Blackmagic RAW 5.1

Blackmagic RAW, or BRAW, is Blackmagic Design's free RAW video format, and this download is the package that lets your computer and editing apps work with .braw files.

It is for people who shoot on a Blackmagic cinema camera, or record BRAW from another camera through a Blackmagic Video Assist, and then edit on Windows, macOS or Linux.

Version 5.1 is the build hosted here, and it installs the decoder, the developer SDK, plug-ins for Premiere Pro and Media Composer, a player and a speed test in one go.

What Blackmagic RAW Actually Is

RAW video keeps much more of what the camera sensor saw than a normal video file does. That gives you room to change exposure, white balance and colour later without the picture falling apart.

Traditional RAW formats are huge and slow to edit. BRAW does part of the image processing inside the camera and stores each clip as a single file, so it edits smoothly on ordinary computers while keeping the RAW flexibility.

Settings such as ISO, white balance, the lens used and the camera's colour science travel inside the file as metadata. Your editing app reads them, and you can change them later without touching the original footage.

What the 5.1 Package Installs

• The Blackmagic RAW decoder and SDK - the engine other apps use to read .braw, with full documentation and code samples for developers.
• Adobe plug-in - lets Adobe Premiere Pro import .braw clips directly.
• Avid plug-in - adds BRAW support to Avid Media Composer.
• Blackmagic RAW Player - a simple app for watching clips without opening an editor.
• Blackmagic RAW Speed Test - a benchmark that shows how many streams of BRAW your CPU and graphics card can decode at each resolution.

If you only want to watch clips, our separate Blackmagic RAW Player page explains the player on its own.

Which Apps Open BRAW

DaVinci Resolve reads BRAW natively, including the free version, so you do not need this package for Resolve alone. It is also the app that gives you the most control over the RAW settings.

Premiere Pro and Media Composer need the plug-ins from this package. Other professional apps add BRAW through the same free SDK, so check your editor's own documentation for its BRAW support.

General players such as VLC and MPC-BE cannot decode BRAW, and neither can converters built on FFmpeg, such as HandBrake. For those, export or transcode the footage from Resolve first.

What Is New in Blackmagic RAW 5.1

Version 5.1 adds support for BRAW clips that a Blackmagic Video Assist 12G HDR records from the Leica SL3-S, Sony FX3 and Sony FX30. Blackmagic released it on 4 November 2025.

It also includes the changes from the releases just before it:

• 5.0 - support for the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive camera.
• 4.6.1 - BRAW clips recorded through Video Assist from the Panasonic LUMIX S1RII.
• 4.6 - clips from the Panasonic LUMIX S1II and S1IIE, Apple Silicon support in the Avid Media Composer plug-in, and faster playback of URSA Cine 12K LF and URSA Cine 17K 65 footage.

Compression Settings in Plain Terms

BRAW cameras offer two kinds of setting. Constant Quality, labelled Q0, Q1, Q3 and Q5, keeps image quality steady and lets file size vary, with Q0 the highest quality and Q5 the smallest files.

Constant Bitrate, labelled 5:1, 8:1, 12:1 and 18:1, keeps file size predictable instead. A higher number means smaller files, which matters when you know exactly how much card space a shoot has.

The exact options depend on your camera model, so check its manual before a long shoot.

Will Your Computer Cope?

Blackmagic lists Windows 10 or later, macOS Big Sur or later, and Linux CentOS 7.3 or later. Decoding runs on the graphics card through CUDA, Metal or OpenCL, with optimised CPU code as a fallback.

Run the included Speed Test before you commit to 8K or 12K footage. If your card struggles, update the NVIDIA Studio Driver or AMD Adrenalin first.

Why Download It Here

Blackmagic's own site asks you to register and accept its terms before you can download. Our mirror carries the same package for Windows, macOS and Linux, with the 5.0 and 4.6 builds kept for systems that need an older version.

BRAW and the SDK are free with no licence fees, but they are not open source. Blackmagic publishes the SDK for anyone to use, while the code itself stays closed.

Related Blackmagic Tools

To update the firmware or change settings on a Blackmagic camera from your PC, use Blackmagic Camera Setup. On a phone, the free Blackmagic Camera for Android records H.264 and H.265 rather than BRAW.

Our guide comparing Blackmagic Camera and Filmic Pro helps if you shoot on a phone, and why DaVinci Resolve is free explains why Blackmagic gives this software away.

Who Should Look Elsewhere

• Your RAW clips end in .mov rather than .braw. They are probably ProRes RAW, which needs Apple ProRes RAW for Windows instead.
• You are not sure what format a clip is. Our guide to opening ProRes and ProRes RAW on Windows covers the other professional formats.
• You only need to edit in Resolve. The free DaVinci Resolve opens BRAW without this package and can export a normal video file for sharing.

If your exports from Resolve are H.265 and Windows will not play them, the free HEVC Video Extensions from Device Manufacturer fixes that.

Quick Questions

Download Blackmagic RAW 5.1 and see how your system handles your footage, or tell us how you got on if you have used it before.