•• ATOMOS Ninja - Quick First Impression ••

Coco Bermudez

Coco Bermudez

Well-known member
SO we got our Ninja yesterday. I have to say...pretty solid and well built. In my opinion, it feels more rugged than the Nanoflash. Everything is solid. The one thing I LOVE about the Ninja is how all the connectors snap snug and tight...the one thing I HATE about the Ninja is how all the connectors snap snug and tight! You need to apply the jaws of life to take out the batteries, drive caddy, HDMI etc. Honestly and all joking aside, I prefer it that way...I strongly suggest to practice, practice, practice. At the beginning I honestly thought I was about to break it trying to detach cables, batteries and drives...don't worry though...you wont.

I have not tested it completely, but for the 2 hours I played with it, it was fantastic. Pretty simple to operate...idiot proof. The touch screen is awesome and very responsive to my fat fingers! :) I love the screen. I think it is a great screen. It is pretty much in par to my AF-100 screen, but I believe that it produces colors closer to the real thing than what the AF-100 represents. AND yes, it can be used as a monitor to focus. I think the monitor is better quality than my Ikan v5600 and that makes me happy. I think many of you will be quite pleased with the screen.

I did not have access to one of the approved drives so I purchased a Western Digital Scorpio Black 7200 RPM 320 GB and it works like a champ. While recording to the Ninja I kept shaking the camera, jerking it, tapping the Ninja, I even ran with it and the Ninja never stopped recording. When I looked at the clip, there was never a hick-up. All this crazy camera movements would never happen on my day to day shooting, but what the heck, better test it now than in the field.

The one thing that has me puzzled is, no matter what I do, the Ninja shows it is recording 1080i 59.94 and when ingested into FCP it shows the clip as 29.97...maybe someone could share some light to it?

I am leaving today to vegas for NAB but when I get back I'll put it through the ringer.
 
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By the way, I do agree that HDMI is the worst connector in the world, but the Ninja has a super tight HDMI connector. I had an HDMI locked cable and one without and I think there is no difference as the type of contact they are both making. You would have to WANT to disconnect it from the unit in order take the HDMI cable out. My $15 no name HDMI cable is as tight and secure as my $150 HDMI Monster Cable with locks.
 
Coco Bermudez said:
The one thing that has me puzzled is, no matter what I do, the Ninja shows it is recording 1080i 59.94 and when ingested into FCP it shows the clip as 29.97...maybe someone could share some light to it?
Click to expand...
That's because 59.94 interlaced fields (half frames) is 29.97fps. Then again you probably already know this.

Thanks for that good feedback btw.
 
Oh I see. If i remember correctly the gentleman from Atmos mentioned that it does not remove pulldown and that it might in a future update. I could be wrong. But maybe this is what FCP is seeing. Then again...it should read 59.94.
 
I believe Ian is right, the HDMI-only Ninja doesn't remove pulldown, so it's recording the 1080/24p as embedded within 60i. The Samurai is supposed to be able to remove pulldown as well as record the straight 24PsF.
 
Yes my big beef with the Ninja is that you have to reverse telecine the footage to get 23.98 footage. Samurai will partially solve this problem.
 
bgundu said:
Yes my big beef with the Ninja is that you have to reverse telecine the footage to get 23.98 footage.
Click to expand...
That's an irritating inconvenience, though I imagine faster than transcoding the native AVC to ProRes? I'm looking forward to the Samurai.
 
Yup. Cinema Tools is pretty straight forward. Let's hope Cinema Tools still exists after the new FCP announcement next week.

Barry_Green said:
For FCP users, I believe what you'd have to do is run the footage through Cinema Tools to strip out the pulldown.
Click to expand...
 
Steve R said:
Why just "partially"?
Click to expand...

I'm saying partially because the samurai will indeed record 24p to hard drive, but it's unclear how it will achieve this. The literature states it removes pulldown which isn't as efficient as only recording the progressive frames. We're not sure if Atomos will use Panasonics flags in the video stream to identify only the proper progressive frames. Until I know what the Samurai is actually doing to record the signal, only half of story is clear.
 
Coco Bermudez said:
SO we got our Ninja yesterday. I have to say...pretty solid and well built. In my opinion, it feels more rugged than the Nanoflash. Everything is solid. The one thing I LOVE about the Ninja is how all the connectors snap snug and tight...the one thing I HATE about the Ninja is how all the connectors snap snug and tight! You need to apply the jaws of life to take out the batteries, drive caddy, HDMI etc. Honestly and all joking aside, I prefer it that way...I strongly suggest to practice, practice, practice. At the beginning I honestly thought I was about to break it trying to detach cables, batteries and drives...don't worry though...you wont.

I have not tested it completely, but for the 2 hours I played with it, it was fantastic. Pretty simple to operate...idiot proof. The touch screen is awesome and very responsive to my fat fingers! :) I love the screen. I think it is a great screen. It is pretty much in par to my AF-100 screen, but I believe that it produces colors closer to the real thing than what the AF-100 represents. AND yes, it can be used as a monitor to focus. I think the monitor is better quality than my Ikan v5600 and that makes me happy. I think many of you will be quite pleased with the screen.

I did not have access to one of the approved drives so I purchased a Western Digital Scorpio Black 7200 RPM 320 GB and it works like a champ. While recording to the Ninja I kept shaking the camera, jerking it, tapping the Ninja, I even ran with it and the Ninja never stopped recording. When I looked at the clip, there was never a hick-up. All this crazy camera movements would never happen on my day to day shooting, but what the heck, better test it now than in the field.

The one thing that has me puzzled is, no matter what I do, the Ninja shows it is recording 1080i 59.94 and when ingested into FCP it shows the clip as 29.97...maybe someone could share some light to it?

I am leaving today to vegas for NAB but when I get back I'll put it through the ringer.
Click to expand...

Great feedback! Thanks!

Look forward to seeing you at NAB. We're in the Lower South Hall. You can't miss us because our giant "Ninja" and "Samurai" - themed artwork is visible from space!

Dave Shapton
President
Atomos EMEA
 
I'm waiting for the Jedi Master which has the built-in toaster oven. Not sure how you would power it though?
 
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