David Shapton
Well-known member
SSD may be cheaper per gigabyte than SxS - but the fact that if you're recording uncompressed you're dealing with 20 - 30 times the amount of data makes that comparison look less compelling.
Dave Shapton
Atomos
External (portable) recorder for EX3
- Thread starter Nick Navaro
- Start date
SSD may be cheaper per gigabyte than SxS - but the fact that if you're recording uncompressed you're dealing with 20 - 30 times the amount of data makes that comparison look less compelling.
Dave Shapton
Atomos
Viddovation
Veteran
Dave,
I think if you consider it you'll realize that while the Blackmagic Hyperdeck Shuttle is ostensibly a competitor to the Atomos recorders, it would actually be savvy to suggest that Hyperdeck Shuttle purchasers consider using that product in tandem with an Atomos Pro Res recorder. The price point of the Hyperdeck makes this a realistically budgetable option for many shooters, and the combination of the two products (which could presumably share the same SSD drives), would give shooters the flexibility of uncompressed recording for VFX work, and the convenience of Pro Res for the majority of their shooting.
The Hyperdeck Shuttle is being marketed at such a drastically cut rate price, that it's bound to get some traction. But as it doesn't have a monitor, many shooters just getting into the market will also be looking for a monitor (as the Hyperdeck doesn't have one), and the Ninja or Samurai can be used for that function at a minimal premium over 6" and 7" offerings from SmallDP and Marshall, with an included ProRes Recorder to boot!
Sometimes, there's no need to try and beat the competition... when piggybacking would be even more effective.
Nick Navaro
Well-known member
Nick Navaro
Well-known member
I'm not happy with 8bit Movs. Would prefer 10 bit pro res.
When is the Samurai being released and at what price? Please give a realistic answer.
David Shapton
Well-known member
The most realistic answer I can give you is that we don't have an exact date. We're still quoting Late (Northern Hemisphere) summer. There may have been some impact by the Japanese earthquake, but it won't be significant, we're hoping at this stage.
Dave Shapton
Atomos
David Shapton
Well-known member
I'm all in favour of that - but I think the most important thing here is that we are talking about fundamentally different products. Choose whichever suits your needs best (or even use them together, as suggested) but don't be drawn in to comparing them solely on the basis of cost - unless you're talking about the cost of storage.
Dave Shapton
Atomos
basspig
Veteran
Not all of us can afford to by an attachment to our camera that costs as much as the camera. The Hyperdeck at least lets us 'small fry' have a way to shoot at least short segments at high quality, plus it does not require us to upgrade our NLEs (thousands of dollars plus all new hardware, more thousands) to edit it with some fancy-dancy new CODEC. So in a way, the Hyperdeck saves us about $14K per camera/per NLE workstation on upgrades and total harware expenditures on the recorders and PCs, vs. the compressed alternatives. All we have to do is add a SATA port for the SSD drive to do the transfer, which can be done as a import and render to whatever working CODEC we choose.
Initially, I don't have any applications where I would need more than an hour's worth of high quality material. If shooting a movie, usually one shoots a minute here, a few minutes there in multiple takes. No need for 2 hrs recording time. And then offload and start again. SSD drives are relatively cheap, even when you consider how we'd be using uncompressed footage. At least the Hyperdeck Shuttle enables us to experiment with 10-bit color without spending many thousands of dollars up front, which would be a show-stopper for all but the most well-financed of us.
basspig
Veteran
I would not want to pay a premium for a monitor unless it was a full 1920x1080 monitor. Paying a thousand dollar premium for 1280x768 would be wasted money, as far as I'm concerned. If I want a monitor, I'll buy a monitor. If I want a recorder, I'll buy a recorder.
Viddovation
Veteran
Basspig,
Personally, I agree. I do think from a marketing standpoint it would work to move units though.
As for me, I spent nearly $3000 to get a Sony LMD 2450W 24" LCD Grade 2 Field Monitor with HD-SDI option card and a Pelican case to carry it around in.
Video Village loves that beast. And I have a 7" Marshall for on cam framing and focus work.
David Shapton
Well-known member
I'm sorry, you've got this the wrong way round. The data rate of uncompressed is so high that a) you'll be paying a fortune in storage - up to a hundred times more per hour if you compare with capturing ProRes to hard drives - and b) you'll need to upgrade your computer to deal with the extremely high data rates that you get with uncompressed. You'll get fewer layers playing in real-time and you'll have to find six-times the storage. Look: it's easier to build a device that records uncompressed because you don't have to have the on-board processing power to turn it into a production-quality compressed format. If you don't believe me, just try editing uncompressed in the field on a laptop, and let me know how you get on.
