How does the Blackmagic Buyer's Guide decide whether to buy?

It divides the days since a product line's most recent announcement by the mean gap between its past announcements, clamped to between 180 and 1460 days. Below 0.45 of that cycle is Buy Now, below 0.8 Neutral, below 1.0 Caution, and above it Don't Buy.

What does the Ageing verdict mean?

A line that has had nothing new for over five years and is more than 2.5 times past its usual cycle is marked Ageing rather than Don't Buy. It is old, but no refresh is obviously pending, so telling someone to wait would be a false alarm.

Where does the data come from?

Blackmagic Design's own press-release archive and press-image library. Every release date, price cut and product photograph on the site is theirs; the guide adds only the arithmetic.

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Methodology

Every number on this site is derived from Blackmagic Design’s own press-release archive. Nothing here is insider knowledge, a leak, or a rumour — it is arithmetic on nineteen years of announcement dates.

Where the data comes from

Blackmagic publish a searchable press-release archive and tag each release to the products it concerns. The build script walks all 377 SKUs in their catalogue — current and discontinued — and pulls every release tagged to each one, back to 2007.

Those SKUs are folded into 108 product lines, because a line is what you actually choose between: the ATEM Mini, Mini Pro, Mini Pro ISO and Mini Extreme are one decision, not four. Of those, 87 have a dated release history and 55 have enough releases to measure a cycle.

Where Blackmagic never tagged a launch announcement to a line, the guide says so rather than guessing. An undated line is a gap in their archive, not a claim about the product.

The trade-show effect

This is the part that makes a Blackmagic buyer’s guide different from an Apple one. Roughly seven in ten Blackmagic product announcements have landed in April or September — on or immediately before the opening of NAB in Las Vegas and IBC in Amsterdam. Their release calendar is a trade-show calendar.

So a product’s position in its own cycle is only half the picture. The other half is how close the next show is, and whether this particular line is one Blackmagic tends to launch at shows.

Show	Expected announcement	Confirmed
IBC 2026	11 September 2026	Show dates confirmed
NAB Show 2027	3 April 2027	Show dates confirmed
IBC 2027	10 September 2027	Projected
NAB Show 2028	15 April 2028	Projected

How a recommendation is computed

Take the days since the line’s most recent announcement, and the mean gap between its past announcements.
Clamp that cycle to between 180 and 1460 days. Nobody plans a purchase around a ten-year refresh cycle, and an unclamped ratio makes a three-year-old camera read “Buy Now” simply because its line updates once a decade.
Divide to get cycle progress. Below 0.45 is Buy Now; below 0.8 is Neutral; below 1 is Caution; above it is Don’t Buy.
Score trade-show risk as show affinity × proximity × cycle progress, where affinity is the share of this line’s launches made at a show, and proximity rises as the next show comes within 45 days. Above 0.45 the recommendation moves one step toward Don’t Buy. All three factors have to hold, so a four-month-old camera a fortnight before IBC stays a safe buy.
If a line has had nothing new for over 5 years and is more than 2.5× past its cycle, it is marked Ageing instead. Telling someone to wait for a refresh of a converter untouched since 2017 would be a false alarm.

What each verdict means

Buy Now: Recently released — early in its cycle.
Neutral: Mid-cycle. Buy if you need it now.
Caution: Approaching the end of its usual cycle.
Don't Buy: Overdue for a refresh — wait if you can.
Ageing: Years past its cycle with no refresh in sight. Still sold, still old.
Discontinued: No longer in the current range.
No Data: No launch announcement on record.

What this cannot tell you

Blackmagic pre-announce nothing and ship when they ship. A line can sit two years past its cycle and get nothing; another can be refreshed six months in. Cycle history is a prior, not a forecast.

Announcement dates are also not shipping dates — Blackmagic are famous for the gap between the two, sometimes a year or more. This guide tracks when a product was announced, which is what governs whether a newer one is about to make yours look old.

Finally, a “Don’t Buy” is about timing, not quality. A five-year-old Pocket Cinema Camera still shoots what it always shot.

Common questions

How does the Blackmagic Buyer's Guide decide whether to buy?: It divides the days since a product line's most recent announcement by the mean gap between its past announcements, clamped to between 180 and 1460 days. Below 0.45 of that cycle is Buy Now, below 0.8 Neutral, below 1.0 Caution, and above it Don't Buy.
Why does the guide care about NAB and IBC?: Roughly seven in ten Blackmagic Design product announcements have landed in April or September, on or immediately before the opening of NAB in Las Vegas and IBC in Amsterdam. Their release calendar is a trade-show calendar, so how close the next show is genuinely changes whether today is a good day to buy.
What does the Ageing verdict mean?: A line that has had nothing new for over five years and is more than 2.5 times past its usual cycle is marked Ageing rather than Don't Buy. It is old, but no refresh is obviously pending, so telling someone to wait would be a false alarm.
Where does the data come from?: Blackmagic Design's own press-release archive and press-image library. Every release date, price cut and product photograph on the site is theirs; the guide adds only the arithmetic.
Does a Don't Buy mean the product is bad?: No. It is about timing, not quality. A five-year-old Pocket Cinema Camera still shoots what it always shot; the verdict only says a newer model may be close.

Dataset rebuilt 26 August 2026 · 226 announcements · 29 price cuts · median cycle across the catalogue 525 days.