Blackmagic Design Ultimatte 12 HD

The world's most advanced chroma keyer in an affordable HD model. Full Ultimatte 12 quality processing gives you next generation edge handling, amazing color separation and better spill suppression.

The all new Ultimatte 12 is more than the world’s best keyer, it’s an advanced real time compositing processor designed for the next generation of broadcast graphics. Ultimatte 12 features entirely new algorithms and color science that deliver true photorealistic composites. You get incredible edge handling, greater color separation, amazing color fidelity and better spill suppression than ever before, even in dark shadow areas or through transparent objects such as windows! Ultimatte 12 is available in 4 amazing models, with HD, Ultra HD and even native 8K support! Imagine presenting the weather, sports, news and entertainment in a cinematic quality environment, all composited in real time.

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 new 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!

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 new Ultimatte 12 models 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 visualization in film production because it lets actors and directors watch the scene while they’re shooting.

Now you can create a massive broadcast set, even in small apartments or a basement! That's because all Ultimatte 12 models have frame stores so you can load pre rendered still frames from a 3D modeled 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!

All Ultimatte 12 models, even Ultimatte 12 HD Mini, have the same incredibly advanced image processing algorithms and a huge internal color space! This means 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. 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 colors or other objects in the scene. Everything is handled by new math and sub pixel processing that’s designed for incredible quality and clarity.

Adding additional translucent objects, such as colored 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 colored object without changing the object’s original color. 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 colors are accurately preserved, making the shot look completely realistic!

With Ultimatte 12, you get new advanced flare, edge and transition processing so you can remove the background, without affecting the colors you want to keep! What this means is you’ll be able to retain and faithfully reproduce colors 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 color 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 colors that pop!

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 colors, 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, spill is removed, and transparent objects are handled with perfection!

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 synchronized 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!

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.

All Ultimatte 12 models 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. Plus the Ultimatte 12 4K and 8K models include 10G Ethernet for even faster file upload!