Samurai recording error

T

taras4444

Well-known member
Hey guys,

Recently I've been doing some further tests with my af100 and samurai and am starting to get a little concerned, panicking quite a lot! So any advice would be much appreciated. I've attached some videos to display some of the problems. First please ignore the shoddy footage in terms of exposure etc, was just a quick test.

I've noticed that there is a lot of "Shudder" with movement in the clips especially the first link, which does not come up on the sd cards. Another big problem is when ever the camera moves or pans the top of the frame seems to band or drag horribly! Any ideas? I'm using the mini sdi to main sdi cables that came with the samurai, so I don't understand how they may be the issue (they look fine). Is there any standard sdi cables anyone can recommend if so?

I'm using a Scorpio Black WD 750 gb drive (product code WD7500BPKT). I appreciate hard drives have moving parts and are not as sturdy as SSD's , but surely it should be able to take a bit of panning etc!? SSD's are expensive and while I may have to opt for a good Intel 250gb ssd for £150, that is no where near enough space for a feature when recording at high pro res.

Another potential thing is when editing in adobe cs5.5, i noticed I'm using the timeline project settings for AVCD HD, will that effect it as it's pro res? (As i can't see a pro res option). Would be interested to hear what Barry has to say too, as I'm about to have a nervous breakdown with filming a month away! (All the sd card footage looks fine with no issues).

Here are the clips :

https://vimeo.com/65550459

https://vimeo.com/65552021

At my wits end here so I'm hoping someone points out something obvious I'm missing, as I'm really not impressed at the moment. Thanks for reading.
 
Taras

I am not seeing anything in those samples that I would not expect (considering the rough technique of the test as well. eg dodgy fast pans)

Any shudder you maybe seeing is probably more to do with how, what and where you are observing this. eg an underpowered computer not quite managing the high data rate and file size. Both of these of course are the advantage when filming and they actually will be minimising that issue during acquisition.

Hard drives. Obviously SSD are preferable and have advantages ( that outweigh their cost IMO). I suggest you need a few (smaller) drives as opposed to one larger one no matter what you use.

In Premiere..use any HD Sequence setting for your Prores. The same one you use for your AVCHD is fine and what I use. ie Premiere doesnt really care and the sequence presets are only conveniences to the editor. One can mix anything on any timeline in Premiere.

Glad to see you are testing and learning your "gear" before you start shooting. It will pay off and you will be confident by the time you do start.

EDIT:
Sorry - meant to add this tip for dual recording Samurai and SD.

They both have a different clip numbering "system".

Avchd starts at clip ####0 and the Samurai at #####1.

We always roll the camera on the SD card for one clip (Bars) before setting the Samurai to trigger record. THis then menas you have fclip numbers that correspond directly numerically in order.
 
I also cannot see any problems with the clips.

I agree with the points Shooter has made and the only other thing I can think of is that you may be shooting interlaced to your internal cards and 24p or some other progressive frame rate to the samurai. When comparing the two different clips the progressive clips can tend to look very juddery at first.

I also thought you may have had image stabilization on your lens that can sometimes do wierd things when doing tripod moves. But scince what your shooting to your internal cards is fine we can eliminate this from the equation.

Surinder.
 
The samurai is capturing an interlaced signal as that's all that comes out of the SDI port at 1080 and doing the pull down to progressive so they should look the same especially if your using 24psf, I can't really see anything in the first clip and perhaps an odd jump near the end of the second, I echo what shooter said, SSDS only, forget the spinners and go for smaller drives, WD in particular make budget larger drives with lower capacity drive internals, I was told that by a lab when trying to have my bricked WD 2TB drive recovered a few years back, also, an SSD that can hold around an hour of footage is ideal for feature work, around 128 gig, thats a fair amount of shots/turn arounds, you want two or three of them, get your DIT going on your first drive and swap over to your second and with a third you always have a backup, your looking at about £200 investment form Amazon for Sandisk 120gb SSDs
 
Hmm just watched the clips and now it's not there, very strange indeed :S Maybe it is my computer, I need a good clear up for sure! Bit more of a relief though, will do many more tests to be sure, may be tempted now to record not at high rate but standard 4:2:2 to be safe, plus now I am feeling about getting an SSD for my main drive in that case if you all so thoroughly recommend them. (Just quite low on budget!)

