Athmos Ninja and Samurai Do They Work, and are there any other options out there

[Robertofish]

I have 3 Canon Vixia HV30 cameras, they have great image quality, but in this day and age cameras are getting so better so fast that in my opinion its not worth buying a new camera until technology slows down which who knows if it ever will, thats where the Athmos Ninja, Samurai and other recorders come in, question is do they work, can they improve the quality of video, my camera does have hdmi input, and I use FCP so instead of uploading hours of footage I can go straight into editing! Also if these do work are there any other options, other then the AJA Ki Pro because thats to expensive for me.

 

[KMA_WWC]

Sound Devices PIX 220 and PIX 240 I think it's the best ones out there with the most features you can get. At least I think that.

 

[AtticusLake]

I have 3 Canon Vixia HV30 cameras... thats where the Athmos Ninja, Samurai and other recorders come in, question is do they work, can they improve the quality of video, my camera does have hdmi input....

I haven't used either of them, but I do know that the Ninja (which has HDMI input) and Samurai (which has SDI input ONLY, and hence won't connect directly to your camera) are well-regarded, and there are plenty of reviews online which you should be able to find easily enough. Khachik is quite right that the Pix recorders are also extremely well thought of, but of course they're more expensive.

However, the issue is can you connect them to your camera. Yes, your camera has HDMI output, but the question is, is it a clean output -- in other words, while recording, does it output the video signal WITHOUT overlaid indicators. And the answer, I'm afraid, is probably not -- basically no low-cost camcorders do this, precisely so that people don't do what you are proposing. The only cameras with clean HDMI out are pro cameras, starting with cameras like the AF100, FS100, etc. You can test this by plugging the camera into a monitor, then seeing if you can get a CLEAN live picture -- but be sure that the camera is outputting the full resolution, as well.

Your camera will, of course, output a clean signal during playback, but then what you're seeing is a recording which has already been compressed with the on-board codec. Recording that will not improve the picture quality.

Sorry!