More Nikon D800 1080P video tests

Yea! And I'm going back to film where all you had to concern yourself with was film type, speed and what bloody frame rate you will be shooting:furious3:. Now you need to be a BroadCast Engineer/F11 Pilot just to sift your way through i/p, gamma shifts, 16-235/0-255 brightness levels, etc, etc. Must be time to retire to the funny farm:cry:.
 
While I'm at it, why in God's name are we going back to film days where if you shot a bad take, you were stuck with it. Then we went to solid state memory cards which allowed us to delete a take on site if unacceptable. Now we have these external recorders which have no option to erase a shot on location if need be. Going full circle:violin:
 
Stephenh said:
Yea! And I'm going back to film where all you had to concern yourself with was film type, speed and what bloody frame rate you will be shooting:furious3:. Now you need to be a BroadCast Engineer/F11 Pilot just to sift your way through i/p, gamma shifts, 16-235/0-255 brightness levels, etc, etc. Must be time to retire to the funny farm:cry:.
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Need to set levels and colours? Hmmmm? Wanna buy my waveform monitor and vectorscope? It's brand new... never been used, except on Sundays. :evil:

-- Bob Elkind
 
Yea! Thanks Bob, your a big help. I was just doing some reading on another site regarding gamma shifts and brightness levels with the BlackMagic Shuttle 2 DNxHD codec and some editing applications. And we have the Ninja with ProRes with similar issues. I know we have found options in the D800 Menus, but that does not necessarily mean the issue has been solved. I'll get off my soap box now. I guess it will eventually sort itself out once D800 users get the two together. Hope sooner than later.
 
Whatever, just switch it to limited range and see what happens.
The Sony F3 Slog via monitor is also 422 and exceeds limited range. Just switch to a full range codec and done.
 
Stephenh said:
with Nikon how come we can't get a better explaination from them. To much mudding the waters for my liking.
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Pshaw! Not to sound the cynical me but I've been through this soooooo many times with manufacturers. Sony was the pits. Total stonewalling when you asked them anything other than when can we send you more money. Basically.....
Manuals that are not written with the benefit of input from Human Factors & Usability professionals (me), are written by the writers in the software development team. They typically do nothing more than translate the diagrams and workflows into semi-intelligible text. In fact, MOST user manuals are designed NOT to be tutorials (that's what pricey tutorial DVD's are for ;) .
It generally takes about three people with the same manual and identical HW working through it to troubleshoot the WORDING, essentially, translating it for normal human beings.
I could rant on, but you get the idea.
3 GUYS + 3 Manuals + 3 Cameras + Matching peripherals and about 2 hrs and the problems will all be solved.
 
Stephenh said:
While I'm at it, why in God's name are we going back to film days where if you shot a bad take, you were stuck with it. Then we went to solid state memory cards which allowed us to delete a take on site if unacceptable. Now we have these external recorders which have no option to erase a shot on location if need be. Going full circle:violin:
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Answer= Because the external recorders are still evolving and some of us are happy to be poor betas till they produce the desired results at a low price point.
 
macgregor said:
Whatever, just switch it to limited range and see what happens.
The Sony F3 Slog via monitor is also 422 and exceeds limited range. Just switch to a full range codec and done.
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Hi Macgregor,

That is sound advice, but when you do not have either and you are trying to evaluate one for your D800, it makes it very difficult. But I get your point. I may need to hire the unit to test prior to purchase.

Zephyrnold:

Now you would have thought that us users may need detailed instructions so that we can operate our equipment correctly? Or maybe that's the mystery, letting us figure it out for ourselves:thumbsup:!
 
Wasn't aware of that one. What I do like about the HyperDeck Shuttle 2 is it now gives you an option of uncompressed QT or Avid DNxHD wrapped in MXF or QT. I realize that you need very fast SSD's for the former, but it just has better options + you have both SDI & HDMI both with pass through. With Ninja you have one codec (ProRes).
 
macgregor said:
Wasn´t Atomos suppossed to put dnxhd in their recorders? What happened to that?
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Atomos Samurai - yes, DNxHD.

Atomos Ninja - no, ProRes only :(

Hmm, maybe gotta sell that Ninja since I'm doing Avid - though Avid supports ProRes, I trust DNxHD more with regards to highlight clipping...

