The Silicon Imaging SI2K had its genesis in a discussion page on the dvinfo.net forum when folk were despairing about the big players in the videocamera business holding back innovation.
An idea was floated about the possibility of gutting out a Kransnogorsk K3 16mm film camera body, adding a Super16mm sensor by Altasens of about the same dynamic range of the "big" URSA.
A small PC would be built into the mag space to do the recording. Then a bunch of different entities decided, yes we can do this and the first disruptor of the status quo was born.
It was soon to be followed by Jim Jannard who also floated his notion of the RED camera also on dvinfo.net and built up a development team.
The most notable success of the SI2K system was in the filming of "Slumdog Millionaire" in which over half of the imagery was shot with it.
The system consisted of a camera head, referred to as the Mini, which held the respective applicable codec and operating system licences within its internal memory.
The recording choices were to use a suitable laptop or a PC running Windows XP, or a Windows XPe based purposed recorder which was built as a camera body by P+S Technik in Germany into which the Mini head docked in the front and the recording media docked into the rear.
The computer hardware within was adapted from and built to the standard of available split motherboard and backpane computers which were of critical reliability for use in systems like rail traffic control.
Unlike the "big" URSA, the P+S Technik camera/recorder unit was modular. The computer guts would slide out on a small tray after four screws were unfastened.
It was however hell expensive compared to Blackmagic's current offerings. That's what comes when ex-ARRI engineers get to play with their CAD programs and computerised milling machines. Even the fillet radii of mounts were tightly measured.
The bodies and the "Mini" camera head enclosure were computer milled out of aluminium. The thing was meant to be reliable and robust to ARRI standards. There was even an optical viewfinder for the B4 ENG lenses and the digital cine lenses which were emerging from Fujinon and Optika-Elite.
With the emergent disruption of the RED One, the SI2K likely holds a record for the most rapidly depreciated camera system as everyone wanted 35mm sized sensors. RED adopters had been building and buying groundglass-based image relay systems for 1/3" and 2/3" camera for nearly ten years.
Some P+S Technik Pro35s were fitted to the SI2K for "the 35mm film look" but not widely adopted. I tinkered with a Letus Extreme adapter which was kindly donated to me by the Le brothers and got it up to practical 2K resolution on the SI2K and well into HD resolution on the Sony PW-EX1. It was a one-off Some sods burged the house and pinched it a year ago.
Cinevate's Dennis Woods, developed a varifocal relay lens and Brevis 35mm ground-based adaptor specifically for the SI2K, which also realised that performance. I still have the prototype here.
P+S Technik had a go at a 35mm sized sensor camera of HD resolution to be upgraded to 2K with their PSCam but it did not go far. The RED had the 35mm game sown up and along came the ARRI Alexa with its better than 2K origination.
In the meantime after my "big" URSA quietly said its prayers and martyred itself over winter, I have resumed my attempts to tweak the SI2K which I had put aside.
- SI2K NO OPLF PLUS NC8 PLUS SPEEDBOOSTER REDUCED.jpg (194.76 KiB) Viewed 2242 times
I had found the perfect replacement in the "big" URSA. It had about the same real-world dynamic range as the SI2K, the bonus of global shutter and that huge screen, a blessing for the folk who need close-up glasses.
It was like stepping into a new pair of already fitting comfortable shoes then having the soles fall off less than half-worn. That was a rug pull which has left me a bit cross but thems the breaks when you buy used.
The "big" URSA shares some attributes with the SI2K by the turret choices being removable from the front of the body and interchangeable along with a B4 lens mount adaptor for the URSA 4K Mini which was fully compatable with the "big" URSA.
Then there was the highly anticipated aborted fetus of a 4.6K turret upgrade option. That notion of course fell over on its bum for stated technical reasons but perhaps because it would have been a financial dead-end. It would have been nice to have but I am not overwrought about it.
Unlike the SI2K and offerings from the big three who have fought back in more recent years, the guts of the Blackmagic cams are unitary not modular, to be entirely replaced not repaired.
They are a bit like our aged pensioners under the current administration, intended to work until they drop before they will ever draw a pension, then die and get buried out of the way before they get too old and become an incubus upon the millennials.