Questions?

John Foundas

John Foundas

Well-known member
I'm shooting a documentary that has the potential to be shown at some art house/big screen venues. Is shooting with a nano flash strictly for complex grading etc...or is it necessary for working on big screen productions? Will the 24mbs hold up resolution wise?
Ideas and experience would be appreciated.
Thanks.
 
If you're shooting interviews, I would have no qualms in saying that you will probably be plenty fine with the native codec. If shooting complex scenes with tons of moving detail, you might prefer the Nano. Unquestionably the Nano at 100mbps delivers a more robust image, so if you're looking for the very best, get it -- it's great. But the native codec is quite robust and can handle most everything you throw at it.
 
Thanks you Barry, much appreciated. I take it the atmos will achieve the same result, perhaps at a lower price?
 
Johnf said:
Thanks you Barry, much appreciated. I take it the atmos will achieve the same result, perhaps at a lower price?
Click to expand...

At higher bitrates there is pretty much no difference in MPEG 2, MPEG 4, DCT, etc when it's I frame, so the difference in bitrates is a better way to tell the difference in quality. The Ninja tops out at 176 Mbps for 1080 24p where as the Nanoflash is 280 Mbps for 1080 24p. Plus some of the Ninja's bitrate is wasted since the AF100 only streams 8 bit to a 10 bit codec.
 
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Johnf said:
Thanks you Barry, much appreciated. I take it the atmos will achieve the same result, perhaps at a lower price?
Click to expand...

I am not prepared to say that. One is a $795 product, with a monitor. The other is a $2895 product, with no monitor. I have to believe that the extra $2,000 is meaningful somehow. I don't know exactly how, but I'm not one who typically believes in fairy dust and magical products, I've found that for the most part, you get what you pay for and you don't get what you don't pay for (within a comparable technology, of course).

I would like to see comparative results to know for sure; I think basing decisions off spec sheets is a pretty iffy way to go. I'm not knocking the Ninja, but the Nano is proven and successful and solid and basically great. The Ninja will have to prove itself. The codec itself may be ProRes, but what about the hardware between the HDMI port and the codec, etc... and are all ProRes encoders equal? I don't know. But I know that not all AVCHD is equal, there's massive differences. And not all HDV was equal. So ... I can give you authoritative answers on the Nano, but Ninja answers should wait until it can be given a proper comparative test.
 
Wishful thinking (on my part) but if Convergent would "relax" the price point on the NanoFlash it would make my decision much easier . . . perhaps after NAB?
 
dregenthal said:
Wishful thinking (on my part) but if Convergent would "relax" the price point on the NanoFlash it would make my decision much easier . . . perhaps after NAB?
Click to expand...

Your thinking may be wishful.... but for a split second the same wish whizzed through my brain too....

Am juggling plenty of dreamlike thoughts about Ninjas, Samurais, KiPros NanoFlashes and my bank account......
 
The nano flash is reliable and they have some of the best customer service in the business. They may be a bit expensive, but you do in fact get what you pay for. I bought one used for about 65-70% of retail, so if you can find one used. Though most people that have them don't generally want to sell them :)
 
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