Blackmagic Design is live with URSA Cine Immersive pre-orders. If it meets its late Q1 2025 ship date the $29,995 the camera will be the first on the market optimized for the Apple Immersive Video (AIV) format compatible with the Apple Vision Pro mixed-reality headset. Currently, there isn’t much content that takes advantage of the Vision Pro’s immersive features. The Cine Immersive captures 3D footage in resolution of 8160 x 7200 per eye at 90 fps. The package includes a fixed-distance lens and 8TB of onboard network storage. Also in Q1, DaVinci Resolve Studio will be updated to support AIV editing.

Blackmagic announced at WWDC 2024 that it would produce a camera optimized for Apple Immersive Video, a 180-degree media format that leverages ultra-high-resolution immersive video and spatial audio to place viewers within the action.

The lenses are custom designed to interoperate with the camera’s large format image sensor with “extremely accurate positional data,” Blackmagic explains in a news release.

DaVinci Resolve Studio will be updated to support editing Apple Immersive Video in Q1, creating what Blackmagic says will be “the world’s first editing software for Apple Immersive Video.” Key features include an immersive video viewer that lets editors pan, tilt and roll clips for viewing on 2D monitors or on Apple Vision Pro “for an even more immersive editing experience.”

Export presets will enable quick output into a package that can be viewed directly on the Apple Vision Pro. It can also sync live to a DaVinci Resolve media bin for remote access by editors.

“The whole package sounds expensive at nearly $30,000, but you’re getting a lot more out of the box than you normally would with one of Blackmagic’s cameras,” writes Engadget, pointing out that a standard 12K URSA Cine camera “costs around $15,000, but doesn’t include lenses or built-in storage.”

Blackmagic is “positioning the camera as a competitor in the growing market of 8K immersive 3D content … and maybe to compete directly with Apple’s new immersive 8K Cinema Camera,” writes Y,M.Cinema.

Blackmagic has “distinct advantage,” in that it will have a “complete ecosystem” of workflow from capture to post-production by integrating its immersive camera with DaVinci Resolve. Apple’s Final Cut Pro 11 also supports AIV editing, but isn’t nearly as comprehensive a workflow solution as Blackmagic provides.

Apple debuted the Vision Pro in February 2024. CineD calls it “the first major new product from Apple in several years,” adding that “those who have used the immersive headset have said it’s the best AR/VR headset on the market” and “can be used not only for entertainment, but also work with its virtual computer desktop and apps.”