Do you think the following would be ok? Would probably get the 240, that'd be about 2-3 hours of footage right?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006EKJ8UI/ref=noref?ie=UTF8&psc=1&s=computers

What I'm thinking then is to use the SSD (can only afford one) for my main filming and most action out doorsy scenes, then for the internal static scenes use the harddrive if the SSD is full. And I'm recording 25fps on my sd card and camera, so I guess despite being interlaced into the samurai it should still look the same right XSV?

And thanks Shooter, that's a great little tip! I'll be sure to do that! I hope my computer will stop shuddering the footage as it is quite off putting when editing!
 
Shooter said:
Taras

I am not seeing anything in those samples that I would not expect (considering the rough technique of the test as well. eg dodgy fast pans)

Any shudder you maybe seeing is probably more to do with how, what and where you are observing this. eg an underpowered computer not quite managing the high data rate and file size. Both of these of course are the advantage when filming and they actually will be minimising that issue during acquisition.

Hard drives. Obviously SSD are preferable and have advantages ( that outweigh their cost IMO). I suggest you need a few (smaller) drives as opposed to one larger one no matter what you use.

In Premiere..use any HD Sequence setting for your Prores. The same one you use for your AVCHD is fine and what I use. ie Premiere doesnt really care and the sequence presets are only conveniences to the editor. One can mix anything on any timeline in Premiere.

Glad to see you are testing and learning your "gear" before you start shooting. It will pay off and you will be confident by the time you do start.

EDIT:
Sorry - meant to add this tip for dual recording Samurai and SD.

They both have a different clip numbering "system".

Avchd starts at clip ####0 and the Samurai at #####1.

We always roll the camera on the SD card for one clip (Bars) before setting the Samurai to trigger record. THis then menas you have fclip numbers that correspond directly numerically in order.
Click to expand...

That's a very useful dual recording tip Shooter thanks for sharing.

Surinder.
 
Get 2 (at least)..smaller SSDs if you are going this route.

You have to think of downloading times and workflow efficiencies plus of course...how much data you might want to lose if you lose a single drive or it fails!

Regular downloading and archiving (while shooting) is part of the game and its foolish to ignore the practice.

FYI: A full 120GB drive takes considerable time to transfer the data to anything. Obviously a SSD is a lot faster than normal drives but its is still a long time.

240GB ..well twice as long again!
 
Shooter said:
Get 2 (at least)..smaller SSDs if you are going this route.

You have to think of downloading times and workflow efficiencies plus of course...how much data you might want to lose if you lose a single drive or it fails!

Regular downloading and archiving (while shooting) is part of the game and its foolish to ignore the practice.

FYI: A full 120GB drive takes considerable time to transfer the data to anything. Obviously a SSD is a lot faster than normal drives but its is still a long time.

240GB ..well twice as long again!
Click to expand...

Again, shooter is spot on, especially about the workflow practice (DIT) and the amount of data you are leaving on one SSD, you should try and consider the safety of your footage over how much recording time you get. Not to bring up the old thread or be condescending but we did mention thinking about the whole system when moving up to external capture, if the samurai purchase has affected the SSD purchase then put this down as lesson learnt and remember that the budget needs to cover all your needs (why i went in my direction).

Does the samurai dock support FireWire 800 or usb3? Will dramatically speed up the backup on set but shooter is right, do a dummy run and see how long it takes and factor that into your shooting schedule.

Oh and 25p should be fine, it will be 50i pulled down to 25p via the SDi. Glad your feeling a little less panicked about your footage which looked pretty sharp (in a good way)
 
Thanks guys, just realised too that the caddys for the harddrives were missing a few screws so the disks were a little loose (a possible explanation too for the jittery errors). I bought that San Disk SSD 256gb which seems sweet, plus my two hard drives and I'm looking a little better now. Will do more tests and keep you updated. Thanks for the info again. (And the Samurai is usb 3 which is nice). PS- Thanks for the tip again Shooter, those colour bar recordings at the start makes things sync so much easier and it's now a lot more organised!
 
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