Would you pay for a BMCC 4:3 Anamorphic Recording Option?

Hi,
I would personally love to have the Ability to record 4:3 on the BMCC to use the full Potential of my 2x Anamorphic Lens. Apparently I think that there are quite some guys around that would like to have that Option as well. (This was mentioned/requestet in a Thread but there was no official Reaction to it.)

Technical Part:
As the BMCC isn't using all of It's Pixels as far as I understood (CIS2051 Sensor?) it should be able to Record a theoretical Maximum of 2432x1824 Pixels.
Of course this would mean larger amount of Data and therefor higher Stress on the internal BUS and the SSD recording the footage, or would it?

I have come to the conclusion that 24FPS 4:3 should be possible. Recording 2,5K @ 30FPS means recording the individual rgb information for approx. 100 M Pixels while recording 2432x1824 @ 24FPS means recording approx. 106 M Pixels in one Second making it only slightly more data.

I would personally be totally fine with the limitation of 24 FPS (and 25FPS if Possible) and DNG only.

Here comes the interesting Part:
I am fully aware that developing such an upgrade means investing time and money. However I believe that a lot of the people interested in 4:3 recording would agree to pay a certain sum in order to obtain such an upgrade. In order to see if this would actually a Profitable thing for BMD to develop i would like to gather some information that might help them to decide weather or not it would make sens for them to invest time in such a feature.
Why would you pay for such an Feature? Shooting 2,65:1 on a 16:9 Sensor will always be a compromise, as you would need a 1,3x or 1,35x Anamorphic lens that you would have to buy if you are currently owning a 2x lens. The look you get for a 1,3x Lens also isn't nearly the same you would get from a 2x Lens as the Bokehcircles are far less stretched.

Edit:
I forgot tha last question. (24p Only)


The Questions I would Like to Ask:

(Please make an X in the field you chose)
Please answer honestly as distorted results don't serve anyone!


1.) Would you in general be willing to pay for such an anamorphic upgrade:
[_] yes
[_] no

1b.) Only If you Answered "yes" on 1.) How much would you agree to Pay:
[_] up to 125$ (~100€)
[_] up to 250$ (~200€)
[_] up to 500$ (~400€)
[_] up to 1000$ (~750€)
[_] above 1000$

2.) Would you be fine with DNG-recording only:
[_] yes
[_] no

3.) Do you currently own a 2x Anamorphic lens:
[_] yes
[_] no
[_] no but i own a 1,5x Anamorphic lens (It would allow to shoot 2.00:1 and crop to 2.33:1)

4.) Would you accept a Distorted Preview and/or Distorted HDMI out and SDI out.
[_] yes
[_] yes, but I would want to pay less in that case
[_] no

5.) Would you accept no HDMI and/or SDI out.
[_] yes
[_] i don't use / don't plan to use these features
[_] no

6.) Would you require 16:9 (4:3) Crop Marks.
[_] yes
[_] yes, but I would accept not having them if this is not possible
[_] yes, but I would accept not having them if this is not possible & if I had to pay less in that case.
[_] no, but I would like to have the option to use them if it is easily possible to realize
[_] no

7.) Would you agree to pay in advance to finance the development.
[_] yes
[_] I would agree to pay a deposit
[_] no

8.) Would you accept 24p Only
[_] yes
[_] i would accept 24p & 25p only
[_] yes but I would want to pay less in that case.
[_] no (I also require 30p for my work)


______________________________________
Thank you for your participation and interest.

1.) Would you in general be willing to pay for such an anamorphic upgrade:
[x] yes
[_] no

1b.) Only If you Answered "yes" on 1.) How much would you agree to Pay:
[_] up to 125$ (~100€)
[_] up to 250$ (~200€)
[_] up to 500$ (~400€)
[x] up to 1000$ (~750€)
[_] above 1000$

2.) Would you be fine with DNG-recording only:
[x] yes
[_] no

3.) Do you currently own a 2x Anamorphic lens:
[x] yes
[_] no
[_] no but i own a 1,5x Anamorphic lens (It would allow to shoot 2.00:1 and crop to 2.33:1)

4.) Would you accept a Distorted Preview and/or Distorted HDMI out and SDI out.
[x] yes
[_] yes, but I would want to pay less in that case
[_] no

5.) Would you accept no HDMI and/or SDI out.
[x] yes
[_] i don't use / don't plan to use these features
[_] no

6.) Would you require 16:9 (4:3) Crop Marks.
[_] yes
[_] yes, but I would accept not having them if this is not possible
[_] yes, but I would accept not having them if this is not possible & if I had to pay less in that case.
[x] no, but I would like to have the option to use them if it is easily possible to realize
[_] no

7.) Would you agree to pay in advance to finance the development.
[_] yes
[x] I would agree to pay a deposit
[_] no

8.) Would you accept 24p Only
[x] yes
[_] i would accept 24p & 25p only
[_] yes but I would want to pay less in that case.
[_] no (I also require 30p for my work)

Hi,
I would personally love to have the Ability to record 4:3 on the BMCC to use the full Potential of my 2x Anamorphic Lens.

As a solution, you can shoot crop 1800x1350 (4:3 of 2400x1350) and then stretch that in post for 2x Anamorphic.