Dave Shapton
Atomos
Viddovation
Veteran
This is a bit misleading.
With uncompressed the bottleneck is the read speed of the harddrive, SSD, or alternative storage medium.
With highly compressed formats the bottleneck is the cpu processing power required to decode the compression.
Admittedly, ProRes provides a happy medium. Small enough data rate to run pleasantly on modern harddrives. Low enough compression to play nice with modern processors.
For many people, ProRes is frequently "Good enough." For some people, it's perhaps even optimal.
Uncompressed is not for all environments, but it does provide some much needed flexibilities.
Your assumption that it'll cost 100x more to store Uncompressed makes no sense. Its as if you assume ProRes will be stored on the cheapest consumer harddrives and Uncompressed on the most expensive gold encrusted SSDs.
ProRes HQ 422 at 1080 24p runs approximate 80GB per hour.
Unocmpressed 1080 24p runs approximately 445GB per hour.
That's only about 5.5x more than Pro Res. So it would be fair to say you'll likely spend 6x as much to store uncompressed.
But to imply that you'll have all sorts of problems in post with layers ignores the fact that the easy way to avoid such problems is to use a proxy workflow. In regards to the EX cameras or the F3, that would be XDCAM-EX. Only once you have a picture lock would you bring the uncompressed files requested by the EDL online. Which might only be a fraction of the total clips recorded.
Your post also ignores that the Hyperdeck doesn't have to be used for the purpose of archiving Uncompressed footage. Rather, it provides the flexibility of permitting users to do a *first* encode to *any* codec desired. Period. Even ProRes.
David Shapton
Well-known member
We agree on the 5.5 - 6x data rate and hence raw storage requirement. Recording uncompressed costs AT LEAST six times more. But yes, you practically DO need gold encrusted SSDs to work reliably with uncompressed (it's hard enough to find SSDs that work well with ProRes at 1/6th the data rate) - we've only found Intel so far, which work very well), and, yes, you CAN use very cheap consumer 2.5" drives with a Ninja so - without claiming scientific accuracy, my other comparison is valid and does make sense.
We also agree that ProRes is a happy medium. That's exactly the point. And it's optimised for processor efficiency. No need for a complex proxy-based workflow, and visually identical to uncompressed anyway.
As I said, try editing in uncompressed on a laptop in the field.
Dave Shapton
Atomos
We also agree that ProRes is a happy medium. That's exactly the point. And it's optimised for processor efficiency. No need for a complex proxy-based workflow, and visually identical to uncompressed anyway.
As I said, try editing in uncompressed on a laptop in the field.
Dave Shapton
Atomos
basspig
Veteran
My workflow would be to import and compress to perhaps a Quicktime PhotoJPEG CODEC at quality 97, or perhaps some other CODEC in the process of tranferring uncompressed files to the HD.
In our NLEs, we have multiple RAID 0 arrays. We anticipated working with uncompressed HD because we do a fair amount of CG 3D animation, which ends up as uncompressed 1920x1080 AVI files. We would never archive uncompressed footage.
For us, Hyperdeck means being able to at least do SOME 10-bit shooting in 4:2:2, with minimul investment. Were it not for the Hyperdeck, we might be waiting years for an affordable 'compressed' recorder that writes a file compatible with Adobe Premiere CS3.
In our NLEs, we have multiple RAID 0 arrays. We anticipated working with uncompressed HD because we do a fair amount of CG 3D animation, which ends up as uncompressed 1920x1080 AVI files. We would never archive uncompressed footage.
For us, Hyperdeck means being able to at least do SOME 10-bit shooting in 4:2:2, with minimul investment. Were it not for the Hyperdeck, we might be waiting years for an affordable 'compressed' recorder that writes a file compatible with Adobe Premiere CS3.
adamr316
Well-known member
David, I think you were exagerrating with the "hundreds of times more per GB remark", right? Or were you talking about how some recorders only use Compact Flash/SxS cards?
Again we're all going to have to wait and see what hard drives can work with uncompressed video. I was excited to read about the Hyperdeck until reality set in about the costs of the drives. And to be quite honest plain old XDCam EX 35 doesn't look bad at all and takes color correction pretty well. I think us gear heads are just constantly going for "the new hotness" and may not have a real need for these recorders. For non-broadcast, non-filmmaking shooting I'll more than likely still shoot to SxS only. But for filmmaking or broadcast stuff I am going to need something a little better.
