Hyperdeck Studio to get Firmware Update for DNxHD support

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Viddovation

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http://www.blackmagic-design.com/press/pressdetails/?releaseID=26113

End of November firmware update (free) will allow users to switch between uncompressed and DNxHD compression as a menu setting. This is on the Studio version ($995), not the $350 Shuttle. The form factor isn't quite as portable and doesn't have a built in battery... you can't really camera mount it, but could easily be tethered to video village.

I have a preorder for a Samurai... but I'm seriously thinking about cancelling it.

I paid $450 for a 256GB SSD ... this recorder is about $950... I'd get out for about $1500... with vaguely 3 hours of recording space to start off with... Can always add more...

Thoughts?
 
derbrocks09 said:
I wonder if there might be a firmware update for the shuttle down the road? Now that would be exciting.
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The shuttle just takes an uncompressed signal and records it with little to no processing. I'd be very surprised if it had the necessary processing power to compress a data stream in real time.
 
nateweaver said:
That thing is not going to mount on the camera...
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Clearly not, but I can think of plenty of production scenarios where tethering to video village isn't a problem. It's certainly not the right solution for every production, but this is a feature set previously unavailable at the pricepoint...
 
This is an interesting and ironic development as AVID has not played nice with Blackmagic Design capture cards to date. In fact many people have resisted moving to AVID due to the hardware constraints. Not to say you can't use DNxHD with other NLEs but still an odd development if you know AVIDs history with 3rd party capture cards and most specially BMs cards.
 
Andrew Stone said:
This is an interesting and ironic development as AVID has not played nice with Blackmagic Design capture cards to date. In fact many people have resisted moving to AVID due to the hardware constraints. Not to say you can't use DNxHD with other NLEs but still an odd development if you know AVIDs history with 3rd party capture cards and most specially BMs cards.
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I just took advantage of the FCP crossgrade offer and bought Media Composer 6.0. My initial thoughts are it's cluncky with an even clunkier interface than Final Cut, with hard-to-read DOS-like menu text. The Titler, while better than Final Cut, seems more dated than the pre-CS series of Premiere. Like FCP, you can't just drop most codec clips into a bin. It has to go through a log and transfer method unlike CS5.5 which can directly import anything. So far not impresssed...
 
AMA in AVID MC is supposed to fix most of the problems you are talking about. I never used AVID but tried the 30 day demo and even bought a couple of books. My brief experience is the nuts and bolts part of editing in AVID is great but once you venture out standard editing things can get ugly and you end up having to bolt on expensive software solutions to get a lot of things to work. Third party hardware support is dreadful. Only Matrox MX02 mini and AJA IO Express work. That on it's own had me running to Premiere Pro CS 5.5. Adobe is putting a ton of R&D into their next major rev of Prem Pro including a complete overhaul of it's color correction engine which actually isn't that bad once you figure it out.

I really wanted to give AVID a go but there were too many blockades. I am very much over Apple... time to move on.
 
Andrew Stone said:
AMA in AVID MC is supposed to fix most of the problems you are talking about. I never used AVID but tried the 30 day demo and even bought a couple of books. My brief experience is the nuts and bolts part of editing in AVID is great but once you venture out standard editing things can get ugly and you end up having to bolt on expensive software solutions to get a lot of things to work. Third party hardware support is dreadful. Only Matrox MX02 mini and AJA IO Express work. That on it's own had me running to Premiere Pro CS 5.5. Adobe is putting a ton of R&D into their next major rev of Prem Pro including a complete overhaul of it's color correction engine which actually isn't that bad once you figure it out.

I really wanted to give AVID a go but there were too many blockades. I am very much over Apple... time to move on.
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I agree with everything you say. I know this is getting a bit off-thread, but IMO CS5.5 is more intuitive and blindingly faster than FCP and (in what is my limited overview) Avid Media Composer. And virtually any format or codec can be directly imported and dropped on the timeline. Premiere is not perfect; I have at times wanted to put a .45 through the LCD, but it has so much more to offer. It's been blighted by "professionals" who still think it's the same as Premiere 4.0 from the early 2000's. I've found so much snobbery in pro post circles. :Drogar-Mad(DBG):
 
Not really all that off topic as the inclusion of these codecs as after thoughts by Sound Devices on the Pix240 and now BM on their Hyperdeck Studio is the result of so many camera op/editors bailing from FCP who are trying to figure out their new and expensive workflow changes that have to be made. You can't look at outboard recorders in isolation. Has to be done in the context of the whole workflow and the hardware and s/w requirements from capture through to the finished product.

I'm sure you have noticed that many editors are having a revisionist approach towards Premiere now. All you have to do is follow the words of people from the LAFCPUG forum. Many are now big Premiere Pro apologists.
 
Irony aside, and with the noted caveat that this recorder won't fit easily onto the camera itself, anyone have thoughts on whether this is a good or bad direction to go? From what I've heard the Avid codec now plays nice with Premeire and FCP, so the only hurdle is to make sure the client is okay with the choice, but renting a recorder for specific clients always remains an option.
 
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