New Nebtek 70HDS Firmware Upgrade!

T

Tim Naylor

Veteran
They finally out did themselves. I've been a Nebtek fan since I bought a Marshall from them a few years back. Their customer service is legend. When they came out with the 70HDS I had to weigh a few options before buying it. It was between the Neb and the Panny LH 80. Panny had the waveform. Nebtek had full loop through (component and SDI). Panny had pixel for pixel and focus in red. Nebtek was lighter and took HVX batts. The dillema was tough so I flipped a coin and bought the Neb.

Recently, I sent in the Neb for service and they added a firmware upgrade (free of charge) that really created a different beast.

First, they added pixel for pixel. Great for critical focus.

But the most amazing advance is their "false exposure" option. Hit the blue burst button twice and it goes into this mode where your picture is now "painted" in different colors representing different luminance values in ten to twelve different colors (each representing 10% IRE increments). The clip value (above 100%) is red. 90-100% is orange. 70% is light grey. 50 % is medium grey and so on.

It's a whole new way of looking at exposure. Your image is now one big zone system. No longer do you have to extrapolate from a waveform graph to correspond with an image. It's like a waveform became an image. Looks kind of like "Predator" vision. Hit the peaking button in this mode and a table appears that shows the IRE percentage and corresponding color. You see the IRE value of every element in your image. Far more advanced than a waveform and easier to apply.

It took about five minutes to get used to and an hour to find it indispensable.

I used it on a RED shoot where I had RED monitor's histogram to interpolate from. I ended up mounting both monitors and using the Nebtek as my "light meter" over RED's histo system. I found Nebs to be much more intuitive. If apple were to invent a digital exposure system, this is what they'd have come up with.

The monitor is close to pefect for me now. I only wish the peaking came in more colors than just white. A red peaking would complete the picture so to speak.

Otherwise, great work. Congrats, Neb folks on the good work.
 
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Call them. Probably. You'll get a real person on the phone too. All I can say it's a whole new monitor with this upgrade. It's replaced my waveform for exposure. And the image is still sweet. At 2G it's a serious contender with SDI/Component loop through.

My only issue with it is in real cold weather you have to flick the on/off a few times to get it to boot up (Chip has to warm up). That's really it.
 
This is exactly what I was hoping for as well(have been getting some uneven exposure results when logging footage), and the Nebtek service is awesome.
I was going to send it back anyway to fix a little PAL/flip bug it had :)
 
Tim Naylor said:
They finally out did themselves. I've been a Nebtek fan since I bought a Marshall from them a few years back. Their customer service is legend. When they came out with the 70HDS I had to weigh a few options before buying it. It was between the Neb and the Panny LH 80. Panny had the waveform. Nebtek had full loop through (component and SDI). Panny had pixel for pixel and focus in red. Nebtek was lighter and took HVX batts. The dillema was tough so I flipped a coin and bought the Neb.

Recently, I sent in the Neb for service and they added a firmware upgrade (free of charge) that really created a different beast.

First, they added pixel for pixel. Great for critical focus.

But the most amazing advance is their "false exposure" option. Hit the blue burst button twice and it goes into this mode where your picture is now "painted" in different colors representing different luminance values in ten to twelve different colors (each representing 10% IRE increments). The clip value (above 100%) is red. 90-100% is orange. 70% is light grey. 50 % is medium grey and so on.

It's a whole new way of looking at exposure. Your image is now one big zone system. No longer do you have to extrapolate from a waveform graph to correspond with an image. It's like a waveform became an image. Looks kind of like "Predator" vision. Hit the peaking button in this mode and a table appears that shows the IRE percentage and corresponding color. You see the IRE value of every element in your image. Far more advanced than a waveform and easier to apply.

It took about five minutes to get used to and an hour to find it indispensable.

I used it on a RED shoot where I had RED monitor's histogram to interpolate from. I ended up mounting both monitors and using the Nebtek as my "light meter" over RED's histo system. I found Nebs to be much more intuitive. If apple were to invent a digital exposure system, this is what they'd have come up with.

The monitor is close to pefect for me now. I only wish the peaking came in more colors than just white. A red peaking would complete the picture so to speak.

Otherwise, great work. Congrats, Neb folks on the good work.
Click to expand...

You know this is also on your RED, right? A built-in feature?
I use it whenever I light a greenscreen.

Nice that they offer it in an on-board of another brand.
 
Tim Naylor said:
Just discovered it. Go figure. Still discovering new things in the menu. Too bad the RED monitor is only for RED.
Click to expand...

I've said that same thing on several occasions I could be completely happy with that kind of LCD on anything else. Sigh.
 
I've just go the 70HDS - in the UK. But mine doesn't appear to have the features, must have been dispatched too early. Talk about bad luck timing!

Just out of interest how do you turn on pixel-by-pixel mode?

thanks
 
How accurate is the color on that monitor?
I had a trial version last year that I loved for its sharpness until I compared it to a Panny and then realized it was consistently colder than the real picture was.
They may have changed it since then though.

Lenny
 
Eyeballing it looks neutral/accurate enough to me. But I'm going to measure it and see what numbers I get.
 
I just got the upgrade, I shipped it back to Nebtek and they did it me for free as I'd only just purchased it. The colour/intensity mapping feature is really interesting.

Great service from Nebtek so far.

Just a little cautious about mounting the monitor on the camera as it seems quite heavy and I'm not sure what the hot shoe would take.
 
I usually mount it to rods via Zacuto baseplate 15mm rods to SG pro 15mm bridgeplate to arm boned to manfrotto heavy duty ball mount to monitor.

For mounting directly to camera be careful. I wouldn't go with hot shoe - too heavy. I use a mini cardellni on the handle with 3/8" thread at the end to Manfrotto heavy duty ball mount. That'll run about 90 bucks. Film tools should have it. It tends to be top heavy in this configuraion.

I also tend to use Bescor battery belts hanging on the tripod, takes weight off camera and lasts longer. Sometimes I use the panasonic hvx batteries.

Concerning color accuracy, it's not what I'd use for color correction but you can get it really well dialed in and calibrated. Far better than a Marshall. Comparable to a Pany 80. Has blue burst.
 
Thanks Tim that's really useful - I'm new to this configuration.

Do you have any pictures of either configuration?

(the mini cardellni - is this clamped to the handle rather than screwed?)
 
No pics. Just go to film tools. I mount the mini cardellini onto the camera handle (still must be careful not to ding it). Ideally mount it on rods or get the large cardellni to 3/8ths and clamp it somewhere to your tripod. Also Film tools has a great cardellini to ultralight mount. Excellent deal.
 
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