Atomos Nija question

Sparky874

Sparky874

Well-known member
Just picked up a Ninja for my 101 today and so far am really impressed. I have noticed a clear difference in picture quality already, with an improved 'cleaner' look. You need to be careful with file sizes though as I shot two scenes roughly 20 secs in length at ProRes 422 and it was about 756mb large - which for me is quite big. I think I may try shooting at ProRes LT, which is the equivalent of 100mbps which should reduce the file size a little. I have a question though! Is there a way for all the clips I shoot to appear in the same Scene and Shot/ take folder? Basically (I edit in Vegas) and want to open up the Ninja's hard drive on my computer and copy all the files over to my PC's hard drive in one go - WITHOUT having to go into each take folder and copy each file over individually as this would take ages. I hope this makes some sense! Basically I want all the clips in just the one folder so I can easily transfer them across. Can this be done please?

I also have to say the the overall presentation and packaging of the Ninja is first class. I look forward to hearing from you! Thanks, Sparky :thumbsup:
 
Another thing for those considering a Ninja, the file sizes. I shot a 22 second clip with the standard internal 101 codec and the file size was 50MB, the equivalent clip shot at ProRes LT was 240MB, that's almost 5 times the size! Worth considering esp when it comes to storage. I thought file sizes were large enough shooting at 50mbps on my PDW-700 but these are much larger - I guess that's the payoff for more image 'information'.

I really need a solution around this though:
Is there a way for all the clips I shoot to appear in the same Scene and Shot/ take folder? Basically (I edit in Vegas) and want to open up the Ninja's hard drive on my computer and copy all the files over to my PC's hard drive in one go - WITHOUT having to go into each take folder and copy each file over individually as this would take ages. I hope this makes some sense! Basically I want all the clips in just the one folder so I can easily transfer them across. Can this be done please?
 
Each take has its own folder? Hmm, that does sound quite time consuming.
 
No need to copy files individually.
All .mov files are inside a folder called Scene. Just copy the Scene folder and you are done. Sometimes the Ninja creates another Scene folder, I think it happens when you turn either the camera or the Ninja off and then back on again. Just select all Scene folders on the Ninja disk and drop them to your computer or external drive. ProRes files are big, but copying them is actually faster than copying AVCHD files from an SD card, because you are copying from a hard drive and can even use USB 3 connection.
 
Maukka said:
No need to copy files individually.
All .mov files are inside a folder called Scene. Just copy the Scene folder and you are done. Sometimes the Ninja creates another Scene folder, I think it happens when you turn either the camera or the Ninja off and then back on again. Just select all Scene folders on the Ninja disk and drop them to your computer or external drive. ProRes files are big, but copying them is actually faster than copying AVCHD files from an SD card, because you are copying from a hard drive and can even use USB 3 connection.
Click to expand...

Hi Maukka

I tried your suggestion but I don't think it works. The structure in my Atomos hard disc is: SCENE folder - SHOT folder- TAKE folder - and everclip I shoot get puts in a seperate Take folder and is labelled 000. So if I shoot 14 shots, there will be 14 TAKE foders, which each clip in the TAKE folder called 000. I basically want all the clips in the same folder with different clip names, 001, 002 etc. I am not sure how to copy media over without having to name ever clip manually (from 000 to 003 for example). Does anyone have a work around please?
 
Hi Sparky,

My Ninja does not create a new TAKE folder for each clip.
It often places a number of clips within one TAKE folder and names them 000.mov, 001.mov etc. I have TAKE folders that sometimes contain, say, 15 clips.
But the Ninja does occasionally create a new TAKE folder. I am actually not quite sure when that happens. I thought that it happens when I turn the Ninja/camera power off/on, but perhaps that is not correct.
It is true that the clips inside the new TAKE folder are again named 000.mov, 001.mov etc. So yes, you do end up with duplicate file names within the same SCENE and SHOT folder, even though they are in different TAKE subfolders. Then again, if you do have, say, 15 clips within one TAKE folder, it is fairly easy to rename them with, for instance, Name Wrangler shareware.

It seems strange that your Ninja would create a new TAKE folder for each clip. Do you have the latest firmware (v 1.06)?

Atomos support is very helpful, perhaps it's best to to ask them.
 
