Odyssey 7Q & Phantom Flex Questions

Ted Herod

Ted Herod

Active member
Hi All (and hopefully Mitch),

First, some quick background on the upcoming shoot in question:

1. Ultra High Speed (5350FPS @ 720p) LIVE in Studio Shoot--Must be available for broadcast within 1 minute of rolling.
2. There is one rehearsal day ahead of the live broadcast shoot.

Now there are some obvious difficulties here, but I think I've workshopped it: we're going to be able to set a custom post trigger, time out the triggering of the post-trigger during rehearsal, and then set an in/out onboard and send playback out to the control room at 29.97 over SDI all while Live.

We're trying to do a pre-tape on the rehearsal day as emergency backup, and I want to know if there are any limitations for capturing on the 7Q as opposed to a Phantom Cinemag.

In theory, I can send over a 720p 29.97 burst over SDI from the Phantom Flex to the 7Q... is the 7Q recording 720p over SDI now (preferably to ProRes)? And, if anyone with any Phantom experience knows, are there any other limitations I should be watching out for?

Thanks all, I appreciate your input!
 
I used to be the Phantom Guy before I became the Odyssey Guy, so I think I can help here!

While I have not tried this particular setup before, it should work just fine. The Flex2K can send out a standard 720p60 video signal (I'm pretty sure that in 720p it will only send out 720p60 or 720p50, which are the broadcast standards) and the Odyssey can see this and record it in ProRes. There's no trigger or timecode standards coming out of the Flex2K for us to latch onto, so you will need to manually hit record on the Odyssey when playing back from the Phantom and you should set the Odyssey to generate its own timecode (time of day in ND/DF or record run). Don't leave the timecode set to SDI/HDMI because then the clock won't roll and it will screw up playback.

I used to use this sort of setup all the time for our Phantom Photo Booth. Works great, but your big challenge will be cueing the playback accurately in under a minute when you shoot at that kind of frame rate. Be ready to spin that knob REALLY fast to scrub through the file!
 
Mitch Gross said:
I used to be the Phantom Guy before I became the Odyssey Guy, so I think I can help here!

While I have not tried this particular setup before, it should work just fine. The Flex2K can send out a standard 720p60 video signal (I'm pretty sure that in 720p it will only send out 720p60 or 720p50, which are the broadcast standards) and the Odyssey can see this and record it in ProRes. There's no trigger or timecode standards coming out of the Flex2K for us to latch onto, so you will need to manually hit record on the Odyssey when playing back from the Phantom and you should set the Odyssey to generate its own timecode (time of day in ND/DF or record run). Don't leave the timecode set to SDI/HDMI because then the clock won't roll and it will screw up playback.

I used to use this sort of setup all the time for our Phantom Photo Booth. Works great, but your big challenge will be cueing the playback accurately in under a minute when you shoot at that kind of frame rate. Be ready to spin that knob REALLY fast to scrub through the file!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply Mitch, I was hoping you would be this helpful!

And to clarify, I expect to only use the 7Q in the Pre-Tape, not during the live broadcast.

For the live Broadcast piece--my understanding it that I can set a very specific length of a Post-Trigger record on the Phantom? What we're trying to capture is actually a very systematic thing, so the goal is to rehearse it to a point that we understand how many seconds need to be recorded. That way we can adjust the Post-Trigger length and limit pre-roll to the shortest window possible. I'm sure we'll still be spinning the knob very quickly, regardless.
 
You can put the trigger at the beginning of the memory buffer, the end, or anywhere in between. Perhaps even better for your use is that you can partition the memory buffer into separate "takes" but I would caution that at the frame rates you're talking about it will be very difficult to keep up with the events simply because human reaction time just isn't very fast.

Definitely have a decent Phantom Tech with you who knows how to use the driver programs on a computer. This will be much, much faster in getting quickly to the part of the shot you need to play back and being all set to handle any quirks of the system. This sort of thing is easy for a good Phantom Tech.
 
Mitch, thanks again for the feedback. I've got a note out to a great Phantom Tech in the NYC area but haven't heard back from him--which is frustrating as the shoot is the end of the week. If you have any referrals for the NYC area, would love to get them.
 
There is a long list on the AbelCine website, complete with contact info. If you call the rental house you're getting the camera from I'm sure they can give you a number of recommendations.

It would be impolite for me to suggest one guy over another here.
 
Mitch Gross said:
There is a long list on the AbelCine website, complete with contact info. If you call the rental house you're getting the camera from I'm sure they can give you a number of recommendations.

It would be impolite for me to suggest one guy over another here.
Click to expand...

No worries, understood, Mitch. I've already been interfacing with Abel, they're having a tech shortage at the moment. No worries, we'll get it sorted though. Thank you again!
 
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