How the Blackmagic ProDock Turns the iPhone 17 Pro into a Genuine Filmmaking Tool

Talking Blackmagic ProDock, the power of the Blackmagic Camera App, and new ProRes RAW workflows on the IBC2025 show floor. “Shooting 4K Dolby Vision at 120 frames is nuts!”

“Shooting 4K Dolby Vision at 120 frames is nuts,” says Simon Westland, head of sales and marketing (EMEA), Blackmagic Design of Apple’s latest iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max. “Sensational and nuts! But then to actually make the most of this you need to add-on the other bits that makes the workflow truly professional.”

Westland is introducing the Blackmagic ProDock, which Blackmagic Design has just launched. It’s a sub-$300 device that enables additional production flexibility with the iPhone 17 series by providing all the connections users need to build a custom rig.

“With the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max you are now getting optics and capabilities that extends over and above many traditional hardware cine cameras, but because the iPhone only has one USB-C connection point you're either going to use that to charge the phone or for one other accessory.”

That's where the ProDock comes in. You could view it as being a breakout box for the iPhone.

“Suddenly you have the additional ability to power this. You get two USB-C connections. One could be to external storage because if you're shooting at such high frame rates you're going to create a lot of media.

“You're going to want to potentially have an HDMI monitor or go to an external recorder. The ability to then use genlock and timecode puts it into the realm of professional workflows where you can then start working in multi-camera situations. We feel that will be hugely popular.”

Add in the Blackmagic Camera App which already takes the iPhone out of a point and shoot scenario, “and you’re now giving users full control of frame rate and white balance and other parameters.”

Anecdotal Evidence

Anecdotally, Blackmagic is seeing a lot of use cases for its Camera App in mobile journalism and live events. “All news organisations are facing the challenge of platforms like X and Facebook which are beating them to publishing much quicker than traditional news,” Westland says. “But if your entire crew is equipped with iPhones and the Blackmagic Camera App, then mobile journalism can suddenly compete because you don’t need to pick up a fleet of gear and travel it to the story. You can shoot and upload instantly from anywhere.”

You can also plug external microphones into the ProDock for audio in and out. “You combine the optics and the codec with the entire workflow into something that genuinely becomes of use.”

ProRes RAW

The new A19 Pro chip in the latest iPhone allows Apple to capture video in ProRes RAW. Consequently, Blackmagic has updated its Camera App to also handle ProRes RAW.

“If people are going to shoot at the level of work that they can with that sensor they need a codec that matches that, and I think that therefore the introduction of ProRes RAW, is a really important step from our point of view.

“If they’re going to do that, then we have to take ProRes RAW into DaVinci Resolve workflows too. That makes perfect sense, because if you can shoot on camera, you want to grade in Resolve and edit it and Resolve. We're also going to put ProRes RAW into the Pocket 4K camera because for that sort of price point and user level, we just think why not? It's just customer choice.”

Does that mean Blackmagic will drop BMD RAW? “Absolutely not,” says Westland. “The reason for that is that our other camera lines like the Ursa Cine shoots 12K or 17K whereas ProRes RAW only goes to 8K. That's one of the reasons we developed our own codec. There were more reasons in terms of file efficiency, smaller file size etc and being easy to work within the Resolve workflow. So, you'll see both. It won't be a replacement of ProRes on those devices.”

You can imagine a scenario where, say you’re at a trade show shooting news video, and the footage is instantly transferred to the cloud (BMD has one) for editing by a post production team elsewhere. 

“It’s an unbeatable workflow because how else would you be able to get files from the device up and into cloud and then usable by a pool of people that quick.”