We're actually changing the file naming system in the next software version, due out soon, which will mean that no two clips on the same drive will have the same name. File sizes are of course much bigger with ProRes, but the whole point is that the Ninja allows you to use extremely cost-effective media. With a HDD you can record 8 hours of visually-lossless ProRes onto a disk that costs around $100, and while SSDs are much more expensive than HDDs, they're still cheaper to use than other Flash media. The Ninja is the only ProRes recorder that will allow you to use HDDs.

Dave Shapton
Atomos
 
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Hi David. Is this file naming improvement available in the next firmware upgrade?
David Shapton said:
We're actually changing the file naming system in the next software version, due out soon, which will mean that no two clips on the same drive will have the same name. File sizes are of course much bigger with ProRes, but the whole point is that the Ninja allows you to use extremely cost-effective media. With a HDD you can record 8 hours of visually-lossless ProRes onto a disk that costs around $100, and while SSDs are much more expensive than HDDs, they're still cheaper to use than other Flash media. The Ninja is the only ProRes recorder that will allow you to use HDDs.Dave ShaptonAtomos
Click to expand...
 
David Shapton said:
We're actually changing the file naming system in the next software version, due out soon, which will mean that no two clips on the same drive will have the same name. File sizes are of course much bigger with ProRes, but the whole point is that the Ninja allows you to use extremely cost-effective media. With a HDD you can record 8 hours of visually-lossless ProRes onto a disk that costs around $100, and while SSDs are much more expensive than HDDs, they're still cheaper to use than other Flash media. The Ninja is the only ProRes recorder that will allow you to use HDDs.

Dave Shapton
Atomos
Click to expand...

That's why I still think your concept rocks. The word seems to be: Practicability. Can you throw as a hint when the Samurai may ship? The guys at my cine-rental house crawl up the walls when I do pester them another time ....
 
Maukka said:
Hi Sparky,

My Ninja does not create a new TAKE folder for each clip.
It often places a number of clips within one TAKE folder and names them 000.mov, 001.mov etc. I have TAKE folders that sometimes contain, say, 15 clips.
But the Ninja does occasionally create a new TAKE folder. I am actually not quite sure when that happens. I thought that it happens when I turn the Ninja/camera power off/on, but perhaps that is not correct.
It is true that the clips inside the new TAKE folder are again named 000.mov, 001.mov etc. So yes, you do end up with duplicate file names within the same SCENE and SHOT folder, even though they are in different TAKE subfolders. Then again, if you do have, say, 15 clips within one TAKE folder, it is fairly easy to rename them with, for instance, Name Wrangler shareware.

It seems strange that your Ninja would create a new TAKE folder for each clip. Do you have the latest firmware (v 1.06)?

Atomos support is very helpful, perhaps it's best to to ask them.
Click to expand...

David, do you know why Maukka can sometimes find a large number of clips in the one TAKE folder when I only ever have one? Just to get even ten clips in one TAKE folder rather than the one would be a massive help. I am running the latest firmwarem V 1.06. Thanks in advance.
 
Hi I've just completed 12 days shooting with the Ninja in Sicily, all outdoors in the sun! Performed well, did occassionally refuse to turn on, removal of batteries seemed to cure that. The file system is FAT32, so a 4gig file limit, depending on the quality settings you may have several seamless clips in one folder, all new takes end up in their own folder

Andy
 
Sparky874 said:
David, do you know why Maukka can sometimes find a large number of clips in the one TAKE folder when I only ever have one? Just to get even ten clips in one TAKE folder rather than the one would be a massive help. I am running the latest firmwarem V 1.06. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Sparky,

Sorry, what I said earlier was not entirely correct
I am in the early stages of the editing process, and have only been through a small part of the material I recorded during a recent shoot. I DO have a lot of files in some TAKE folders. But that is not the whole story.

It seems that the TAKE folders which contain several .mov files are actually from situations where the camera/Ninja has been running continuously for a long time (interviews etc). A continuous recording has then been split into sveral files, each of which is about 4min 40 sec long. I assume this is because of the limitations imposed by FAT32 mentioned by AndyW69 above.

In some other SCENE folders I too have TAKE folders which contain one single clip. I just had not paid attention to this before.
 
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