Anyone using the new Atomos Recorders?

D

deltoidjohn

Veteran
Hi All,

Just wondering if anybody has been using the newer Atomos recorders with their Sony A7/s or FS700's?

The Shogun Flame & Inferno seem to stack up much better against the Odyssey models: 4k/60p, RAW, HFR up to 240p, RAW>ProRes, Quad SDI... most of the things I'd want seem to be there, and when you factor in the Odyssey RAW license, it works out about $1500 cheaper (in Australia) to choose the Shogun Flame over the O7Q. I haven't seen local prices for the Inferno yet though.

Is there anything major missing that stops the newer versions from significantly narrowing the gap between the Shogun and the O7Q? I know it lacks the 4K 120p burst but that is not a biggie for me - in fact for the next few years at least I still the recorder being used mainly for better 1080p acquisition. What about features/usability/durability, etc? Any red flags there with Atomos vs Odyssey?

Thanks in advance for your help.
 
I will not comment on a competitor's product as that would be rude. But I will say that you should check with them or their dealers to clearly define some of the functions for you, as they name some things differently than we do. That can result in a mis-comparison of features and capabilities. If you have any questions on the capabilities of the Odyssey7Q+ I am of course happy to go into great detail.
 
The 'Flame' models have the same recording functions (i.e 4K tops out at 30p) as the original Shogun, as far as I know.
The Inferno looks to be a more head-on competitor with the Odyssey, and it's not shipping yet.
 
I'll consider getting an Atomos, if they were to have H.264 instead of PRORES codec. Why? because a lot of my gig goes for 4 to 6 hours, and 4K at 4 to 6 hours in PRORES is just terribly huge, and for event shooting, PRORES is overkill.
 
This may sound odd, but I actually like shooting in 4K RAW with FS700/O7Q, and use SlimRAW to compress the footage with 4:1 compression ratio. This gives me cDNG RAW footage with less storage needed than in shooting standard ProRes 4K. Yes, it needs Resolve to be worked with after that, but I find the benefit of having the compressed RAW footage over ProRes rewarding.
 
A lot of people ask the same question - why not use internal codec/H.264 and record in camera?. The reason is that to record 4K for 6-12hours in PRORES would take 3-4TB (1TB for every 3hrs at 24fps), and then compress down to H.264 to deliver to customer, would take about 3-4 days on our rendering farm. It's huge amount of data.

On the other side, I see my FS7 XAVC takes about 128G for every hour at 24fps or about half the size of PRORES. So you say why not using internal record/codec? at $200 per XQD card/128G vs $300 per 1TB SSD - the SSD is a lot cheaper per gigabyte.
The 4K video size is where PRORES turn me off. Not every application requires PRORES quality, so why not have H.264 codec?
 
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jpham said:
The 4K video size is where PRORES turn me off. Not every application requires PRORES quality, so why not have H.264 codec?
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I believe the Sound Devices PIX-E can record in H.264. They cannot do anything with the raw signal of the FS cameras though...
 
Just went to Sound Devices - look like they now support H.264. Wondering if they do H.264 4:2:2 or 4:4:4, also if they use the open source X.264 or H.264
Looking at the spec - they only support their own "mSata" ??!!??! WTH
 
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jpham said:
Looking at the spec - they only support their own "mSata" ??!!??! WTH
Click to expand...
I believe they support standard SSDs. Just the internal type not 2.5" drives. You can buy empty thumb drives from Sound Devices to put your own SSDs in. Not quite ideal, but no worse that the Convergent Design only supporting a specific type of SSD, meaning that you have to order them anyway. Although, since you have to use the Sound Devices drive case it adds $50 (or whatever they charge for it) to each SSD...
 
The Convergent Design Odyssey and Apollo recorders support several models of Samsung SSDs. Some of this media is available for as little as US$0.33/GB, which is exceptionally affordable.
 
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Mitch Gross said:
The Convergent Design Odyssey and Apollo recorders support several models of Samsung SSDs. Some of this media is available for as little as US$3/GB, which is exceptionally affordable.
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I own 2 250gb CD drives, but was looking at the samsung ones for extended rolling. I noticed Convergent Design released a list of SSD's (all samsung) but then removed some of the smaller capacity ones. So I know the 1TB will work and I plan on getting that one, but initially I was thinking about the 500gb because of price, but it was removed as compatible on your site making me shy away from it.

I read everything though and completely understand the need for CD to have 100% faith in a product to go ahead and tell consumers it's ok to use.

As I said in another thread I was quite surprised that 4k pro-res slow motion is done all on one card, so for my purposes at least the 2nd card only gets a relatively small amount of playing time.
 
We only removed one SSD from our initial list. At first our testing found the 850 EVO 500GB to be compatible, but additional testing proved this to be untrue. We do LOTS of tests.

The current list is fully tested and very stable. You can reliably use any of these SSDs:

Samsung 850 EVO 1TB
Samsung 850 PRO 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB

I see the 850 EVO 1TB often sold for below $300 at places like Amazon and New Egg.
 
jpham said:
Just went to Sound Devices - look like they now support H.264. Wondering if they do H.264 4:2:2 or 4:4:4, also if they use the open source X.264 or H.264
Looking at the spec - they only support their own "mSata" ??!!??! WTH
Click to expand...

It looks like Video Devices (the video-recorder division of Sound Devices) uses "standard" H.264 encoding, not the open source X.264. You could check with their tech support department and probably find out more. I've found them rather responsive to queries (though not this particular one). Web form, phone number, and email can be found on this page:
http://www.videodevices.com/support/inquiry

Press release, pictures, and a video about Video Devices supporting H.264:
H.264 Now Available for PIX-E Series!
Newly released PIX-E Firmware Version 3.00 adds the H.264 codec, as well as the option to simultaneously record both ProRes and H.264.
http://www.videodevices.com/news/video-devices-news/h-264-now-available-for-the-pix-e-series


mSATA isn't a proprietary Video Devices thing. It's short for Mini-SATA and has been around for seven or so years. Used in laptops and stuff. There's a bit more info on mSATA here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#Mini-SATA_.28mSATA.29

And a picture of one:
6a293993ea7fb63eaa83c05339f8af73.med.256c.jpg

What Video Devices does is use standard mSATA cards/SSDs (well, three models from from Samsung from 250GB to 1TB). Costs are about $200 for 500GB, $330 or so for 1TB...or thereabouts.

Then you/users stick those cards into a little $60 "SpeedDrive" holder that as a USB3.0 connector on it. My understanding is that when the SpeedDrive is connected to a PIX-E recorder, data is transferred at mSATA speeds. But when you connect the SpeedDrive to a computer, data is transferred at (still pretty fast) USB3.0 rates. The SpeedDrive holders look like this:

acc_speedrive.jpg

Overall, it seems like a pretty nice solution. Me, I'm trying to figure out which monitor/recorder to buy. I've used several brands...my favorites right now are the Video Devices PIX-E line and the Convergent Design Odyssey line.
 
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