I could, and I am aware of that but in that case i would

a.) trow away sensor resolution for no good reason
b.) increase the Crop Factor of the Camera even further
(which is odd if you think of an anamorphic lens as a tool to give you a nice wide panoramic shoot.)
c.) loose resolution, basically taking away the ability to crop out a format filling 16:9 frame from the final footage. (Without needing a high amount of interpolation, and therefore obtaining decreased quality.)
d.) have a harder time framing the shoot as i would loose some of what I see on the display later in post.
e.) loose some of the look of the lens as I am cropping into the image-circle of the lens (further then I already do.)

I suppose you might be able to come along of some of those issues if you are using a combination of an anamorphic lens and a taking lens, by exchanging the taking lens used, but some of the Issues would still remain valid.
Besides that it just seems odd to not using something up to the potential it probably could be used to.

From an Industrial Designers point of view it is sad to see that so little paid Software upgrades are existing for available hardware today. I fully understand that this is a new busines model in some way but on the other hand I think that not considering paid upgrades is missing out on a business opportunity. Developing software is costing money once in the development. However if the development of a software upgrade is finished the distribution of it is costing very little money allowing the product to have a very high margin. Selling a new (physical) product to a customer instead of an upgrade for a product currently owned means way higher development cost. It also means added production cost as well as additional shipping cost. At the same time this means a higher initial investment is required, off course this also means higher financial risk. Other then that a customer could decide to migrate to a competitors product instead of buying a following product from the same company. Offering upgrades would also create customer loyalty.

Let me give you other possibilities:
- In camera Scopes (via HDMI or SDI out) might be possible and would most likely be cheaper the buying a field monitor with integrated scopes.

- Special recording features for Broadcast such as 3D Link, time code in camera Curves etc.

- Additional recording Formats such as Cinescope that is costing a license fee.

- S16 Cop Mode (1080p)

- High Speed Recording if possible (maybe at reduced resolution.)


In general the core Idea behind this is quite easy. For me the BMCC is a great camera with a quite Limited Firmware, it does what it does great but it does not do very much else, however I am sure that it could do more or other things with improved Software. However not everybody is needing the same features and that for not necessarily keen to finance the development of certain features.
Think of it like that:
If BMD was going to develop a Software upgrade targeted towards the needs of live broadcast, broadcasters probably wouldn't mind too much to pay several thousand dollars per camera to get an upgrade. (In their world this is little money anyway.) However if this sum would have been spited between all cameras everyone might end up paying 1000$ or more for a bunch of unused features not needed by most, while somebody willing to pay more them paying less than he potentially would, on the expense of others. It would be a fairer System and I believe that this could very well be a profitable model.

The problem is that anamorphic shoot and projection isn't a cheap thing. Any of the lenses is actually worth the BMCC camera itself. So making that hard software manipullation in camera just for amature anamorphic shoot out is not gonna happen. I don't think BMD really care much about it. They don't care about monitoring audio, and you want some firmware tweeks?

Just my 2 cents.

Yeah, if BMD is going to spend time & money on hardware tweaks, I'd prefer it if they concentrated on fixing current problems, like audio meters and sensor issues.

If you want to shoot anamorphic, use your 2x on 16:9 and crop to 2.39:1.

Spherical widescreen is always a crop anyway.

No.

I'd pay for a BMCC 4K with E-mount and >13 stops of dynamic range. Then I'd crop to size.

Jules

The BMPC 4K has an EF-Mount, so it is utterly useless to me as it isn't able to properly adapt for PL-Lenses.
(Otherwise I would have bought it instead of a MFT BMCC I ordered Several weeks ago. My BMCC is Delayed 4 weeks by the way, quite insane one year after the production started.)
E-Mount is a Mount by Sony targeted at Consumer Applications. (Nex Cameras and now also small low end Alpha Cameras.) Sony is using E-Mount on some of their own cheaper Camcorders so I would highly doubt that they would allow BMD to use it.
Still I think that it is somewhat inefficient to capture Unused data, just to crop it away later on.
More data means more Storage (SAN Storage in my Case) needed, this is equaling higher Cost and higher TCO, whit out me actually benefiting from it (my effective output resolution is lower then that of filming 16:9 in the first place.)

I'm fine with the 2.5K of the BMCC the Quality of what I have seen seems very good to me, and 4K doesn't seem Critical within the next 3-5 years. (With 3D already being more or less dead by now.)

However unless somebody proves me wrong I am pretty much persuaded that in Camera 4:3 Capture should be possible and most likely without the need of much development time, as I see it its just reading out some additional Pixels while the main routine of the camera is staying the same.

No I would not.

No.

I'd pay for a BMCC 4K with E-mount and >13 stops of dynamic range. Then I'd crop to size.

Jules

When people want to shoot anamorphic most of them want that elongated bokeh and Sci-Fi lens flares across half the screen or longer. For a moment lets pretend those lens characteristics are not important but only the very widescreen view. Do you know the pixel values for standard proper film dimensions for 2K anamorphic projection? I don't know if I even worded that question correctly. What are the anamorphic dimensions in pixels, such as 2048x858 which would be for normal 2K 2.39:1 projection?

Does the screen aspect ratio need to be 2.66:1 to be considered an anamorphic projection i.e. 2048x1536 which would expand to 4096x1536? Would that be DCP compliant for 4K anamorphic? The BMPC4K sensor would handle that nicely, no? Just might be a problem finding an anamorphic adapter to cover an EF lens.

Okay, assuming there is no anamorphic adapter to cover an EF lens, the BMPC4K and BMCC could just be downscaled on output to 2048x768 to at least have the 2.66:1 aspect ratio associated with anamorphic. That's the poor man's version.

Rick Lang
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