Watching video on the Apple Vision Pro is one of the few use-cases early adopters have found for the VR headset, but Apple has only created a handful of immersive videos for viewing on it. Blackmagic’s new camera could change that. The Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive is the first camera that can shoot in Apple’s immersive video format, and it’s available for pre-order now for $29,995 and will be “shipping in late Q1 2025.”
Blackmagic first announced it was working on hardware and software to create content for the Vision Pro at WWDC 2024. As promised then, the camera is capable of capturing 3D footage at 90 fps, with a resolution of 8160 x 7200 per eye.
Blackmagic says URSA Cine Immersive uses custom lenses that are “designed for URSA Cine’s large format image sensor with extremely accurate positioning data.” It also has 8TB of network storage built-in, which the company says “records directly to the Blackmagic Media Module” and can be live synced to the Davinci Resolve media bin for editors to access footage remotely.
Along with URSA Cine Immersive, Blackmagic is also updating Davinci Resolve Studio to work with Apple’s Immersive Video format, and adding new tools so editors can pan, tilt, and roll footage while editing on a 2D monitor or in Vision Pro.
The whole package sounds expensive at around $30,000, but you’re getting a lot more than you normally get from one of Blackmagic’s cameras. A typical 12K URSA Cine camera costs around $15,000, but that doesn’t include lenses or built-in storage. These come standard on the URSA Cine Immersive.
Apple has filmed several short documentaries, sports clips, and at least one short film in its immersive video format, but hasn’t released its own camera for third-party production companies to create content with. And while any iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 16 can capture 3D spatial video, they can’t create immersive video, which has a 180-degree field of view.
Blackmagic’s camera should make it possible to create much more immersive content for the Vision Pro and other VR headsets. Now Apple just needs to make a Vision product that more people are willing to pay for.