Atomos Samurai

Vultch said:
Agghhh I need a unit 24 Sept.. I'll need to hire a Ninja

How does the focus assist and exposure assist on the Samurai work and will these features appear on the Ninja via a firmware upgrade..
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Yes, these features will appear as a firmware upgrade on the Samurai. We're not sure exactly what will be available at launch yet because we are still writing these features. We already have "Blue channel only" for checking noise, and we will be adding peaking and other features over time, but I don't have a timetable for these.

Nor do I know about these features being ported to the Ninja yet. Sorry.

Dave Shapton
Atomos
 
David Shapton said:
Yes, these features will appear as a firmware upgrade on the Samurai. We're not sure exactly what will be available at launch yet because we are still writing these features. We already have "Blue channel only" for checking noise, and we will be adding peaking and other features over time, but I don't have a timetable for these.

Nor do I know about these features being ported to the Ninja yet. Sorry.

Dave Shapton
Atomos
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Geez, it's starting to look like classifying the Samurai as a recorder is going to be a bit of a stretch given how much other cool functionality you're building into it.
 
Dave, all that stuff sounds great! But to be a bit of a pest, can you look into actually supporting the recording flags in the SDI stream, instead of relying on timecode? The timecode trick can work for single-camera stuff but it's useless for multi-camera when you're using free run timecode...
 
Mike Harvey said:
Geez, it's starting to look like classifying the Samurai as a recorder is going to be a bit of a stretch given how much other cool functionality you're building into it.
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Thanks. You could say it's now a recording monitor as well. It's also interesting to compare it with, say, an HDCAM deck (which are great pieces of kit - don't get me wrong!). It's 1/30th the price, but portable, non-linear, and plays out in visually-lossless quality.

Dave Shapton
Atomos
 
Dave,

These latest additions (Avid DNx, HDMI module) have made up my mind. When I get a recorder for my EX1 it'll be a Samurai for sure! Kudos to you guys for listening to potential buyer feedback.
 
Barry_Green said:
Dave, all that stuff sounds great! But to be a bit of a pest, can you look into actually supporting the recording flags in the SDI stream, instead of relying on timecode? The timecode trick can work for single-camera stuff but it's useless for multi-camera when you're using free run timecode...
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+1 and then some.
 
Barry_Green said:
Dave, all that stuff sounds great! But to be a bit of a pest, can you look into actually supporting the recording flags in the SDI stream, instead of relying on timecode? The timecode trick can work for single-camera stuff but it's useless for multi-camera when you're using free run timecode...
Click to expand...

I agree with Barry. Also another concern of mine is, if you are not using recording flags for starting and stopping the recording on the Samurai, are you also not using the pulldown flags to remove pulldown? For example, the Nanoflash checks for duplicate frames to remove pulldown and doesn't use pulldown flags. This works well most of the time on most of the camera's, but going that route can not accurately remove the pulldown on the AF100. To do it right you need to detect the pulldown flags. Dave, Is the Samurai using pulldown flags to accurately remove the pulldown from the AF100 or is the Samurai using another method?
 
These were the same questions I had for the Ninja before I realized the limitations of an HDMI stream. It would obviously be best for the samurai to detect the cadence pattern and record only the appropriate frames.
Brian@202020 said:
I agree with Barry. Also another concern of mine is, if you are not using recording flags for starting and stopping the recording on the Samurai, are you also not using the pulldown flags to remove pulldown? For example, the Nanoflash checks for duplicate frames to remove pulldown and doesn't use pulldown flags. This works well most of the time on most of the camera's, but going that route can not accurately remove the pulldown on the AF100. To do it right you need to detect the pulldown flags. Dave, Is the Samurai using pulldown flags to accurately remove the pulldown from the AF100 or is the Samurai using another method?
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Timecode: Thanks for the feedback. To be honest, I need to ask the engineers exactly how we've implemented it. Same with pulldown removal. The guys seem pretty confident that they've got a good method, though.

