HDMI Atomos Ninja Hard Disk Recorder 795$

Im going to need a Samari also, for the HD-SDI, but at this price this wont be bad! If one is out of service Ill have a backup HDMI unit anyway.

Second camera :

I was going to sell my SONY HD1000E HDV cam, but Im quite happy with the output from HDMI so perhaps Ill use that as a second cam again now, with full res and 4:2:2 albeit 8bit (I think!) thus giving the camera a new lease of life away from 'HDV' - I think a LOT of people who have OLD cameras hidden away are going to be very pleased about this.

They can be made 'useful' again!! And the battery should last longer not running the Tape drive!! WooHoo!
 
Hi Dave,

Actually what is the biggest difference between the HDMI and the HD-SDI version? As far as I know the SDI connection is safer than HDMI. Also the entry level pro-sumer camcorders output only 60i or 59.94 (50i in PAL countries) through the HDMI. Also through HDMI we cannot trigger the record function on the Ninja. Am I right with all of these?

Also I would love to keep this device in my pocket instead of on the camcorder. I do not really need the extra LCD screen. Thanks for the answers.
 
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Hi Dave,

Actually what is the biggest difference between the HDMI and the HD-SDI version? As far as I know the SDI connection is safer than HDMI. Also the entry level pro-sumer camcorders output only 60i or 59.94 (50i in PAL countries) through the HDMI. Also through HDMI we cannot trigger the record function on the Ninja. Am I right with all of these?

Also I would love to keep this device in my pocket instead of on the camcorder. I do not really need the extra LCD screen. Thanks for the answers.

You're pretty much right about those points: you can't trigger "record" through HDMI. We haven't publicly announced the full specification and functionality of the HD-SDI model, the Samurai, yet so I can't give you details I'm afraid (but will be able to soon). SDI will, of course, give you longer cable runs, and is a locking connector. The Ninja and Samurai are intrinsically touchscreen devices, so they're always going to have screens, but you don't have to use them as monitors. But I completely take your point about wanting to keep it in your pocket, and remote-record would solve that. Finally, of course there is no difference in quality between HD-HDMI: they are both uncompressed 4:2:2 formats and will handle 10 bit resolution where it is supplied by the source.


Dave
 
I did hear somewhere that Atomos are going to make a cage or something to hold the wires and hdmi plug more securely.. If not you could loop it to the unused 1/4inch on top of the Ninjna thread via a small clamp. I DO like the HD-SDI connector though, very stable.

A thought on the control.. If the Ninja has LANC loop.. then Possibly when you hit record on the camera it will pick up from Lanc and start recording with the camera.. this would be usefull. I know my manfrotto lanc does start flashing WHEN I start recording on the camera OR Lanc remote!

So what are the leads called to do this.. Lanc male to male leads? I think Ill have a look at Ebay to see if they exist.
 
A quick question about Lanc loop... is it just LANC (the Sony/Cannon protocol), or will it also work with Panasonic cameras (which use their own protocol)?
 
Dave or anyone, I am interested in Canon's new HFG10 prosumer camera. It can shoot 24p native. However, as far as the hdmi out goes, the spec sheet for the camera says

"The HDMI terminal also supports CEC and x.v.Color*. The camcorder converts 1080i in which the video was shot into HDTV format 1080p through the HDMI Terminal."

I'm not even sure what this means. There is some kind of conversion going on at the terminal? Does this mean no 24P out? Or does it?
 
It likely means that it embeds its 24p within a 60i signal, using 2:3 pulldown. Most (if not all) 24p cameras do that, when going out to HDMI.
 
I'm not even sure what this means.

CEC is Consumer Electronics Control (I think - from memory). It's some kind of remote control protocol that's used by the more recent versions of HDMI. X.V Colour is probably some kind of extended color gamut, but I wouldn't confess to knowing anything about it - it's the first time I've seen it mentioned in connection with a consumer/prosumer camera.

As far as the 24p thing is concerned? It's hard - not to say impossible - to tell from the description from Canon.

Dave
Atomos
 
So there should be no quality loss then? Is pulldown removal time consuming or will Final Cut do it easily? Sorry for the noobie questions. I just want to make sure this camera will be a good match for the Ninja. Thanks!
 
Some recorders (like the NanoFlash) can remove the pulldown automatically when they record. I don't know if the Ninja can do that or not. In FCP you have to run a separate tool called "Cinema Tools" on each file to strip out the pulldown, although I imagine there's probably some way to batch-process it -- I don't know, I'm not an FCP user.
 
Barry, since the Ninja converts the file to pro rez, are you using another program that will read the files? I'm not married to final cut I just thought it was the only program that could use pro rez natively.
 
I don't have a Ninja, nor do I use the Mac. However, Apple distributes a ProRes codec for Windows, so you can read ProRes files in Windows NLE's. You just can't export them.
 
"xvYCC or Extended-gamut YCC (also x.v.Color) is a color space that can be used in the video electronics of television sets to support a gamut 1.8 times as large as that of the sRGB color space"

So I take it from this that the Ninja would be a good match for this camera (Canon HFG10) as the color space seems to be expanded from normal srgb out the HDMI. This is exciting! Barry, what NLE do you use?
 
Just to clarify Barry that you will be able to edit prorez files on cs5 just wount be able to encode back to prorez on cs5. Is that correct?
 
Just to clarify Barry that you will be able to edit prorez files on cs5 just wount be able to encode back to prorez on cs5. Is that correct?

Perfectly correct. You don't have to download any special codec installer from apple either, as long as your computer has the latest version of quicktime. They started bundling the prores decoder with the quicktime package a few versions ago. I can drag and drop prores files into cs5 and begin editing them, smoothly
 
Perfectly correct. You don't have to download any special codec installer from apple either, as long as your computer has the latest version of quicktime. They started bundling the prores decoder with the quicktime package a few versions ago. I can drag and drop prores files into cs5 and begin editing them, smoothly

If you have FCP on the same workstation however, encoding to ProRes works without a hitch. We commonly export ProRes 4x4 from AE CS5, and 422 (HQ) from Premiere CS5 without issue.
 
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