Thu Nov 30, 2017 11:21 am
This is my personal best guess, but the development 4.6k turret, which is rolling shutter only, which fine by me, but not for some, but possibly for most current URSA 4K owners. When that Turret was Demo'd, it needed custom fPGA code and modifications to Camera OS/UI which some folks got to shoot with.
As global/rolling shutter 4.6k did not happen for 4.6k sensor, it is known why the sensor was not rushed out for it's MRSRP of $2.5k in the URSA Turret, finally as BM gave up, and decided that rolling shutter is fine the rest of their URSA Mini 4.6/Pro - the camera software platform moved away from the 2.6 URSA code quite a bit.
Now, 2+ years later the 4K Mini, 4.6k Mini, 4.6k Mini Pro have an entirely different operating system as of 4.0, with a truckload of features, possibly code blocks from - .. Fairchild - in their fPGA.
The URSA has the Cortex/ARM cpu power, bandwidth to process 4.6k and run the current 4.x Camera OS and and same pin interface - but back-porting the 4.0 operating system, adjusting to have it work on 2 touch-screens and testing it together with new codecs, aspect ratios and fPGA micro-code are what is most likely the most expensive part of the 4.6k turret not being released. It's been so long that doing mass disseminated updates for URSA (big) to 4.0 is not feasible. Most importantly a redo of all OS level drivers for all the micro controllers and devices on the URSA.
Possibly some talent that worked on the 2.6 to 3.x codebase have found other things to do, the 4.0 OS is from scratch, so the legacy camera OS is abandoned for platforms below UM 4k. BMCC, BMPC4k and so on.
It's potentially not the lack of sensors, or metals, or even demand for the 4.6k Turret, but a simple expense of cross-compiling and bloating with detection of camera type in the Camera OS now that it's so vastly different from the 2.6-2.8 releases that is slowing this down. - I think the human programming cost is the highest cost for preventing the 4.6k Turret from being made available. Not the sensor, not the vendor of it, nor the lack of margin or tooling.
BM Probably does not want to touch the 2.x OS codebase, nor back-port the 4.x OS to URSA, nor release the Alpha/Unstable 4.6k URSA legacy OS and fPGA binaries with the 4.6k turret.
I would assume if people were okay with running a "unstable/experimental" firmware on their big URSA and signed a waiver to such - which is somewhere in binary form on BMD's build machines, did not ask for further support with the camera and were okay with global shutter, no features and paying money for the sensor - they'd probably consider it.
I reality I do not think this is the case, I think if they sell someone a 4.6k Turret, that person will go back and ask for RAW 4:1, Anamorphic DeSqueeze, Black Shade Balancing, Applying Looks and LUTS on all 3 SDI outputs etc. I'm am very sure there are more 'just don't say you have one' 4.6k URSA's around than just the core geographical QA team.
Disclaimer, - This is my own personal pure speculation, I normally only deal in fact.