NEW Convergent Designs OLED 7" monitor / RAW recorder

I didn't base it on anything of yours, I do not know what your 1.8" SSDs cost. I haven't suggested any pricing, I have been asking about pricing based on what is available on the market, and the terminology you have been using, and the fact that you don't custom make your storage solutions, you buy from standard storage manufacturers.

That means what is available to you, is available to me. You have even given rough specs, and I have found quite a few possible drives that will work. I have no doubt that people will test their own solutions anyways, unless you have intentionally locked down the Odyssey so that it only takes your proprietary drives.

Dan Keaton said:
And it makes sense for our customer, when shooting their critical projects, those where their reputations are at stake, to use media that has been thoroughly tested (more than two solid days of continuous testing) before they use it on their shoots.
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Shouldn't that be the customers choice? I mean, you already have a warning that CG is not liable for lost data. So why not give the customers the option to use whatever SSD they want. If they want to pay extra for the reliability of a CG SSD, than they can, otherwise they can get the cheapo solution from NewEgg or TigerDirect or NCIX.

To have it any other way is not to help the customer, but to help your company make money, to fatten the bottom line.
 
Amazing how some attempt to dictate specs and business models on a product that is not even in the market yet.
 
bgundu said:
Amazing how some attempt to dictate specs and business models on a product that is not even in the market yet.
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So you like having proprietary equipment that uses non-proprietary standards? I sure don't. I also like having choices, so if they are going to use the SATAIII standard and the slot is built for SSDs, than you should be able to use any spec equivalent or higher SSD, instead of forcing customers to buy your rebadged SSDs at a premium.

This is a unique opportunity to voice your concerns. How many manufacturers come into a forum before their product has been released to talk over concerns with potential customers? Run them through the wringer I say!

I you are satisfied, then great, tell them, if not, the company knows a potential way to make their product better.

Also, knowing how the stuff works internally (for the most part) makes it far less amazing.
 
Don't like it don't buy it.

All sounds good to me Dan if the SSD prices are reasonable, I used to be a support tech and a problem manager so I know the pain. SSDs are cheap as chips, my first 1Gb spinning disk cost me $1000 back in the day, for that money now I can buy a 12Tb raid! I just wish the Prores recording option would be available for my feature shoot in August.
 
Don't like it don't buy it.
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Man, if I could scream this from the rooftops I would.

Convergent will build what they build. It will cost what it costs. And if you like it, buy it and use it. If they overprice it, nobody will buy it and they will suffer for that. It is in their best interest to make the ideal combination of price and performance, so that it will meet with market acceptance.

As far as "Fattening their bottom line" -- I wish them all the success in the world and I hope they have the fattest bottom line of any company. Because the only way they'll get that, is to make a product that everyone wants to buy. So best of luck to them, and I hope their bottom line is huge.
 
Perhaps some of you are not aware of Convergent Designs history. They have been around a long time and pretty much created this segment of external recorders. They have a solid track record for reliability and didn't get there by cutting corners. Im pretty confident they know what they are doing. Their are other recorders that offer your own drives. Plenty of options out there. Customers win.
 
Not every manufacturer out there is engaged in a race to the bottom to find the cheapest possible solution. The NanoFlash is not the cheapest recorder on the market. It does, however, work -- it is battle-tested and proven. If you want cheaper, get a cheaper recorder -- get a Ninja II or a BMD HyperDeck Shuttle, if those do what you want.

Reminds me of a poster I just saw at a store a few weeks ago: "I have no argument with the man who has cheaper prices than mine. He, more than anyone, knows what his product is worth."
 
"I have no argument with the man who has cheaper prices than mine. He, more than anyone, knows what his product is worth."

+1111111
 
Dear Friends,

I have been quiet for the past few days, as I needed to travel to NAB and help setup our booth and work with others.

NAB 2013 starts in a few hours.

The reason we need to provide our own SSD' s is actually very simple.

It is more reliable this way. We can thoroughly test our recorder / SSD combination for thousands of hours.

And there has been a long, painful history of a small fracttion of nanoFlash users using CompactFlash cards which were not on our "Qualified" list.

We would get calls from those that used non-qualified cards, sometimes one that the customer tested by recording a few seconds to 10 minutes of video, and it seemed to work. But our huge First-In/First Out buffer hid the fact that the CompactFlash card was actually not fast enough for continuous recording.

It is our reputation, and our products reputation that suffers when our recorder fails on set, for whatever reason. Few will know or remember that a non-approved SSD was used; one that actually caused the problem.

To use another Brand/Type of SSD, one has to take into considerion, not only the continuous write performance (ours writes at 525 Megabytes per second), its controller chip's firmware capabilities, its power draw, and its ability to handle unplanned situations.

For example, our SSD's have a supercapacitor, built into the drive, so when an SSD is removed, while a write is in progress, the SSD and the data is not corrupted.

The power draw is another very important consideration. Most SSD's draw significantly more power, and they would introduce more heat into our enclosure.

I like Newegg. I purchase items from them (for personal use) quite often. I think they are an excellect source of information, but sometimes not all of the information that you need for a very critical application is not available on their site. Even with the actual production specsheets in hand and thoroughly studied, there is no substitute for thousands of hours of testing.

Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
My acct here just got validated yesterday and this is my very first post ever in this forum!

Big WOW for fs700 users!
 
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