What Is a BRAW File? How to Open, Play & Recover .BRAW Files (2026 Guide)

Blackmagic Design has been in the cinematography game for the past two decades but made waves in 2018 when it announced the BRAW file format, its “next generation codec.”

Today, many professional cinematographers and YouTubers use Blackmagic cameras and work with BRAW files. However, since the BRAW file format is proprietary, it’s not the easiest nor the best to work with, and you might need a specialized BRAW player.

1. What Is a RAW File?

RAW files represent a file format with natural-looking images close to what we see with our eyes. They’re high-quality files with lossless compression, meaning all the details stay inside the file without any loss, hence the name. The point of a RAW file is to create as lifelike an image as possible without changing anything after you make the image.

BRAW Definition: What Is the BRAW File Format?

If you’re wondering, “What is a BRAW file?” and “How does it differ from the standard RAW files?” we’re here to shed some light on the term.

BRAW stands for Blackmagic RAW, meaning it’s Blackmagic’s take on RAW files. The company’s engineers have spent years improving standard RAW files, and BRAW files are their solution.

These aren’t actual RAW files, but they’re better in a few ways. Namely, they offer the same high-quality as RAW files but with better performance and smaller file size. They also have the same bit depth and dynamic range as RAW files.

2. Top Blackmagic RAW Players to Open BRAW Files

Since Blackmagic’s SDK is freely available, a few applications can open and work with BRAW files. Still, the primary way to play BRAW files is with the Blackmagic RAW player, specifically designed for that. There’s the Blackmagic RAW player for Windows and the Blackmagic RAW player for Mac. You can download these Blackmagic RAW player versions from Blackmagic’s website.

As for editing BRAW files, there’s the Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve. You can find a guide on the Blackmagic website if you’re wondering how to import BRAW files into DaVinci Resolve.

Moreover, if you thought that Adobe Premiere Pro doesn’t support the BRAW file format, you’d be wrong since it can also handle BRAW files with the Blackmagic RAW plugin.

However, using other applications to work with BRAW files can lead to file corruption. Fortunately, there’s a way to recover corrupted, lost, or deleted BRAW files. Read ahead to learn more about that since it’s always helpful to be ready if a disaster strikes. Optionally, you can convert BRAW to MP4 or other formats to open it.

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3. BRAW vs. ProRes RAW vs. RED RAW: Key Differences

As a few companies have made their take on RAW files, professional cinematographers can now choose from many RAW codecs, such as Apple ProRes RAW, RED RAW, Arri RAW, and Sony RAW. Although these codecs try to stay true to the RAW format, they handle certain things differently.

For example, unlike Apple’s ProRes RAW files, BRAW files give you complete control over metadata in post-production, meaning you can change aspects like ISO, tint, and color temperature when you edit videos. That’s not something you can do with Apple ProRes RAW files.

Compared to RED RAW files, which use the FAT32 file system and create multiple 4 GB files, the BRAW file format creates one file for one video, making them easier to handle in video-editing software. Because of that, they’re also easier to recover, but we’ll get back to that later.

4. Pros and Cons of Blackmagic RAW (BRAW)

While BRAW is a revolutionary codec that bridges the gap between traditional RAW and compressed video, it involves specific trade-offs in post-production flexibility.

Quick Comparison: BRAW vs. Traditional RAW

5. How To Recover Deleted or Lost BRAW Files

Since many videographers and YouTubers work with BRAW files, they’re constantly editing videos, opening new files, and deleting old ones. However, what happens if you lose a BRAW you didn’t mean to delete?

Discover more >>: what is the best data recovery software for Mac.

That’s where Wondershare Recoverit comes in and where its incredible feature, Video Recovery, can shine. It uses a powerful and sophisticated algorithm to quickly and efficiently find and recover a complete video file, which works excellently for BRAW files.

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Recover your RAW footage from any storage, including professional cameras, memory cards, computers, external drives, NAS storage, or USB flash drives.

Work with RAW file format and all popular video formats, such as AVI, MOV, MKV, MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, WMV, etc.

Recover Full HD, Ultra HD, 4K, and 8K videos without corruption.

Preview the files before recovery. No payment is required if the files are unrecoverable.

You can follow these steps to get your missing BRAW video files back:

That’s all you need to do to recover your lost or deleted BRAW files successfully.

Conclusion

BRAW files, which are Blackmagic’s take on RAW files, have been prevalent among videographers and YouTubers since 2018 when the company first announced the BRAW file format.

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These files have a few advantages over other RAW codecs but require a specialized BRAW video player, and only a handful of post-production applications support them. That makes it possible to load these files into an unsupported app and accidentally corrupt them.

Since corrupted or lost files are a massive issue in the world of videography, we’ve also covered Wondershare Recoverit’s Enhanced Recovery, which can help you quickly and efficiently recover any lost files.