Motion quality with Aja Ki Pro Mini

Seamus McFlannel

Seamus McFlannel

Well-known member
I was considering the Aja Ki Pro Mini until I read the reviews and comments on this forum that stated that people couldn't really discern any difference in image quality between the Ki Pro Mini and the AF-100's internal codec.

It seems to be the consensus that an outboard recorder might be a good bet for heavy keying and color grading work, although I did see some really decent keying with the camera's codec.

But one issue that I can't recall being discussed was motion handling. If I'm not mistaken, the camera's compression is not an intraframe compression like the Ki Pro would deliver. Wouldn't that make it a good bit superior to motion capture with fast moving scenes and the like. I remember that the intraframe compression was one of the selling points of the HVX200 over their competitors.

Does that still apply? Or have the new codecs been improved so much that it is no longer as issue? Has anyone compared the Ki Pro Mini with the AF-100's codec in this area?
 
In theory, yes the ki-pro and nano will deliver better quality in specific situations. Especially in VFX work.
 
I thought that CrewsTV did a comparison, but I just checked, and they used a Nano Flash. I didn't know the Ki Pro Mini wasn't out yet.
However, I imagine that the Ki Pro mini will function in a similar manor.
Specifically, I'm interested in how much better the intraframe compression will be for motion.
 
Jan said that the camera has twice as many b frames and also does what basically a two pass "look" at the footage as it records it. I didnt see anything jump out to me during any of the action footage we recorded this weekend.
 
Dear Seamus,

Disclaimer: I am the Director of Sales and Marketing for Convergent Design, the nanoFlash is our product.

The nanoFlash offers you both choices. You can select Long-GOP, or I-Frame Only via the menu.

And you can select various bit-rates, in HD, from 18 to 280 Mbps.

Long-GOP has its advantages and I-Frame Only has its advantages also.

Both can handle motion fine. Since we support both equally well, I can remain neutral, but I can say, based on our experiences, both handle motion well.

I was at a major dealer in Chicago, and an editing expert said that Long-GOP could not handle motion.

We discussed it for about a minute, then he asked me to create a file with a special type of motion, which he thought would cause Long-GOP to fail.

I created the file, then he checked it out, and he was completely satisfied.
 
Dan Keaton said:
The nanoFlash offers you both choices. You can select Long-GOP, or I-Frame Only via the menu.

And you can select various bit-rates, in HD, from 18 to 280 Mbps.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info, Dan, I'm looking forward to trying out your product. You know what would be even better - Short-GOP AVC High422P. AVC-Intra is overkill even for most action filming. A real-time codec with one key frame every tenth of a second would handle motion sequences just as well as Intra with less than half the bitrate.
 
Dan Keaton said:
Dear Seamus,

Disclaimer: I am the Director of Sales and Marketing for Convergent Design, the nanoFlash is our product.

The nanoFlash offers you both choices. You can select Long-GOP, or I-Frame Only via the menu.

And you can select various bit-rates, in HD, from 18 to 280 Mbps.

Long-GOP has its advantages and I-Frame Only has its advantages also.

Both can handle motion fine. Since we support both equally well, I can remain neutral, but I can say, based on our experiences, both handle motion well.

I was at a major dealer in Chicago, and an editing expert said that Long-GOP could not handle motion.

We discussed it for about a minute, then he asked me to create a file with a special type of motion, which he thought would cause Long-GOP to fail.

I created the file, then he checked it out, and he was completely satisfied.
Click to expand...

Speaking of the Nanoflash (which looks very promising together with the AF camera) does it have a battery meter so that you don't loose power in the middle of a shot?
I know it doesn't have built in battery so some sort of third party solution is needed.
 
Not just for the Nano, but for other accessories, the AF100 needs a D-tap battery solution. I hope someone is listening to this. With a D-tap the camera monitors the battery.

The nano itself draws very little power. With a D-tap I haven't noticed any difference in running time with a battery powering the camera alone compared to the camera with the Nano.

I haven't noticed (haven't looked for) a battery monitor on the Nano, but with a an L-ion battery starting at 14.4 volts, it can drop all the way down to 5-6volts and the Nano runs just fine.
 
Dear Friends,

The nanoFlash does have a battery voltage meter. It displays the battery voltage.

We publish the voltage range for the nanoFlash as 6.5 to 19.5 volts.

Actually, it will work to around 5 volts. But your battery may shutdown before it reaches 5.0 Volts, it depends on the battery.


Also, www.nanoFlash.net will be selling a professional D-Tap battery solution.
 
Dear Friends,

The nanoFlash draws under 6 watts.

The last time we measured it precisely, it was drawing 5.6 watts.

In low power mode, it draws, 0.2 amps. Even the smallest battery willl power the nanoFlash in low power mode for days.

I ran a test with one of our little 2-Cell Lithium-Ion batteries and it powered it in low power mode for 4 days. I gave up the test after 4 full days.

With our next firmware release, or with our Public Beta, the nanoFlash will go into low power mode if HD-SDI or SD-SDI signal is lost, which happens automatically if the camera is powered down.
 
Dear Lpowell,

The nanoFlash handles extreme motion very well.

At trade shows, I use a nanoFlash connected to a camera, then to a nice high-quality monitor.

I recorded to the nanoFlash, first no motion, then real small text, then lots of motion, then excessive motion, while our guest watches the monitor.

Then I play it back.

The comment I typcially get is "Wow, that is really clean". Followed by it looks the same as the live image.

Then sometimes I challenge our expert quests to determine if the image on the monitor is live or playback.
No one has been been able to tell the difference, or be able to point out a defect in the playback image.
I have had some analyze the images for up to 30 minutes. It is even clean on the blue channel.

In the past, some manufacturers went the Intraframe route, and some went the Long-GOP route.

We do both, and both very well, so we can be relatively neutral.

We have never seen any motion problems during normal playback at 100 Mbps Long-GOP or higher.

In fact, one of our customers tested our first HD/SD recorder, the Flash XDR, which has the same image quality as the nanoFlash, for six solid weeks.

One test was to record the Houston Marathon.

He was on the back of a pickup truck, filming the marathon. 25,000 runners were coming at the camera, all brightly dressed, all moving, an exteme amount of detail, and since the camera was moving (and bouncing due to the truck traveling on a road), an excessive amount of motion.

The race was recorded at 100 Mbps Long-GOP.

There were two artifacts that were found by checking each and every frame individually. None were found at normal playback speeds.

We feel that if this extreme test was recorded at 140 Mbps, there would have been zero artifacts.

The person performing this test has since gone on to shoot movies with his (and ours) recorder.

Other movies have bben shot with the nanoFlash.

One is a Big-Budget Hollywood movie, from a major studio. In this movie the nanoFlash clips were edited. The footage went to filmout, then intercut with the Panavision Super 35 footage. It passed the studios quality tests. This is a extreme action movie and the nanoFlash with a video camera were used so that the camera operators could be very agile.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top