cards, SDI. Everything was metal, like the handles were metal, the viewfinder attachment was metal, it doesn't feel plastic. That was nice.”
Larson and Potter used the G2 for post-production mid-week to record sermon introductions from the pastor and for recording b-roll of the weekend live stream to try recording in a live environment. They also tried the G2 as a live roaming camera during worship. “I liked how versatile it was,” Potter says. “Because we do a cinema broadcast, not a standard ENG broadcast. So, it matched really well with our existing cameras. And I was blown away with how clean the image was.” He says often they would get a shot they love during a service, but was just too grainy to use. But with the G2 they didn’t have that trouble.
“If I missed my ISO or missed my exposure, I can go in during post and change it. And it edits like a dream," says Seth Potter, Content Creator and Story at Northwoods Community Church.
He adds that since they use the same cameras for weekend broadcast and post-production, it's all Canon EF Mount, so they have several different lens options. “All of our stuff is EF so we got to put our Canon 35 Cine on it and it just looked beautiful,” And he appreciates the G2’s features that allow him to tweak the image after the fact when they record in BRaw, Blackmagic’s video format. “If I missed my ISO or missed my exposure, I can go in during post and change it. And it edits like a dream.”
Potter concludes, “So, it worked really well because we were able to just take that camera, plug it in and go – and it mixed well with our other cameras.” Larson adds, “The whole thing seemed very plug and play, whether it’s in a broadcast or in a studio situation, it has everything.”