But Ninja does do D4 & D800 recording at 24p/25p/30p direct support...
http://www.atomos.com/ninja/firmware/
D4 & D800 specifically mentioned on the site:
http://www.atomos.com/ninja/

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Hi Bruce,

Yes! But what flavor is it once it has been captured by the Ninja? I must becoming a doubting skeptic:evil:!
 
has anyone tested the d800/d4 with a different external recorder than atomos ( Nanoflash , sounddevices pix , Blackmagic Hyperdeck Shuttle , aja , Gemini )??
maybe the problem is with the device and not with the camera hdmi output
 
t.p. said:
has anyone tested the d800/d4 with a different external recorder than atomos ( Nanoflash , sounddevices pix , Blackmagic Hyperdeck Shuttle , aja , Gemini )??
maybe the problem is with the device and not with the camera hdmi output
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Todaz it is clear that there is no problem with the D4/D800 HDMI output, not even when recorded to Ninja.

Martin
 
PappasArts said:
Atomos Ninja and Nikon D800 quality comparison video & review
http://fstoppers.com/fstoppers-review-atomos-ninja-external-recorder-with-nikon-d800

Pappas
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fstoppers has posted that they are re-shooting this video. Stay tuned.

Also, is it a possibility that the Ninja is indeed recording full range of values? The apparent blown highlights and crushed blacks may be the result of importing the full-range video into Premiere with Premiere expecting standard ("limited range") black/peak white levels. If so, then Ninja is faultless and we have a simple case of mismatch between D800 output setting and Premiere import setting.

If Ninja is not recording full range (or at least 1-254), this is a design problem for Ninja even with "limited range" material. "Limited range" does not limit the data values to 16-235 or 16-240. In fact, the 8-bit YCbCr coding range expressly extends to 1-254 in "limited range" (see HDMI Specification 1.3a, page 95) (see SMPTE-125M-1992, section 3.5.1). The levels below black and above nominal peak white are a guardband for overshoot without clipping, and these data values must be preserved by a recorder.

Knowing the folks at Atomos, they are owed the benefit of presumed innocence. As noted above, the likely sources of mischief are the source of the video (the D800 output range setting) and the interpreter of the video (Premiere, or perhaps some other application).

[note: I say "Premiere" because that is the video application mentioned in the fstoppers video].

Standards work. If the HDMI and SMPTE standards for YCrCb levels were respected, we would not be having this discussion.

-- Bob Elkind
 
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eteam said:
fstoppers has posted that they are re-shooting this video. Stay tuned.
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New fstoppers video has been posted.

Text notes on the vimeo page:
A quick Nikon D800 test in back garden to check quality of internal video vs external footage.
External footage was captured on Atomos Ninja (Firmware 2.2). Camera had default standard video settings.
I recorded about the same amount of footage on both devices. Ninja footage was 8bit 422 for 2.45 GB. Internal footage was recorded at maximum quality for about 366MB.
Footage was captured on tripod using 85mm 1.4G lens at F4, iso 100 and shutter 30.
I also played with colour grading the footage to see if there was a difference.
I think there is slight advantage to external footage but I think it is close. I was expecting more of a difference. I will try and capture some city scenes next to test it further.
​




-- Bob Elkind
 
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Peter J. DeCrescenzo said:
What a difference a week (or so) makes -- meet the new "Ninja 2"!
http://www.atomos.com/ninja2/

Lots of really nice new features, including ProRes and DNxHD, double-res LCD (compared to Ninja 1), and separate HDMI in & out connectors!

I wonder how long before Atomos comes out with a camera head for use with their recorders? :-)
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Couldn't stop laughing! If they do stick a lens on it, I hope they ask for a lot of end-user feedback first. I imagine a lot of re-work is going on at the BlackMagic elves hovel as we speak!
 
I really like the following D800 video by Joel Boucher. Download the 277MB version & watch on a 1080p monitor. The water especially looks surprisingly good. Of course, aliasing & moire rears its head at 1:18. But otherwise, very nice. (Thank goodness for overcast skies!) Cheers.

http://vimeo.com/40052262
 
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