NanoFlash, Ninja or the AJA Ki Pro MINI?

Af 100 ...

Af 100 ...

Barry_Green said:
And that in the professional/broadcast camcorder world, it's pretty cheap considering all that it does.
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I've had the Ex3 since it came out and I love it. I bought it because Panasonic did not offer anything remotely related for the money. I have not been disappointed but I certainly will consider the AF 100 as a next purchase because I love the Panasonic cinema codecs in camera. I still use my DVX 100 on gigs and up-rez the imagery to HD. The AF 100 is going to be a very exciting camera! As an aside, I use the NanoFlash on almost all gigs ... it's a beautiful piece of kit.
 
nyvz said:
Where are you getting your sensor dimensions? Most specs I've seen put Canon APS-C at 22.3mm wide and Micro 4/3rds at 17.3mm (imaging area). This would give the AF100 about a 1.44 crop factor compared to Super 35 imaging area. Where Canon 7D or Red 4k would be about a 1.12 crop factor compared to Super 35. Do you have some other information about the GH1 sensor? 19mm seems too wide for micro 4/3rds.
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The GH1 uses an oversized sensor, to equalize out the image diagonal between 4:3, 3:2 and 16:9. Using the expanded pixel count of the sensor and the appropriate math, we've calculated that it's approximately 19mm wide. Then I've used field of view comparisons to verify that yes, indeed, it is delivering a field of view compatible with 19mm wide.
 
Nope

Nope

Amr Rahmy said:
i think this thread started before the 8bit announcement in another thread, and someone asked something similar to one in this thread about the sdi, that's all.
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Nope. I started this thread after hearing about the 8bit announcement. From what I understand even though the sdi outputs in 8bits it still will deliver far better quality to a 10 bit device than simply sending it through the camera's internal processor to CF. And at 8 bits minus the aliasing, moire, and artifacts it will definitely trump the GH1, and 7D.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
@Amr Rahmy,

The only way somebody would think a proper video camera isn't worthwhile is probably somebody who hasn't used pro or even prosumer video cameras very often. If the only cameras you have used are DSLR's, then the prospect of video camera features would not be a priority. It's similar to the many younger filmmakers who have only used palmcorders and not ENG broadcast form factor cameras. It's not a question of what's right or wrong or good value or bad value, it's just a question of priorities and prior experience/perspective.

I never had any interest in shooting with DSLR's, even though I love some of the imagery I've seen when used by talented DP's. I've been using high-end 2/3" cameras for decades, so a DSLR's compromises kept me away. I have used 35mm DOF adapters, which are in themselves full of compromises and hassle, but at least the cameras were familiar and comfortable. The AF100 ticks a lot of boxes for me and I hope my clients(we will be adding two to our rental inventory). The camera will probably rent for under $300/day, so a fantastic bargain in my book. YMMV.
 
a couple of questions about the ki pro mini,

on the site it doesn't really say anything regarding formats and framerates and so on, i'm wondering if this will just automatically record the output from the af100 to the appropriate prores codec or if you manually select thing like resolution or 60/50i, 24/25p etc?

i'm also wondering if anyone has any idea of the quality of sound from this device's pre-amps compared to the on board pre-amps in the af100?
would you guys plug your mics into the camera or the ki pro mini?
personally i like the idea of having the ki pro mini set up with a monitor in a corner with the XLR cable running into it as opposed to the camera.
 
One thing i hardly see published from Panasonic is signal to noise ratio. This has been the achiles heel of most ag series cameras when going through broadcast exams like the BBC tests- the aj series pass with honours. Since this uses new technology, will we have a first and see Panasonic publish this cam's signal to noise ratio? This is the field that normally Sony excels at. Having a good signal to noise ratio means a more robust picture to go through broadcast terrible recompression processes, for example. Having such a big sensor, I'm sure the potential for having very good signal to noise is there, at least compared to the ex series and the hpx300 series of cameras!

Edit- this was way of topic. Something to bring this back in track. The Kipro seems to have a disadvantage, which is it's power requirements. What does it require to power up? Being bigger than the other offerings, this would mean that the kipro including battery would be a much more cumbersome alternative than the others...nanoflash seems like the winner, at least for me right now...
 
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Considering the SDI output will be 8-bit, which will be the higher possible quality codec: ProRes 422 HQ (220Mbps) from the AJA or 280Mbps from the Nano?
 
SPZ said:
. The Kipro seems to have a disadvantage, which is it's power requirements. What does it require to power up? Being bigger than the other offerings, this would mean that the kipro including battery would be a much more cumbersome alternative than the others...nanoflash seems like the winner, at least for me right now...
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good point, but the specs on the website says it needs 12 v. more than nanoflash, but pretty much a industry standard for power consumption on a lot of accessories, right down to monitors. I would consider it no different then looking for a proper power adapter for a monitor or some other accessory for the camera. Whether it's gonna be vmount IDX, or something else, there will be plenty of options.
 
agcohn said:
Considering the SDI output will be 8-bit, which will be the higher possible quality codec: ProRes 422 HQ (220Mbps) from the AJA or 280Mbps from the Nano?
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i believe nanoflash is 8 bit recording only, and twice the price of the ki pro mini, and does half the things the ki pro mini can do. independent audio, timecode. Even if you have to buy idx batteries for it ( i'm sure there are more options ) it will still be cheaper than the nano flash.
 
