HDMI Atomos Ninja Hard Disk Recorder 795$

I contacted them and asked if I could have a unit for a few days for a field test - review here at DVXUser - didnt get back to me.
 
A quick question regarding using regular hard drives as a recording unit:
It is common knowledge that moving Hdrives while they are spinning is a sure way to break them down.
So how does this unit(attached to a camera moving around) avoid such damage to Hard drive that is in it?
 
Firestores have been around a while with little complaints. Or you can always stick an SSD drive into the Atomos.

VGurcu said:
A quick question regarding using regular hard drives as a recording unit:
It is common knowledge that moving Hdrives while they are spinning is a sure way to break them down.
So how does this unit(attached to a camera moving around) avoid such damage to Hard drive that is in it?
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Tx Bgundu. Combined price of the device + enough SSD would make it uneconomical for me comparing to buying CF cards. (of course economics is not the main benefit of this device)
 
robertrogoz said:
Any signal through HDMI is essentially what sensor sees before the compression. Your HDMI will have uncompressed 422 stream.
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Wrong. Even in 1080 24p a Canon DSLR like the T2i outputs 1080 30i and it's well known that the signal it outputs is "what the sensor has seen after compression". So hooking up a Ninja to a T2i will only re-encode a compressed signal to Prores.
 
jocedeg said:
Wrong. Even in 1080 24p a Canon DSLR like the T2i outputs 1080 30i and it's well known that the signal it outputs is "what the sensor has seen after compression". So hooking up a Ninja to a T2i will only re-encode a compressed signal to Prores.
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Are you sure about that? I've never heard such a thing, and it seems pretty unlikely that the camera simultaneously encodes and then decodes h.264 in realtime with no lag at all. My main experience monitoring HDMI on Canon DSLRs is with the 7D and I can verify there is no noticeable lag on the output nor is there any change in output on record, and what you are suggesting would seem to imply that even when not recording, the camera would have to be encoding h.264 just to decode it and output it over HDMI.

My understanding, not totally confirmed, but based on various reports, is that in 1080p mode the sensor samples a 1600x900 area which is not really scaled for HDMI output but is upscaled and compressed for recording. This is in 7D and others that do output 1080p during recording.
 
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The bottom line is...

Live HDMI out of a video camera = uncompressed potential of better video with external recorder & better codec.
Live HDMI out of a DSLR shooting video = mystery mish-mash compression & resolution that doesn't solve any of the DSLR recording codec woes.
 
jocedeg said:
Wrong. Even in 1080 24p a Canon DSLR like the T2i outputs 1080 30i and it's well known that the signal it outputs is "what the sensor has seen after compression". So hooking up a Ninja to a T2i will only re-encode a compressed signal to Prores.
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Could you back up your statement and show the source of this info?
 
I`m in the same boat with my HVX200 since I destroyed my Firestore beyond repair.
You can get consumer converter boxes for about 50 bucks, but they have cinch plugs for sound (meh) and I doubt the signal quality.

On the other hand, HDMI is basically DVI with a different plug and some extras. So it can carry analog RGB signal.
But there are so many different specs for DVI and HDMI out there, who knows if that box would work with a HVX and the Ninja.

Frank
 
peterarcson said:
Could you back up your statement and show the source of this info?
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Not a direct answer to you but maybe you should see http://www.dvfreelancer.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8941#p47093

I just wanted to comment on a few things on this topic.

We're just about to start shipping the Ninja. We've tried it with many cameras, but not all of them. As far as we can tell, none of the Canon DSLRs will output a clean, full resolution HDMI signal without first recording and going via the camera's built-in compression. We don't know why Canon doesn't do this, but we can only hope that they will listen to their customers and change this, if it is technically possible. We would encourage Ninja customers to contact Canon themselves and, politely, tell them that they would like to see this capability introduced.

With the vast majority of camcorders, we're getting very good results, from the low-end to the high-end.

We're building a database of cameras that do or don't work, and we'll be posting this on our website, www.atomos.com, as soon as it's ready.

Meanwhile, your Ninja reseller should let you try your camera to see if it works. It almost certainly will if you have already tested the HDMI output by viewing it on a TV or a monitor.

Dave Shapton
President, Atomos, Europe.
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au8ust said:
Not a direct answer to you but maybe you should see http://www.dvfreelancer.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8941#p47093
Click to expand...

Perhaps they are referring to the fact that all Canon DSLRs that even output 1080p over HDMI just output the same 3:2 image that is shown on the internal LCD with look around and overlays and pillarboxes and all. I don't think there is any evidence I have seen that would point to the image being encoded to h.264 before going out over HDMI, but I would be interested to hear about it if there is.
 
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