Recording issue with Ninja - now fixed!

[Lili]

When we decided to buy the Ninja we knew that we took a certain risk. But we decided to expend 995 $ from our R&D budget and take that risk. And of course the dream didn't come true.

The Ninja came in. We use a Sony HVR-Z7E in 1080i50 mode. Format a brand new Hitachi 7200/500 G drive. The software is nice and very easy to use. Set the audio input thru HDMI. We shot a 15 minutes footage in Prores 422. Everything is working fine with the buttons, very pleasant to use the touch screen.

Then we copy the files into our Mac and Final Cut Pro. Since the drive is FAT32 you get 4 Go files split from the footage. Then the HORROR appears :
- some files will have accelerated audio
- some files won't have audio
- some files will have unsynchronized audio.

We updated to the last firmware 1.04, try many other brand new Hitachi drives. We try the analog audio inputs too. But no way to fix the problem.
Our clients are pharmaceutical companies and we do a lot of interviews with green chromakey for them. We won't take the risk to shoot a CEO interview with the Ninja.

[maranfilms]

thats too bad to hear, I thought the ninja was a really great recorder. It seems that others are having good luck with this recorder. Have you tried other modes, say 24, 60i. And have you tried contacting the company for insight into the issue. I think your post may be a bit over the top, to accuse the company of releasing a product that doesn't work. You may want to rethink what you write in these threads as it's forever. Chances are, it may be a fixable issue.

[Lili]

You're right, my post is angrily written after losing a lot of time. We have a lot of workflow everyday and can afford to lose our time. I've tried everything. Didn't have respond from Atomos support but I'am wondering why my Ninja was delivered with 1.0 firmware. Since Melbourne is in the opposite side of the globe.

[yycadm]

Sorry to say this, but if you had enugh time to generate the same "slam" post here and on DVinfo.net, where I just finished reading it under a different username, I'd think that time could be better spent contacting the manufacturer to sort out a problem with a $1000 piece of hardware. I know that's how I'd have spent the time, anyway

[photonashville]

To much pressure from shareholders ?

This statement makes no sense. I wasn't aware that a small niche company making basically just one product sells stock to shareholders listed or unlisted on any stock exchange. Irrelevant to the problems you are having.

And as far as firmware, the dates of firmware releases makes perfect sense why you would have been shipped a v1.0 product. March 22, v1.0, April 1, v1.03, April 6, v1.04, very short timeframes here. Not a realistic expectation to have the units updated before shipping. Users buying these should be tech savvy enough to perform the firmware update. The firmware is being updated rapidly so users benefit.

I bought a SmallHD monitor and updated the firmware on it since the a new release had come out within the past few weeks prior to purchase. They aren't pulling stock off shelves and updating them just to ship out.

Contact the company and use tech support and find out why the problems exist and how to fix them. That's what professionals do. I doubt your pharma clients go on boards and complain by naming your company and state why they aren't happy.

[Lili]

The thing is support@atomos.com never reply to my mail reporting the dysfunction ! all the mails before the purchase and after.

[David Shapton]

The thing is support@atomos.com never reply to my mail reporting the dysfunction ! all the mails before the purchase and after.

I'm sorry to hear of your problems with the audio. I'm not aware of any emails from you and I personally check the support email address. If you need to contact me please PM me on this forum and I will respond to you personally. We are aware of some remaining audio problems with the Ninja, which have come to light recently. We are working on fixing these and we will do this in the same responsive ways we have fixed other issues with our two software updates since the Ninja started shipping.

The audio problems are difficult to track down, because they occur rarely, and most people have never seen them. We are working on a fix for these and will post a fix for them as soon as we can.

For the sake of other readers of this forum, and to redress the impression that your somewhat angry post might have given, I would just like to mention that we have shipped many hundreds of Ninjas to end users in the first three weeks of the product's commercial life, and the feedback we have been getting has been overwhelmingly positive.

Dave Shapton
President
Atomos EMEA

[Lili]

Here is the PERSONAL mail I received this morning from who know which support service it is:

"We have some issues with audio which we are investigating. We will be releasing a firmware update to fix these soon.
We are sorry about the inconvenience.
Best regards
Atomos Support"

Why do you release a product with known issues?

[Stephen Mick]

Lili,

Can you post some footage with the "accelerated audio" issue? I'd be interested in seeing that.

[Ian-T]

Here is the PERSONAL mail I received this morning from who know which support service it is:

"We have some issues with audio which we are investigating. We will be releasing a firmware update to fix these soon.
We are sorry about the inconvenience.
Best regards
Atomos Support"

Why do you release a product with known issues?

It seems the audio issue surfaced "after" the product shipped (among a few folks). It doesn't say that they had "known" about this potential issue before shipping.