Blackmagic Forum

So just wondering if there was any truth in the rumour that the sensor is the BAE Systems sCMOS. If so will future firmware be utilising the chip to it's full capabilities?

Ok plenty of views but no conversation. If it is the BAE Systems sCMOS, then the sensor has the capabilities to shoot 100fps at 2.5k, 240fps at 720 and both rolling and global shutter.

Sounds cool. Not sure whether or not it is this particular sensor or not, and I'm not sure whether BMD is likely confirm or deny?

Personally, I hope BMD's engineers are putting 100% of their efforts into delivering the cameras described on their website ASAP instead of researching what major functional changes might be possible via firmware updates.

My plea is: Please ship the promised BMCC hardware first, then please "research" & mess with the firmware later! Pretty please.

Also, feature requests such as the ones being discussed in this thread have been requested numerous times in the feature requests thread:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=265

Michael Sandiford wrote:So just wondering if there was any truth in the rumour that the sensor is the BAE Systems sCMOS. If so will future firmware be utilising the chip to it's full capabilities?

Hi Michael,

Regardless of which sensor is being used, you have to keep in mind that components are part of a larger system and don't work in isolation. Changing anything will always affect something else, be it memory bandwidth, thermal issues etc.

You should always consider what the camera can do now and anything else will be a bonus.

Kristian Lam wrote:

Michael Sandiford wrote:So just wondering if there was any truth in the rumour that the sensor is the BAE Systems sCMOS. If so will future firmware be utilising the chip to it's full capabilities?

Hi Michael,

Regardless of which sensor is being used, you have to keep in mind that components are part of a larger system and don't work in isolation. Changing anything will always affect something else, be it memory bandwidth, thermal issues etc.

You should always consider what the camera can do now and anything else will be a bonus.

+1

You also need to make sure that just because the sensor can do that doesn't mean that it needs to. You have to think and know that if it isn't offered, chances are it ( the camera ) would be unstable. Maybe the processor will overheat and fail, maybe it'll drop frames, maybe the battery life will suffer or maybe nothing adverse at all will happen. Chances are if this is confirmed and the camera hardware can support it with no adverse effects, this is and will be something that is looked at and rolled out AFTER big things like sensor issues, that keep the camera from even rolling out, have to be tackled first before they can start to think about these things. With the low selection initially given AND the open source nature of these kinds of cams, it's inevitable.

Michael Sandiford wrote:.... shoot 100fps at 2.5k...

Just for giggles..please tell me what the necessary data rate per minute would be for 100fps at 2.5k uncompressed/RAW...lol




When are people going to realize that this is a pro-sumer camera? (its starting to look more like a consumer+ camera really)
Its gonna be hard for ALOT of folks to handle the requirements as advertised...let alone at any multiple above 30fps uncompressed...jeez

BM cant even get it to market anytime soon, but the handles are shipping

I think the term often used is "enthusiast". This is not a consumer camera. Also "indie" comes to mind.

Theodore Prentice wrote:

Michael Sandiford wrote:.... shoot 100fps at 2.5k...

Just for giggles..please tell me what the necessary data rate per minute would be for 100fps at 2.5k uncompressed/RAW...lol

Theodore,

Raw frames are 5 MB per frame. At 24 FPS, that's 120 MB a second. 60 seconds per minute means 7200 MB or 7.2 GB a minute.

So, to go at 100 FPS you multiply everything by 4.167 (which is simply 100 FPS / 24 FPS), and you get:
100 FPS = 500 MB a second
100 FPS = 30,000 MB or 30 GB a minute.

Not going to happen with just a firmware update...

Ok guys, I realise what the limitations of the camera are and yes would rather they got it rolling out into production in good numbers. If it is the BAE systems sensor then the only real ability I'm actually interested in is the Global Shutter, which if we had the option to change to, would open the camera up for shooting action sequences more for me than rolling shutter (I also know that Global Shutter doesn't nes' mean better before any of you start). The sensor can do a lot more though, including those described. The sensor was discussed in another site as the possible sensor due to similarities in capabilities.

http://www.globalspec.com/FeaturedProdu ... y/101928/0

It may not be though. Hence the asking.

:lol:

Just for giggles..please tell me what the necessary data rate per minute would be for 100fps at 2.5k uncompressed/RAW...lol




When are people going to realize that this is a pro-sumer camera? (its starting to look more like a consumer+ camera really)
Its gonna be hard for ALOT of folks to handle the requirements as advertised...let alone at any multiple above 30fps uncompressed...jeez

BM cant even get it to market anytime soon, but the handles are shipping

I have plenty of experience working on high end equipment and we still do with our VFX work for clients. We are now bringing our collective together to start specialising in these pro-sumer equipment as you call it as we believe it is the future.

LoL, more a smirk I bet.

Hi Michael,

Regardless of which sensor is being used, you have to keep in mind that components are part of a larger system and don't work in isolation. Changing anything will always affect something else, be it memory bandwidth, thermal issues etc.

You should always consider what the camera can do now and anything else will be a bonus.

I do realise it, I have put a lot of stock into what it can do now (except actually being available) and have a huge project planned (availability permitting, if not other more tried and trusted equipment will be relied upon) involving the camera and it's current capabilities coming up next year. I was just wondering is all. SSD's being the recording space should be able to handle bandwidth issues in storage, wonder if the pipeline or cooling in the camera can deal with it, though.

Jeez guys. Why so serious? I understand that there are problems faced with shipping because of the sensor and I was only asking out of fun. If it is the rumored sensor then it has a lot of capabilities beyond it's current setup and yes whilst you may have to sacrifice one thing for the other if Black Magic have chosen this sensor because of it's actual capabilites then maybe they have a lot more in mind for it then we realise. If not then no biggy, it was just a question and any supposed future implications are not even being considered by me for any actual future need.

