Blackmagic Design announces URSA Mini 4.6K and Micro Cinema Camera now shipping
- Thread starter Danilo Del Tufo
- Start date
Probably, but seems kinda silly that BMD races to change the Mini Ursa 4.6K's copy but neglects to change the Ursa's. Duh-hyuh, golly gee!
swaneon
Well-known member
The build of both the mini 4K and mini4.6k are excellent from my personal experience with them.
Well... given that it's Black Magic that we're talking about here, it's really just par for the course...
I guess that depends on where you're coming from. From a VG30? Then the Ursa is well built. From an Amira, Alexa or F65? Nope. The Ursa is not well built. All is subjective. IMO he Ursa is not built for the rigors of a professional high end set and is ergonomically challenged for that too.
In "consumer", an internal SSD may become the sole provider of the high resolution/high bit rate images, with the removable media used mostly as a backup. In high end cameras, it will become the backup.
As to the offload time, Thunderbolt 3 does 5 GB/s and most pro operators shoot less than 1 TB/day, so it's a 2-3 min offload under most situations. Not really much of a tie up.
From what I've read, they are still trying to implement global shutter in the full size Ursa sensor upgrade, but as usual, any information on this has been cryptic.
It's a shame that they had to drop GS from the mini, but the GS mode was always advertised as coming at the expense of 2 stops of dynamic range, so it's application would be limited to very specific situations. From what I've seen, the rolling shutter is excellent on the camera and I haven't noticed any weird jello or banding artifacts whatsoever in the released footage.
starcentral
Veteran
frappe61;1986623229but the GS mode was always advertised as coming at the expense of 2 stops of dynamic range said:
If they are making up for the loss some other way, how is that lying -- at least, how is it any more a stretching of the truth than manufacturer DR ratings in general?
starcentral
Veteran
Good point.
Bassman2003
Veteran
Just for reference, I called BM to ask about the power draw for the Ursa Mini 4.6 and was told between 50-60 watts. This stat was not clear on their website.
Kodak had the patent for global shutter many years ago, yet they didn't have a way to implement it outside of engineering samples. Must have been down to cost or complexity and I think they may have even let the patent lapse. The bask side illuminated sensors had promise for GS because they might have been able to stack the amplifiers and ADC behind the photosite such that each photosite had it's own amp and ADC, then it could all sample at the same time and read out in series. Not sure how this is progressing but it should be the same DR and sensitivity that a normal serial readout has (row by row readout).
Moving the global-shutter electronics to another layer is exactly what Alternative Vision Corp are purportedly doing with the Lumiense sensor technology. In addition to the global shutter, they claim a very high fill factor, light sensitivity, and dynamic range. Unfortunately, all these wonderful characteristics seem to exist mostly on paper, as they haven't yet produced a sensor for use in digital-cinema cameras. They are willing to develop a custom chip for anyone who has $2-3 million and two years or so to spend on development. They won't develop an off-the-shelf sensor.
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Samuel H
Major Contributor
FWIW, I just measured the rolling shutter on the BMMCC and it's very, very good (better than in a C300 or an FS7, for example)
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?303559-Measuring-rolling-shutter-put-a-number-on-this-issue!