The big plus for the NanoFlash (having used it) is that you have the choice of recording formats (.mxf or .mov). Depending on your workflow and partners in production, this could be a very important factor in deciding between the two.
 
yes, it's more PC friendly, and older version Avid friendly along with any Apple workflow. it's also a lot smaller and lower profile, important for some.
 
xmephestox said:
i believe nanoflash is 8 bit recording only, and twice the price of the ki pro mini, and does half the things the ki pro mini can do. independent audio, timecode. Even if you have to buy idx batteries for it ( i'm sure there are more options ) it will still be cheaper than the nano flash.
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Please take a closer look at the specs. The Ki Pro mini is $1995 and the nanoFlash is $2995. The nanoFlash offers 280Mbps I-Frame, which in our tests is superior to ProRes 220 (not surprising) at 8-bit. (Yes, the nanoFlash is 8-Bit, but if your camera is 8-Bit, a 10-bit CODEC offers no advantage).

The nanoflash also offers 3:2 PullDown removal, over/undercrank, pre-record buffer, and time-lapse. I think these are missing on the mini. The nanoFlash uses 6 Watts of power while recording at 280Mbps, which is considerable less than the mini and accepts a 5 to 20V power supply (the mini is spec'd at 12V). On the nanoFlash, you can share power off the camera battery, there's no need to lug along another battery.

The nanoFlash does have an independent (analog) audio input (yes, it's consumer level, not XLR), but it does have LTC as well as embedded time-code input.

I can't find any specs on the AJA site regarding power, weight, or physical size, which seems a little odd to me.

Mike Schell
Convergent Design
 
it takes 12 volts of power, it's on the website, the price i was looking at was on b&h, it might have been a bundle thing which was the price variance, either way it's still a solid 1000 dollars more. recording 10 bit from a 8 bit source does have advantages, nothing you can't accomplish in post even from a nano flash, but oversampling never hurts, and is in fact very common. The advantage of the ki pro is it's saving you the step in post in the oversample, and brings to the direct to edit along with the audio and LTC features.

as for power, i would just imagine it sharing power with on board monitor if you so desire, i've seen power rigging options of various kinds, if it's an issue for some people, than nanoflash is a better deal. but the kind of set up i'm imagining is something a long the lines of maybe a v-mount battery power ki pro, and perhaps d-tap to a external monitor . May not work for other people, but it's not insane either.

i'm sure you can argue pro res vs anything else all day, pro ress actually is a fairly lossy codec, it's the price variance, direct to edit overampled footage there for you already that makes it something good to look at. In a perfect world, cineform would be everywhere, and everybody would be using that.

I don't discount the nanoflash in anyway, it's been a staple item even before the ki pro came out. AJA is a staple company two and both are offering great products. Both will produce great results.
 
xmephestox said:
recording 10 bit from a 8 bit source does have advantages, nothing you can't accomplish in post even from a nano flash, but oversampling never hurts, and is in fact very common.
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Thanks for the explanation and clarification, but not sure I understand your concept of oversampling. As an engineer, I understand how you can oversample an analog signal, for example use a 12-bit A/D converter to produce a very accurate 10-bit digital result. But this same concept does not apply to a digital signal like HD-SDI.

By definition, HD-SDI always has a 10-bit word length. However, the actual video signal is not required to have 10 effective bits. In the case of many (most) cameras, the lower two-bits are simply set to zeroes. So if you capture 8-bit video using a 10-bit CODEC, all you will do is compress the lower two zeros, there is no gain on the quality of the video. You can't oversample data that does not exist in the first place.

Mike Schell
 
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Mike Schell said:
So if you capture 8-bit video using a 10-bit CODEC, all you will do is compress the lower two zeros, there is no gain on the quality of the video. You can't oversample data that does not exist in the first place.

Mike Schell
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So are you saying the quality would remain in the 8 bit realm?
Meaning no more quality but more importantly no less quality either.
 
Why is it all of these solutions are only specializing in the Final Cut workflow? How about Adobe CS workflow or the ones who don't use ProRes?
 
i think the prores 422 can be achieved using a hardware chip that is somewhat available and affordable,
there are other solutions, for example the cinedeck extreme. it's more expensive but offer more in terms of recording format among a lot of other features.

but even in case of cinedeck, if it's more than one camera shoot, you would probably only use one cinedeck and a few ki pro mini or nano. the cost is somewhat prohibiting.
 
Retrospective said:
Why is it all of these solutions are only specializing in the Final Cut workflow? How about Adobe CS workflow or the ones who don't use ProRes?
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The nanoFlash does record to both ".MOV" (Quicktime) for Final Cut Pro and the Mac World, and a few other Non-Linear Editors, and to ".MXF" for the PC World.

Thus one can use the nanoFlash with all of the common professional Non-Linear Editors and one can record in ".MOV" and we provide a free File Converter if one needs to switch to ".MXF" at a later time. This is a file re-wrap, and not a transcode, no image quality is lost.

The nanoFlash can be used with CS5.

CS3/CS4 Supports our 35 Mbps 4:2:0 footage natively, and requires MainConcept codec to support 50 Mbps and higher 4:2:2 since the Sony XDCam 422 codec is not present in CS3/4.

The nanoFlash is very versatile.
 
GRENCH said:
So are you saying the quality would remain in the 8 bit realm?
Meaning no more quality but more importantly no less quality either.
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Exactly.

HD-SDI is always 10-bit, but almost all of the camcorders in the under-$10,000 price bracket output 8 bits worth of data. They get there by "padding" the last two bits with zeroes. So while the camcorder is creating info that looks like "10101111", when output on the HD-SDI it becomes "1010111100", with those two extra zeroes added to round it out to 10 bits.

When an 8-bit recorder encounters 10-bit SDI data, it just lops those last two zeroes off, recording the upper 8 bits out of the 10-bit data. (presumably a more-intelligent recorder would "round off" the last two bits, either lopping off 00 and 01, or incrementing the 8-bit data for 10 and 11, but that's irrelevant for this discussion).

So the net result is -- the 8-bit recorder is recording exactly what the camera output.
 
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