New Monitor / Recorder from Convergent Design

Very nice, I wonder how one of these would compare to a smallHD DP7, the built-in recorder is already a big bonus.
 
Interesting and I hope more monitors show up at NAB as the choices on the market are pretty slim imho. I did not see a brightness rating on the website. Also, I notice they have an HDMI input on the bottom right where you would want a 1/4-20 mounting hole, but I guess you could mount it straight into the back. 8 watts is a great power number. I wonder what the Q model costs with the recorder?
 
Bassman2003 said:
I wonder what the Q model costs with the recorder?
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$1295 for just the monitor. But an OLED monitor that has Focus Assist, YRGB Waveform, Histogram, False Color, Vectorscope and Zebras. That is a killer deal.

If the recorder add on is too costly you could just pick up a BM hyper deck for $350.

EDIT: Wow, just saw this on the spec sheet: HD/2K Raw up to 120 fps, ARRIRAW (16:9) up to 60fps, (4:3) up to 48fps, Canon RAW QHD/4K up to 60fps

EDIT2: Skip to 2:51 to get to the good part.

<a href="https://vimeo.com/62633690#" target="_blank">
 
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EDIT: Wow, just saw this on the spec sheet: HD/2K Raw up to 120 fps, ARRIRAW (16:9) up to 60fps, (4:3) up to 48fps, Canon RAW QHD/4K up to 60fps
Click to expand...

But these won't come standard of course, once you add the recording and codec price into the equation, I suspect you'll be looking at $1,500~1600. Still cheaper than the $2000 DP7 though, and the $2700 SX only supports 2 monitoring channels vs. 4 on the Odyssey 7Q.

I did not see a brightness rating on the website.
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It's OLED, so not really something to brag about in terms of brightness, the DP7 OLED is rated at 250nits though they claim that it "appears" brighter than the rating implies, while the standard LCD is 400nits.
 
No ProRes? :(

Looks very impressive. Good time to be in the market for an external recorder.

I now more strongly feel like external recorders are like hard drives / perishable foods, you should never buy one until you need one. See a good deal on a PIX 240, Atomos Ninja... but don't have a specific production need, pass. See a good deal on a light stand, pick one up, light stands don't go bad.
 
Kolor-Pikker said:
... once you add the recording and codec price into the equation, I suspect you'll be looking at $1,500~1600.
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I love your optimism... ;-) I can't wait to see the real specs and price, but I personally suspect you'll be looking at $6,000 - $8,000, maybe more.

Bear in mind the Gemini 4:4:4 plus 2 512 GB drives costs $7,890 (B&H). The firmware add-on for Canon 4k is $2,500. That's just for a firmware download. Arriraw is $3,145. Of course they've said that we will be able to rent the Odyssey firmware add-ons, which is nice (but confirms that they will not be $20).

In fact, unless they're going to just dump the Gemini (which could be true), I don't see how they can sell the Odyssey except at a higher price point. So Odyssey 7Q plus Canon 4k and a couple of drives, you could be at $11,000 up.

I do like how they've made it modular and upgradable. The entry level (monitor only) is at a sweet price point for what it is. But like I said, for the recording, we need to wait til they have a real price and some shipping dates.
 
I see more now that I watched the video. The recorder is latent inside the monitor until you activiate it. Neat concept. The live switch option on the Q unit seems interesting. I agree, price of the recording options will be important and 1 512GB SSD costs $1,500...
 
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Dear Friends,

We expect to release pricing for our Odyssey7Q and recorder options in May, 2013. The prices discussed so far on this thread are not accurate.

The price of the 240 GB, 480 GB and 960 GB SSD's will not be the same as the price for the Gemini 4:4:4 SSD's.

The Odyssey family is such that you can purchase just the options that you need.

And you can rent the recording options on a daily basis, if you wish. This makes it easy for someone that does not need the recording option full time.

We have put professional level features into the Odyssey7 and Odyssey7Q. Thus, it is reasonable to use it as a wonderful 7.7" OLED Monitor until one needs to record, then either rent or purchase the appropriate options. (As opposed to purchasing a recorder just before you need it.)