Dave Shapton
Atomos
 
David Shapton said:
Timecode: Thanks for the feedback. To be honest, I need to ask the engineers exactly how we've implemented it. Same with pulldown removal. The guys seem pretty confident that they've got a good method, though.
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OK - I've spoken to the engineers. We are using both methods in both cases. Not all cameras implement flags for pulldown or start-stop, so we autodetect pulldown cadences, and we watch for timecode breaks to start and stop cameras from SDI. But we also respond to pulldown flags if they are present and to stop-start flags in the SDI stream. So you get the best of both worlds. So we can work with cascaded free-running timecode, and we can set up our pulldown removal based on flags or autodetection. Note that the autodetection may not work sometimes if there is no movement at all in the image.

Dave Shapton
Atomos
 
This is encouraging David. Are you still on track with shipping this month?

Thanks!


David Shapton said:
OK - I've spoken to the engineers. We are using both methods in both cases. Not all cameras implement flags for pulldown or start-stop, so we autodetect pulldown cadences, and we watch for timecode breaks to start and stop cameras from SDI. But we also respond to pulldown flags if they are present and to stop-start flags in the SDI stream. So you get the best of both worlds. So we can work with cascaded free-running timecode, and we can set up our pulldown removal based on flags or autodetection. Note that the autodetection may not work sometimes if there is no movement at all in the image.

Dave Shapton
Atomos
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bgundu said:
This is encouraging David. Are you still on track with shipping this month?

Thanks!
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Yes, in a qualified way. The first batch is in the factory having been manufactured. It is now going through quality control tests. Assuming these are OK, then we will be shipping them straight away. The other variable - and I simply don't know how this will pan out as it depends on the resellers - is that we have a very large number of pre-orders to fulfill. So, the best possible case is that they will be available in, say, two weeks, and beyond that, it might take a few more weeks after that for full, global availablity.

The good news is that we've just been demonstrating Samurais all week at the IBC in Amsterdam and they were extremely stable - and this was with a pre-release version of the software. Not just recording, but also SDI playout was working, with incredible quality direct to an SDI monitor from this little recorder.
 
Awesome news David. That point about auto-detect not working with little-to-no-motion scenes is yet another reason why I lobby for supporting the pulldown flags. Well done. :thumbsup:
 
Hey David - what's my best option for mounting the Samurai to a flat, horizontal plate (like the many different horizontal plates with a variety of mounting holes available from Berkey, Anton Bauer, Zacuto etc.).

My plate will be positioned horizontally off the back of my camera (i.e. parallel to the rods) with an AB battery on the bottom, nothing on the top (free space for the Samurai).

Is there some kind of vertical mounting plate that could be attached to my horizontal battery plate - or other way the Samurai could attach to the plate? I'd like it to be sitting vertical (not "lying on its back" on the plate) facing the camera operator.

I imagine this is going to be one of the more commonly requested scenarios for mounting.

Thanks in advance for your help!
 
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There's a 1/4-20 mount on top and bottom of unit. Perhaps use something like this mounted to rods.

Uno-arm.jpg

Steve R said:
Hey David - what's my best option for mounting the Samurai to a flat, horizontal plate (like the many different horizontal plates with a variety of mounting holes available from Berkey, Anton Bauer, Zacuto etc.).

My plate will be positioned horizontally off the back of my camera (i.e. parallel to the rods) with an AB battery on the bottom, nothing on the top (free space for the Samurai).

Is there some kind of vertical mounting plate that could be attached to my horizontal battery plate - or other way the Samurai could attach to the plate? I'd like it to be sitting vertical (not "lying on its back" on the plate) facing the camera operator.

I imagine this is going to be one of the more commonly requested scenarios for mounting.

Thanks in advance for your help!
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David,

I know there was some confusion with 30p on the Ninja, will the Samurai ship with the capability to record 30p? Has the Ninja fixed this issue? Thanks!
 
I am also interested in how it handles 60p. Is there any down conversion of any kind, or can it fully record 60p uncompressed? I know it must take up a ton of memory space to do that..
 
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