C100: New Atomos Ninja Blade With HDMI

chappelldigital said:
Erik was saying 4K acquisition is what is beneficial, not delivering in 4K, which like you said, is years away!

4K downscaled to HD will look better than captured HD
4K captured can be rescaled, re-framed, etc etc. You can get 2-3 shots from 1 interview shot if you acquire it in 4K. Also hugely beneficial for stabilization, potentially 'saving' shots you'd have to throw away.

I would love to shoot 4K. I just currently dont have the camera or harddrive space for it.

I'm not losing any work by not being able to shoot or deliver in 4K. So I'm not particularly worried (yet).
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What he said. :-D
I’m looking forward to 4K acquisition ( not accusation. Need to stop posting at 1am after being at NAB! ) My first camera will be the GH4 and build out from there. This is all new stuff and cameras are going to get better and offer more features soon so really no rush for me to have the first generation either. When a nice monitor is available I will upgrade to a 4K but it has to be able to upscale very well or I won’t buy it.
The streaming media companies are the ones that are going to deliver UltraHD anyway and those shows are what you will want to see in 4K.
 
bengiles said:
When I think back to when we were shooting DVC Pro HD and downscaling to SD for delivery, I do remember a tangible image improvement over Digibeta etc at the time, as Erik was saying.

I wonder if we're effectively getting the same bang for our buck with the C Series internal 4K sensor. Sure, we can't re-size in post etc, but I think we get a similar downscaled visual mojo to what we were enjoying back in 2004 (or roundabout then.)

Ben.
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We definitely are.

When I saw the Shogun at NAB I was kind of bummed that I bought the Ninja Blade but then my understanding is that it won’t be available for a year so I’m over it. I’ll keep it and hopefully VERY soon it will get the fix update. Here it is on the Sony a7s.

Sony a7s with Shogun.jpg
 
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Update on my Blade. Sent in for an RMA and came back with the record command function restored. They just shipped me a new unit. Awesome.

Wait a second ... the screen now has some weird small blue lines on it. Only shows up in lower light scenarios but still. This is not an inexpensive monitor.

Nice support guy at Atomos offered to fix it again. But damn, sending in twice in a month is expensive and also just a bummer.
 
I posted a question on the Atomos FB page re the firmware update (the reference to BMD is just in reponse to me saying, "don't be like Blackmagic.") Their response:

In testing stages right now. There are lots factors that come into play when we do this. We have to make sure that it 100% perfect. It would be far worst to release something then have users require a firmware update again shortly after. Then we would be BMD!!

No exact ETA just yet.

Also, you would be surprised at how many users don't update their units, so this is why we have to get it right.

EDIT: In the meantime, shot in interlace and do pulldown in post, you won't have this issue.
 
I shot all day with the blade. The HDMI loop gave us a lot of problems, we lost the signal and it was creating weird sound interferences... It's not the first time I am having issues with the HDMI out sending bad signal, stop working...

What about you guys?

Other than that, when the line shift is fix it will be pretty good.
 
I'm not looping out, so I can't comment. Otherwise very happy with it as a focus monitor. Came back from a shoot yesterday, rushes went straight into FCP7, colours and luminance exactly where I was expecting them to be.

It's giving me lots of WYSIWYG confidence.

Ben.
 
Ninja Blade on Panasonic GH3 does not work corect,Blade record only 50I not 25P,I tried all possible settings.nor those atoms gave no clear answer,gave a link on the internet ...but refers to something.On C100 is ok.if you have any recommendations please..

Thanks
 
Used mine last night to shoot a live musical performance rehearsal of some solo singers at a local church. Since it was rehearsal lights weren't really setup right so was a rather dark setup. The NinjaBlade came through like a champ. The colors were great, the peaking worked great and I could really, really see how it was going to look. When I occasionally looked at the C100 LCD I was shocked at how incredibly inaccurate it was. It was far darker than the Blade which would have lead me to push the iso higher. When I got home and previewed the footage it looked pretty much exactly as the Blade said it would. +1 on the WYSIWYG confidence.

FYI. I already own a Samurai and the Ninja 2 so I know what the final ProRes files look like in comparison to AVCHD of the camera. Still, I feel really excited since the monitor portion of the Blade is so much better. I feel like somehow the final image is better. It is truly a placebo effect I know......but it is still rather cool.

Oh....and the Rocket Fish low profile HDMI cable is working great so far so that is a plus. With the Ninja 2 I seemed to have intermittent stoppages when using this cable so I hope this works out too!
 
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bengiles said:
When I think back to when we were shooting DVC Pro HD and downscaling to SD for delivery, I do remember a tangible image improvement over Digibeta etc at the time, as Erik was saying.

I wonder if we're effectively getting the same bang for our buck with the C Series internal 4K sensor. Sure, we can't re-size in post etc, but I think we get a similar downscaled visual mojo to what we were enjoying back in 2004 (or roundabout then.)

Ben.
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I really don't understand why more people don't bring this to the table. The Cinema series from Canon all have a 4K sensor that downscales in camera to give you a great HD picture. The resize in post thing is just handholding for agency types that can never make a decision. I wprked with a DP that will only shoot in 4K so he can resize in post for interviews and get another size shot. But then he also insists on using a second 4K camera so he can resize that shot as well. I just don't understand this kind of noncommitment. Anyway, until the right 4K camera comes along for me I will still be using my C100 and renting the C300 and C500 to shoot everything from web pieces to commercials in HD and 4K.
 
Ninja Blade 5.11 release notesFID:050105110511Fixes:

* Pulldown re-locks when camera cadence changes frame order to avoid interlace artefacts* Fixed issue with 3:2/2:2 pulldown where a black line would appear on the right hand side of the video

Other Changes:

* Implemented Auto-detect for all HDMI Camera Start/Stop triggers. Timecode should also be set to HDMI for HDMI Timecode detection and recording.

* Changed Camera trigger options to "HDMI" or "None/Timecode". Customers using Rolling Timecode trigger, will need to set to None/Timecode and activate the yellow icon to enable Rolling Timecode trigger.* Quicktime vendor field changed from "atms" to "appl" for greater compatibility.
 
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What a great day! I should be getting my camera back this morning from Canon with the Dual Pixel upgrade and now this! Come on FedEx!
 
And I will be waiting until I hear enough reports of no problems until I put any money down on the NB. Also am concerned about the version of Avid DNXHD files that they record to as I use Avid to edit. I found out they are not Avid native files and therefore have to be rewrapped before editing. Seems to work, but a longer more complicated work flow than I anticipated after hearing they offered Avid DNXHD files as well as ProRes.
 
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