Just Received my Atomos Samurai

I have not run into this because of powering the F3 first before the Samurai or EVF (which also will not run without the camera on first) but it is good to know. Another more minor sound issue I have noticed is that when I import the video/sound into FCP X there are two ways to do that from the attached firewire Samurai reader. One is it sees the Samurai disk as a camera which imports the files with the date and time, the other option is to import as a "file" which is labeled Samurai. It seems that these should both be identical and the video is in fact identical. The file which is the camera version has much better audio than the imported as a file type. This is repeatable. The levels are higher and the sound is clearer. I first noticed this in that you can see that the peaks are higher on the waveform. I have never noticed this on imports from SxS cards into the same computer.
 
Sparky874 said:
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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I'm going to do more testing today and see if I can try and get to the bottom of it. Thanks Sparky.
 
lasikdenver said:
This is repeatable. The levels are higher and the sound is clearer. I first noticed this in that you can see that the peaks are higher on the waveform. I have never noticed this on imports from SxS cards into the same computer.
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I expect one method is only importing the first 2 channels of audio, and the other is importing 8 channels of audio. Different NLEs will handle the summation of 8ch audio to a 2channel sequence differently.

Sometimes it's necessary if you have 8 channels of audio recorded with zero headroom, when it's down mixed to 2 channels there has to be 3db of attenuation for each addition channel when they are summed. So 8ch audio might be attenuated -18db.
 
Hi Nate:
I get my Samurai tomorrow and have a WD 750GB HD in hand ready to go. Are there step by step instructions with the unit? I know the website says the manual is coming. Can you walk me through the initial setup when the unit arrives? I do know Atomos says to format the drive and do the update first thing. I would appreciate any help you may offer.
Regards,
Phil Hanna
Indian Rocks Beach, FL
 
I just did a specific test on V2.52. I turned on the F3 and Samurai and recorded ten clips to the Samurai resulting in no sound being recorded. I then cycled the power on the Samurai and I got recorded audio. It appears that if the F3 is powered on first (before the samurai is switched on, then sound is recorded. If the Samurai is powered on BEFORE the F3, then no sound is recorded. So at present, you must always turn the F3 on before the Samurai, and if turning off the F3 to do a change in camera setup, make sure the Samurai is powered down as well before going through the same startup with F3 power up first, then the Samurai.

Can someone please test this scenario for me?
 
Update: connect the SDi to Samurai cable from the SDI-A output of the F3 (and not the standard SDI Mon out) and the audio problem is solved. There must be some strange connection issue between the SDI MON out and the samurai. But at the moment it seems okay if you use the dual link SDI-A connector.
 
powervideo said:
Update: connect the SDi to Samurai cable from the SDI-A output of the F3 (and not the standard SDI Mon out) and the audio problem is solved. There must be some strange connection issue between the SDI MON out and the samurai. But at the moment it seems okay if you use the dual link SDI-A connector.
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Thanks for the great info.
 
powervideo said:
Update: connect the SDi to Samurai cable from the SDI-A output of the F3 (and not the standard SDI Mon out) and the audio problem is solved. There must be some strange connection issue between the SDI MON out and the samurai. But at the moment it seems okay if you use the dual link SDI-A connector.
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Hi Peter, I have always connected it from there. My only problem is the occassional strange clip that looks totally like this!:

Samurai problem.jpg
 
yep new firmware in there Peter. Cable seems fine, it only happens once in every fifty/sixty clips or so..
 
New V2.6 firmware for samurai can be found here:
http://www.atomos.com/samurai/firmware/

Issues Addressed in this firmware update:

  • Added red letter box border in the monitor when recording (black when not).
  • Fixed 'stale' video in the black letter box border in the monitor when switching video modes.
  • Audio fix: certain cameras could detect the wrong number of channels of audio present.

 
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One thing I discovered today on a shoot (luckily not too critical a shoot). If you are recording ANY format other than 1080, you must connect the Samurai to the F3's standard SDI MON out, and not the dual link HD-SDI A output. I was recording 720 50P on the F3 but the Samurai was recording 1080 50i.

An interesting titbit is that you can simultaneously record 720 internally on SxS and 1080 externally. It is probably of dubious value because of the external default to 50i. So for general piece of mind, use the SDI OUT connector.
 
Just curious: with the newest firmware, have the audio problems with the F3 and the Samurai been fixed? Also, any updates on the weird green frames? Thanks.
 
The audio has been fixed. The green clips were from using port A without the F3 firmware upgrade.

The green frames seemed to be related to using non-approved drives. I know some drives cashe in a manner that isn't compatable. For instance the Scorpio blue advocated by some is not fully compatable, but the Scorpio black is. The blue drive slows down before the end of the drive and won't write fast enough. Not all drives have been tested yet.

And occasionally a drive is just out of specs, especially if it was dropped before you bought it. Problem is its a pain to fully test a drive before you use it. But if you really consider yourself professional, what do you take to the shoot? The approved drive that you tested.
 
Duke I can say categorically that the drive is not the problem. I use two approved drives only; the Scorpio Black 500gb and the Intel X25 160gb SSD. I re-format in the samurai before each shoot. My DOP also uses an X25 and also has the infrequent green frame flashing. We are suspecting low voltage in the camera causing the issue when the battery runs low, but I can't be sure of this. It's not the drives. Also we have only been using the SDI-MON out and have got green flashing on all the firmware versions including the latest. It's rare but a concern nonetheless.


Duke M. said:
The audio has been fixed. The green clips were from using port A without the F3 firmware upgrade.

The green frames seemed to be related to using non-approved drives. I know some drives cashe in a manner that isn't compatable. For instance the Scorpio blue advocated by some is not fully compatable, but the Scorpio black is. The blue drive slows down before the end of the drive and won't write fast enough. Not all drives have been tested yet.

And occasionally a drive is just out of specs, especially if it was dropped before you bought it. Problem is its a pain to fully test a drive before you use it. But if you really consider yourself professional, what do you take to the shoot? The approved drive that you tested.
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I note in v2.7 firmware:

"Improved handling of SDI inputs with glitches/jitter/other instabilities. This addresses problems with green/blue/pink video in recordings."
 
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