AF100 external recorder - Ninja 2 or Samurai?

[Kindredmachine]

anatusa - buying a nanoflash now I think would be a complete waste of $$$. It's only an 8-bit recorder which is great for the AF100 but what about all of the 10-bit cameras that will no doubt be hitting the market? Your nanoflash will become useless. Also, recording to a nano under 100mb/s I've been told would produce pretty much no quality difference over the internal AF100 codec. If you want to record with compression and want the best bang for the buck, I perosnally believe you can't go wrong with the Samuria. It's 10-bit 4:2:2 and you can use cheap 2.5" HDDs so you're not stuck using just SSDs like many of the other 10-bit recorders.

You mentioned that the Ninja and Samurai don't have the codec you want? What codec are you looking for? ProResHQ (which is 4:2:2 220mb/s) or even ProRes 422 seems fantastic and as far as I know, take far less processing power to edit compared to AVCHD... especially if you're grading.

[James Bridges]

Neither,
Go NanoFlash. Great value, still a viable recorder, low power consumption, easy to find CF cards, field proven. Very easy workflow. I have 3 of them, never failed yet.

[dregenthal]

Probably more importantly is that a 10bit recorder isn't going to mean much as you are recording an 8bit stream from the AF-100.

[Kindredmachine]

Probably more importantly is that a 10bit recorder isn't going to mean much as you are recording an 8bit stream from the AF-100.

...but for almost the same price ($1,600 for a Samurai / $1,895 for a Nano) your Samurai will have a longer life as you can use it on future 10-bit cams... for exmaple, an F3 is 10-bit out...

[dregenthal]

...but for almost the same price ($1,600 for a Samurai / $1,895 for a Nano) your Samurai will have a longer life as you can use it on future 10-bit cams... for exmaple, an F3 is 10-bit out...

Or for under $500 you can have built-in power, 10bit recording, both HDMI and SDI (and your first SSD).
The cost of SSD's are significantly less than P2's and are available in larger capacity.
The only thing you don't get for your money is a sub-standard screen . . . What am I missing?

For people who are interested there are FAQs and an informative PDF file on BM's website.

[dtzfilms]

One has to consider what purpose they might have to record uncompressed in the first place . . . commercial green screen might be one?
I can't imagine, for my purposes, shooting exclusively in uncompressed . . .
There's also the issue of the kind of horsepower you'd need to edit out anything long form.
(for me).

If I'm not mistaken, I think FCP X averts the "horsepower" crisis with a proxy media transcoding option.

[ulisses]

Or for under $500 you can have built-in power, 10bit recording, both HDMI and SDI (and your first SSD).
The cost of SSD's are significantly less than P2's and are available in larger capacity.
The only thing you don't get for your money is a sub-standard screen . . . What am I missing?

For people who are interested there are FAQs and an informative PDF file on BM's website.

But BM Shuttle only records Uncompressed Quicktime / AVID, no PRORES, right ?

[dregenthal]

But BM Shuttle only records Uncompressed Quicktime / AVID, no PRORES, right ?

from BMD's website (hope this helps):

"Unparalleled File Compatibility

HyperDeck Shuttle captures the world's most popular video files in native uncompressed 10-bit QuickTime and Avid DNxHD MXF files. Recording straight to DNxHD is perfect for working with the full Avid Media Composer family of software including NewsCutter and Symphony. There is no need to reformat or transcode your files, so you get the most efficient Avid workflow. DNxHD files can easily be graded natively with DaVinci Resolve using full AAF roundtrip with Media Composer. HyperDeck Shuttle also records direct to mathematically perfect quality uncompressed 10-bit QuickTime files that can be used with all popular video software like Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve and more!"

DNxHD btw, is available for both Mac & Windows from BMD's website--there's a ton of information...make the trip: http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/prod...erdeckshuttle/ (also see the support section for manuals, faqs, etc.).

and, DaVinci Resolve Lite is a free download . . .

[taras4444]

Sorry to bring this thread up again but I'm looking into getting either the ninja or the samurai and was wondering how easy is it to attach to the af 100? It comes with the mounting plates etc right? I've tried to find a good picture but am a little confused. For an independent feature do you think it's integral to use one of these external recorders (like how the raid redemption did) or could you get away with using internal sd cards? Any great projects anyone know of where they just used sd cards?

[XSVpro]

Sorry to bring this thread up again but I'm looking into getting either the ninja or the samurai and was wondering how easy is it to attach to the af 100? It comes with the mounting plates etc right? I've tried to find a good picture but am a little confused. For an independent feature do you think it's integral to use one of these external recorders (like how the raid redemption did) or could you get away with using internal sd cards? Any great projects anyone know of where they just used sd cards?

If your shooting a feature then yes I would use external recording. Less compression keeps the noise pattern clean (not mixed with macro blocking), great for denoising and reducing banding without looking too ugly. I frame encoding, post production codec, 422 equals more colour resolution, quite a lot of plusses to using external recording.

I would also go for the shuttle over the samurai and wouldn't consider the ninja or the nano flash.

The shuttle is cheap enough that if you take your samurai budget (£1200 in the uk) you could buy the shuttle (£225), mounting plate (£70) SSDs (3x Sandisk 120gb @£70 each = £210), small HD dp4 (about £350 with tax and delivery to the uk), ssd dock (£75 from OWC) and still have £270 change to go towards V mounts for your whole system. The beauty of this is that if the dp4 fails you don't lose the recorder and for budget conscious people who would just have the samurai for external monitoring, if the recorder fails you dont lose your screen plus you can mate the shuttle with any monitor you want or not at all. It mounts to rails pretty well too.

the nano is only 8 bit, I don't see the point in external capture at anything below prores or DNxHD, AVCHD is a great compressed capture format, why go to the expense to get 50-80 megs and restrict your capture to 8 bit devices on CF cards? I like that I can rent/borrow an F3 and get great 10 bit out of it and I like that I have SSDs and am used to the SSD workflow in readiness for using the BMCC.

Ninja is HDMI only, great for DSLRS but pointless for the AF. No 24psf either and expensive.

Samurai is a great tool with all the bits in the box but you won't use spinners once you have a failure and SSDs are cheap now. I have three Sandisk 120 gig drives, I get about an hour from each which is fine, I really wouldn't want more for 10 bit prores capture as its like putting all your eggs in one basket, its why I use 8/16 gig cards for AVCHD, you don't want a card failure or DIT screw up that loses you everything.

the shuttle does prores now and has uncompressed there for when that might be useful (overkill on the AF in my opinion)