I also realise there's a feature request thread, I'm not actually asking out of wanting it as a feature, just out of curiosity as to what the actual sensor is because if it is the rumoured sensor then it gives an idea to any future abilities in upgrades be they firmware , hardware etc. It also answers the question of what the sensor is.

to think of it now if there would be sdk one could fry ones camera in a heart beat

just turn all stuff up and wait for smoke to emerge ... puff

but still interesting question.

good ideas come out of ridiculous fantasizing!

i think i posted in may in some forum that changing mount is simple in theory
just reprogram your cnc and voila.

now it is promised as a product.
i see no idea is silly than any other.

keep fantasizing it keeps mind sharp!

I don't think asking for more FPS at 2.5k resolution is realistic on this camera. The processor can probably not handle it anyway. If I am wrong and they can pull it off with a future firmware upgrade, great! However, for now, I think that requesting more FPS options at lower resolutions is more realistic (e.g. 50/60fps at 1080P or 720P RAW). Personally, I think RAW 1080P at 50/60fps would make the most sense considering most people will output to 1080P anyway.

EDIT: The Digital Bolex offers the following in RAW:

Framerates of up to 32 fps at 2K, 60fps at 720p, 90 fps at 480p

-Chris.

cschmeer wrote:Personally, I think RAW 1080P at 50/60fps would make the most sense considering most people will output to 1080P anyway.

The current crop of SSD drives won't be fast enough to record that at a sustained rate I'm afraid. You'd need a RAID drive, and the cost of the BMCC goes up!

Maybe it could do it when recording ProRes (4444 be nice), but then maybe the processor can't convert that fast.

Jules

Jules Bushell wrote:

cschmeer wrote:Personally, I think RAW 1080P at 50/60fps would make the most sense considering most people will output to 1080P anyway.

The current crop of SSD drives won't be fast enough to record that at a sustained rate I'm afraid. You'd need a RAID drive, and the cost of the BMCC goes up!

Maybe it could do it when recording ProRes (4444 be nice), but then maybe the processor can't convert that fast.

Jules

Do you think RAW 720P at 50/60fps would be possible in terms of data transfer speeds? Somehow the Digital Bolex guys pulled it off and I believe they are shooting to CompactFlash cards

If RAW 720P slow motion would be possible, one could at least scale the slow motion shots to 1080P. It would probably still look better quality than scaling h.264 compressed 720P 50/60fps content from a DSLR to 1080P.

-Chris.

well, the camera doesn't shoot 720 at all, so I don't think that would be a simple firmware change. 2.5K or 1080 is what we've got to play with.

RAW at 2.5K is 5MB per frame, at 30fps it's 150MB/sec continuous throughput...that's the current maximum data the BMCC outputs.

Extrapolating that data means that RAW @ fullHD (1920x1080) should be roughly 3.12MB per frame. At 60fps you'd be looking at 187MB a second.

That would definitely be past the boundary of what you can get out of the current SSDs...

On a side note, for calculating SSD performance, you should be doing the math from the IOPS figure, not the "marketing" stat of MB/sec. These numbers are always noted as "up to" and change dramatically depending on what kind of writing you're doing to the drive. So 525MB sustained doesn't mean you can write video at that rate. Misleading? Definitely.

See this link for an excellent explanation: http://www.ssdfreaks.com/content/599/ho ... s-from-mbs

Using this calculation, we see that the Sandisk Xtreme 480GB SSD could handle a sustained throughput of 187.6875 MB/sec. (based on their stated 46,000 IOPS) That number is also expressed as an "up to" by Sandisk. Since all the manufacturers use their own math to create these benchmarks, you need to accept there is going to be wiggle room.

So, I would think that the 150MB/Sec that BMCC outputs at 2.5K RAW is the most they could do with existing, cheap and widely available SSDs.

This could also explain why RED MAGs are so expensive, as they are "probably" not just regular 2.5" or 1.8" SSDs inside. There must be some custom controller hardware to give them the bandwidth they need to move as much data as they do.

I'd love for someone to confirm this as I've often wondered why no one simply bought a 64GB REDMAG , open it up and substitute a 480GB drive...maybe this answers that?!

In any case...for a $3000, 2.5K RAW shooter...that writes to standard, off the shelf SSDs...I think we've got it pretty good with the BMCC. Can't wait for mine

sean mclennan wrote:RAW at 2.5K is 5MB per frame, at 30fps it's 150MB/sec continuous throughput...that's the current maximum data the BMCC outputs.

Extrapolating that data means that RAW @ fullHD (1920x1080) should be roughly 3.12MB per frame. At 60fps you'd be looking at 187MB a second.
See this link for an excellent explanation: http://www.ssdfreaks.com/content/599/ho ... s-from-mbs

Using this calculation, we see that the Sandisk Xtreme 480GB SSD could handle a sustained throughput of 187.6875 MB/sec. (based on their stated 46,000 IOPS) That number is also expressed as an "up to" by Sandisk. Since all the manufacturers use their own math to create these benchmarks, you need to accept there is going to be wiggle room.

So, I would think that the 150MB/Sec that BMCC outputs at 2.5K RAW is the most they could do with existing, cheap and widely available SSDs.

As the article points out, the period if a sustained write may be 30 seconds and the rate can fall if the actual period was several minutes. The BMCC user may want the camera to record continuously for 30 minutes or an hour. No vendor is publishing rates based on uninterrupted writes for an hour. So for a burst of activity, the SSD may handle higher frame rates but not likely for long.

But surely adding 720P recording is a firmware/software, rather than a hardware thing?