Just Received my Atomos Samurai

Indoors, maybe -- in bright light the screen is dim and washes out outdoors, even with the brightness at maximum. It seems similar to my Sony CLM-V55 and maybe would do better with a hood. It does help so that you do not have to stare with one eye at the EVF for long periods of time.
 
cckid said:
Hi,

I am on the fence of ordering the samurai for my f3...I was wandering can it replace the need of an external monitor such as tv - logic...I would love to be able to use my samurai as an external recorder and also for critical focus assisting...can it make work and replace the need of an additional item such as an external monitor? anyone of you tried to do it this way?
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It absolutely can't be used to replace a monitor. You can only use its screen to check playback on clips. Anyone who says you can - is wrong. I don't shoot anything without my TVLOGIC monitor, as I find the waveform monitor as important as the focusing assistant. It took me a while to nail where the exposure should be on this camera (still getting to grips with it) as it's so easy to overexpose with it.
 
We did several commercials over the last few days and intermittantly, sound was not recorded on the Samurai. Nothing was touched on the Samurai but on several takes, no sound was recorded from the F3. This is quite serious as I see other early users have had this problem. I suspect it is related to when the F3 is powered down, then powered up again, sound is not recorded on that first power down/power up cycle. The Samurai was powered at all times. I'm going to contact Atomos support as this is quite serious. Otherwise the Samurai is a great unit, very compact, quiet and easy to use.
 
powervideo said:
We did several commercials over the last few days and intermittantly, sound was not recorded on the Samurai. Nothing was touched on the Samurai but on several takes, no sound was recorded from the F3. This is quite serious as I see other early users have had this problem. I suspect it is related to when the F3 is powered down, then powered up again, sound is not recorded on that first power down/power up cycle. The Samurai was powered at all times. I'm going to contact Atomos support as this is quite serious. Otherwise the Samurai is a great unit, very compact, quiet and easy to use.
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Did you have the red light 'on' on the audio menu?
 
This is an issue I have had with the Samurai. On a few clips, say 3 from a hundred, this is what the clip looks like from the Samurai! Anyone else experienced this?

Samurai problem.jpg
 
Yes it was on and the meters were working on Channels 1 and 2 at all times. It's actually worse than I thought. Out of 25 takes (mostly long interview grabs) only five had audio recorded on the Samurai. Only one of the commercials had audio recorded on all takes. This is the result we got;

TVC 1 (Interview)
Colour Bars - mute (this was checked then re-recorded)
Colour Bar recorded again - sound
First take - mute

TVC 2 (Interview)
Takes 1 to 4 - sound

TVC3 (Interview)
Take 1 to 6 - mute

TVC 4 (presenter)
Take 1 - sound
Takes 2 to 11 mute

Luckily we recorded to SxS as well, but this is not a good situation. The rest of the Samurai feature-set/package is great and the 422 images look fantastic, but you can't come back from the the field without audio.
 
Another theory is that it may be something to do with playing back a clip, then after playing back, all clips after that playback are mute. I'm not sure about this but I will try and test later.
 
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How can these guys test for so long waiting for release then have so many bugs. I am mystified.
Thanks for being the BETA
 
Well, I just cancelled my order... I'm looking at the C300 and feel I can wait before deciding which camera to step up to.
 
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Okay.... it appears there is a direct problem with the Samurai and the F3. If the F3 is powered down whilst the Samurai in "on", no sound will be recorded afterwards when the F3 is powered up. For how many clips I don't know, but I can confirm at least six in my case. The only work-around at the moment AFAIK is to enter the audio menu after powering up and unchecking/checking the red "R" is on. This seems to re-set the audio to record sound. BTW, the audio meters and headphone are no help here; the meters pulse away merrily and the auio foldback is live, even though no sound is being recorded. If you don't power your F3 down, you won't have this issues and won't have to do this procedure.

The same scenario was tested with the Sony EX-1R in exactly the same way. It didn't have the problem. Even with repeated power up/down cycles, audio is recorded from the EX1R all the time. There is clearly a direct issue between the F3 and the Samurai at the moment. Hopefully Atomos can get a hold of an F3 and engineer this out in the firmware soon. Thanks to Tony Brennan for the extra testing.
 
Panasonic HPX2700 P2 Varicam works fine with powering down/up and records consistant audio just like the EX1R. Confirms even more that the the Samurai is having trouble interfacing with the F3. You just can't power down and up the F3 or the audio will not record. There is no problem if you power down the Samurai as well. It's probably safer to power up the F3 first though. So it seems to be something the F3 does while booting up, I think!. You just can't power down and up the F3 or the audio will not record. :kali:
 
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powervideo said:
Panasonic HPX2700 P2 Varicam works fine with powering down/up and records consistant audio just like the EX1R. Confirms even more that the the Samurai is having trouble interfacing with the F3. You just can't power down and up the F3 or the audio will not record. There is no problem if you power down the Samurai as well. It's probably safer to power up the F3 first though. So it seems to be something the F3 does while booting up, I think!. You just can't power down and up the F3 or the audio will not record. :kali:
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Sorry to confuse things a little more, but I have been powering them off and on, in no particular order, without any problems with it recording audio!
 
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