Can't import Blackmagic Raw for the life of me

[Danny Luksa]

Just purchased a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6k Pro and shot some footage in Blackmagic RAW. I went ahead and installed Blackmagic RAW 1.8.2 from Blackmagic support on both my MacBook Pro and my custom-built editing PC.

When I go to import the .braw files, Premiere returns a File Import Failure with the error message "A read from an open file failed". This is different than the typical "file format not supported" message that I recieved before installing Blackmagic's plugins. This issue is consistent on both my Mac and PC. Braw files also do not open in After Effects.

Mac specs:

2016 MacBook Pro

2.6Ghz i7 w/ 16 GB RAM

MacOS Mojave 10.14.6

Premiere version 14.3.2

PC specs:

Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8Ghz w/ 48 GB RAM

Windows 10 v. 2004

Premiere version 14.9.0

Things I've tried:

• Installing different versions of Blackmagic RAW. Specifically, 1.5, 1.7, 1.8, and 1.8.2. Nada.
• Manually moving the requried files to the /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Plug-ins/7.0/MediaCore file folder. No luck.
• Installing Autokroma BRAW Studio. This also doesn't allow the files to import.
• Contacting Blackmagic support... they're not helpful and neither are their forums.
• Updating Premiere and After Effects to the latest version.
• Moving the .braw files into a different folder location (not sure why this would change anything, someone on the Blackmagic forums recommended it).
• Countless computer restarts.

I'm at a loss. I have stuff to edit but I can't. I don't want to use Resolve. Thoughts/ideas?

[gerikp]

I have a Pocket 6K and have edited BRAW files without any problems using my 2018 Macbook Pro. It sounds like maybe a problem with the file. Is there any way you can try different files recorded at a different time? Maybe even check to be sure that the files you are working on are not corrupted?

[Danny Luksa]

This is interesting. So I went ahead and downloaded some .braw test files from here and they import and edit in Premiere with no problem. I've tested both the Blackmagic RAW 1.8.2 and Autokroma options... both work with these files.

As for the footage that I recorded: I can open them in Davinci Resolve to transcode them to ProRes without any problem. They don't open in the Blackmagic RAW player which is concerning, but they are in-tact at least.

Strange. I recorded the files on a SanDisk Extreme Pro SD Card that maxes at 95 Mb/S (CFasts hadn't come in yet) so maybe that has some thing to do with it?

[gerikp]

Could have been some sort of write error on the card that Resolve is able to solve for. I use a Sandisk Extreme Pro that has 300MB/s. 

[FocusPulling.com]

It's irrelevant that you have the Pocket 6K, gerikp. dluksa has the Pocket 6K Pro which has Gen. 5 color science and is incompatible with the latest BRAW plug-ins.  However, I just successfully loaded 6K Pro footage into Premiere using the beta version and it works fine for now:

https://www.autokroma.com/blog/BETA-For-URSA-12K-Color-Science-V5

[gerikp]

I missed that detail in his post. Thanks for the correction. 

[Nicolas from Autokroma]

Hello,

Newest Blackmagic Camera Firmware produce BRAW files which need the "Blackmagic RAW Beta 2.X" to be decoded. Last one is 2.1.beta3.

BRAW Studio (the plugin we develop at Autokroma) has a special version which uses the Beta version of the BRAW SDK. (Link had already been given above but here it is). As the "BRAW 2.X" will be tagued as a "Beta" buy Blackmagic, we can't use it for our regular release, that's why we also made a Beta version. This beta version seems to be pretty stable for now though.

If you want to use your files with the Blackmagic RAW plugin (free) and not BRAW Studio, you will need to download and install the version Beta in your computer.

Best,

Nicolas from Autokroma