BMPC4K paid update?

I will pay $500 for 50fps windowed 1080p.
Who else?

I will pay $500 for 50fps windowed 1080p.
Who else?

Sell your 4K and buy a mini?

This has been covered many times before. It can't be done.

This has been covered many times before. It can't be done.

I dont believe it. I think this is just some marketing limitation. Not technical. Sensor can do 50 fps and even more. Sensor has windowed mode capability. Data flow is less when 4K 30 fps.

So I can understand that this is too much for giving it away for free. Ok. I will pay for that change.
$500 for windowed 1080p 50 fps and I will pay $600 for windowed 1080p 60 fps. Who else?

No amount of money will change basic thermal dynamics, data processing requirements, hardware limitations etc.

I would pay $500 for Blackmagic Design to get their back orders filled before they bring out new gear!

No amount of money will change basic thermal dynamics, data processing requirements, hardware limitations etc.

I thought they were just the Suggestions of Thermal Dynamics, Tom.

Duh, there's an OBVIOUS SOLUTION to getting 50fps that no one has thought about...

You need to be in a vehicle travelling at, someone needs to check this back of envelope calculation, at a factor of 0.866 the speed of light c. Then time would appear to you relativistically to be slowing down by a factor of two. That's how you get the BMPC4K to do 50fps.

Jules

I will pay $500 for 50fps windowed 1080p.
Who else?

They have already stated a gazillion times it is not possible with that camera due to the fan cooling is not enough. That is why the Ursa can do it. Because it is liquid cooled. As far as doing "windowed" stuff I doubt BM will do it as their mantra is RAW data. That would be manipulating it. You are going to have to buy an URSA for that.

I dont need 1080p50, but I would really appreciate 1080i50 - to connecting BMPC4K to ATEMs with other cameras in multicam.. and to work with TVS. I dont think, that this has to be much big trouble..

This has been covered many times before. It can't be done.

I dont believe it. I think this is just some marketing limitation. Not technical. Sensor can do 50 fps and even more. Sensor has windowed mode capability. Data flow is less when 4K 30 fps.

So I can understand that this is too much for giving it away for free. Ok. I will pay for that change.
$500 for windowed 1080p 50 fps and I will pay $600 for windowed 1080p 60 fps. Who else?

I believe the best way to look at this topic is from the point of view of power.

I’ll classify the cameras into 2 categories:

Gen 1 ( The first Blackmagic cameras including the Cinema Cam, Pocket and Production. )
Gen 2 ( Everything after/including the Original URSA)

Gen 1 cameras from what I’ve gathered in personal testing and general public information all operate at or below ~20W. The BMCC draws 15W of power, the pocket I would imagine in the 5-10W range. I don’t have enough information about the 4K specifically but I would imagine it similar to the Cinema Camera, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and say 15-20W.

Gen 2 cameras including the URSA and URSA Mini all operate in the range of ~45-60W. Well above double that of the Gen 1 camera’s.

So simply looking at it from this perspective we see the capability of the Gen 2 cameras doesn’t simply come from fairy dust. They draw more power in order to achieve those frame rates. The Sensor draws more power and most importantly the FPGA does as well.

Another thing that often gets missed is there is a lot more to it than just saying the data rate is equivalent if you were to just window the sensor. Yes this is true.
Let’s use for example 4K @ 30p vs 2K @120p. Some quick math:

( 4096 x 2304 x 12bits x 30fps / 8 = 424MB/s )
( 2048 x 1152 x 12bits x 120fps / 8 =424MB/s )

So yes if it was down to pure data throughput It would be possible. However there a lot more factors at play.

Increasing the frame rate in this case effectively means you are increasing the clock speed of the Sensor, and in order for this to be achieved you need the FPGA running at the same clock as the sensor. They run in tandem.

It’s very much like doing so on a computer when overlocking a CPU or GPU. You need to give it more power.

The cameras were designed with a very specific power delivery system. I believe when it comes down to it, this is why these cameras will never have higher frame rates.

Also the fact of the matter is that by today’s standard these cameras are running some fairly outdated FPGA’s. Performance per watt of the newer FPGA architectures allow for the Micro Cinema Camera’s low power draw and capability of 60p.

The Spartan 6 FPGA used inside the Pocket, Cinema Camera and the 4K ( unconfirmed ) were introduced in 2009 to give perspective on just how dated the platform is.

Let’s not even get into thermals….

I’m not first, nor probably the last to have done a more technical breakdown of this. There’s lots of simplification / generalization of the concepts, but either way higher frames rates won’t come to these Gen 1 cameras.

I’m not first, nor probably the last to have done a more technical breakdown of this. There’s lots of simplification / generalization of the concepts, but either way higher frames rates won’t come to these Gen 1 cameras.