CS3 may be able to handle ProRes if I'm not mistaken. You just need Quicktime installed on your computer and maybe the codecs if they aren't in the install package. Whether CS3 handles ProRes natively, I don't know.
Also with recorders like Ninja/Samurai you can use non-solid state hard drives. People used the Fire store recorder with the HVX200 for years. I used it and only had one "shock" issue when an actress bumped the thing and it hit the ground. I'll pay the SSD premium for peace of mind but we're talking for a complete Samurai package only $70 more (Travelstar HTS725050's going rate at the moment) or whatever. Not an extra $1,000 like the hard drives the Hyper Shuttle will require. And at that the recording times and battery life are much longer on the Samurai and similar recorders.
From what I see getting the Ninja/Samurai is like buying an EX1 with a Pelican case, 2 BPU-60 batteries, and the USB SxS reader. With the Samurai ALL of this is included. All you need to supply is the storage, and that can be the official SxS cards (solid state hard drives) or the SHDC card adaptors (non-solid state). Oh yeah, and a BNC or HDMI cable if you don't already own one. Does that make sense?
Last edited:
Viddovation
Veteran
On the face of it what you just said is true.
And yet, there's no requirement that I archive my Uncompressed footage on drives that are fast enough to play it in real time. Sure, that'd be convenient, but also unnecessarily expensive.
We ought to treat storage and archiving as a separate entity from working with footage.
To give quick credit to the Ninja & Samurai - they're convenient, and flexible enough that in many cases you can eschew the extra hassle of proxies and offline edits.
But it's misleading to therefore compare other acquisition formats solely on the presumption that they be used in the same workflow, or to ignore the benefits they can provide.
If working with uncompressed, it would make sense to archive cheaply, do an offline edit, and then, when picture locked, bring online only the clips (or even just the used handles) the final EDL requests.
For a feature film you might shoot 50 hours of raw footage.
XDCAM-EX: 900GB (Stored on 1 1TB drive, cost $100)
ProRes422HQ: 4TB (Stored on 2 3TB drives, cost $150x2=$300)
Uncompressed: 23TB (Stored on 8 3TB drives, cost $150x8=$1200)
These numbers can all be doubled if you want a redundant backup.
Not counting a backup, for $1200 plus $100 you could store 50 hours of uncompressed, and an offline proxy.
Now, our feature film gets picture locked at 94 minutes. Since we're locked, we can bring online just the segments of the clips we need. About 700GB. Use two $100 1TB drives in a RAID 0 config and you'll have read speeds of as much as 200MB/sec, plenty overhead of the 127MB/sec needed to playback Uncompressed in real time.
That's $1500 in drives for storage and editing.
For acquisition:
$350 Hyperdeck Shuttle
$300 Intel 510 Series 120GB SataIII MLC SSD #1
$300 Intel 510 Series 120GB SataIII MLC SSD #2
____
$950 - about the same as a Ninja
To make the whole movie $950+$1500=$2450
Make the movie with a Ninja & ProRes $900+$300(acquisition SSD, no harddrive skipping due to movement or jolts)+$300(storage drives)= $1500
Make it with a Samurai $1500+300+300=$2100.
So, some wildly hypothetical numbers. But sincerely, if you're a filmmaker, it doesn't end up even costing you *double* to use the Hyperdeck+uncompressed, instead of ProRes on your first feature.
As for "visually lossless" that's true... but only prior to grading.
David Shapton
Well-known member
Just to clarify - I was comparing the cost per hour of using expensive SSDs (necessary for reliable recording of uncompressed) against the cost of using cheap, commodity 2.5" HDs per hour for ProRes. Since ProRes HQ is visually identical to Uncompressed it is a valid comparison. So, no, I wasn't exaggerating.
Dave Shapton
Atomos
David Shapton
Well-known member
It depends how many hours of footage you want to store on SSDs. As I said, it's up to 100 times cheaper to work with ProRes on cheap, commodity 2.5" drives, which you can use in the field for editing on a laptop computer. Obviously it's not a fair comparison because the BM device is very different to the Ninja. I'm not criticising a competitor's product (no one's used it yet!) but the storage cost comparison is simply a fact.
Dave Shapton
Atomos
Barry_Green
Moderator
Well, any talk of the Ninja in this thread is a little silly anyway, because this thread was about using an external recorder with an EX3. An EX3 doesn't have an HDMI port, and a Ninja only has HDMI. The EX3 only has HD-SDI.
It would be far more suitable to be discussing the Samurai, or Nano, or PIX 240, or any of the HD-SDI recorders.
It would be far more suitable to be discussing the Samurai, or Nano, or PIX 240, or any of the HD-SDI recorders.