Our Image Analysis Tools, Two Level Zebras, Waveform Monitor, RGB Parade, RGB Histogram, Color Vectorscope, Focus Assist (Peaking), False Color, 1 to 1 Pixel (Zoom) are all professional level implementations.

And one will be able to monitor from an ARRI ALEXA in ARRIRAW Mode, or from Canon C500 in 4K, if you wish. This is a very versatile monitor.

I will be happy to answer other questions.

Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
This is a great device! Great you can configure your codecs on the go. though I hope for the mpeg2 50mbit 422 codec that tv-networks request for their xdcam hd workflow.

4 channels analogue audio in would be great as well. Don't know if that is possible...
 
Dan Keaton said:
The prices discussed so far on this thread are not accurate.
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That's good to hear... I think... ;-)

Thanks for giving us a date for the full specs/prices. It is a very exciting product no doubt, but it's always a bit frustrating to hear about something like this then wait to find out whether it's even a realistic option.

I don't suppose you can drop us a hint about the FS700...? (Probably not, no worries.)

Cheers!
 
This is seriously a very interesting product. I had a pre-order on a $2700 SmallHD monitor because it was an OLED, with waveform/vectorscope/RGB parade, etc, and the ability to record h.264 on an SD card... and it looks like Convergent may be offering a very comparable monitor, for way way way less, and with the option of a vastly superior recorder.

I think this might very well be the upgrade I've been looking for. Want to hear more about battery options, and cost of recorder etc., but just as a monitor by itself it sounds like it's going to be quite competitive!
 
Since I have been looking at several of these Monitor/Recorder and recorder options lately this does look interesting. As always though I will wait until "accurate" pricing and "never accurate" delivery dates are provided. The delivery date comment is not a knock on Convergent Designs, but a general comment on so many companies showing a product at a large event like NAB and if and when they actually deliver can be a year or more from when they "present" the product. Just seems so common these days.

Anyway, if this product is available for delivery this summer it may met my needs.
 
Dan Keaton said:
Dear Friends,

We expect to release pricing for our Odyssey7Q and recorder options in May, 2013. The prices discussed so far on this thread are not accurate.

The price of the 240 GB, 480 GB and 960 GB SSD's will not be the same as the price for the Gemini 4:4:4 SSD's.

The Odyssey family is such that you can purchase just the options that you need.

Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
Click to expand...

G'day Dan, good to hear from you.

The codec licensing option sounds like a good idea depending on what you're planning on charging for each codec. I imagine it's going to be a sliding scale from ProRes up to the 4k codecs which would open up a big market with the lower end DSLR shooters like myself. I heard a rumour a few months ago that another manufacturer might be working on a similar design so I've been holding off on a monitor/recorder purchase until NAB. Given that you can buy a smallhd AC7 OLED, a hyperdeck shuttle, and a 480Gb SSD for $1900, a street price of around $2000 with ProRes would be very attractive to a lot of people myself included.
 
Barry_Green said:
I think this might very well be the upgrade I've been looking for. Want to hear more about battery options, and cost of recorder etc., but just as a monitor by itself it sounds like it's going to be quite competitive!
Click to expand...

Same here. The only things that bothers me is it's size. 7,7" is quite big for a lot of applications. I hope they eventually release a smaller model. An 3" EVF
with a recording option...now that would be terrific!!:)
 
KINOKS said:
Same here. The only things that bothers me is it's size. 7,7" is quite big for a lot of applications. I hope they eventually release a smaller model. An 3" EVF
with a recording option...now that would be terrific!!:)
Click to expand...

I mentioned the same thing to Dan Keaton on another thread here.
This is a real no brainer need for a lot of folks out there.

The other thing that I think would be important is to give it both SDI and HDMI capacity, so that as DSLR's evolve into HDMI out devices the EVF can evolve with them. Silly to have to buy two devices today for this kind of thing.
 
We all have different needs. I actually would prefer a 10" monitor as I shoot a lot on tripod and it is easier to nail focus in a live situation.
 
Bassman2003 said:
We all have different needs. I actually would prefer a 10" monitor as I shoot a lot on tripod and it is easier to nail focus in a live situation.
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I'm still waiting on a 9~10" 1920x1200 monitor, preferably OLED, that would probably be the last monitor I would need to buy forever.
 
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