Samurari First Impressions

eddavid

eddavid

Carbonite Member
I bought the Atomos Samurai based off of Alister Chapman's review: http://www.xdcam-user.com/2011/12/atomos-samurai-review/

I own 3 nanoflashes, a KI Pro Mini, the PIX 240 and now the Samurai that I'm using with my Sony F3 cameras.

Shot 720p60 all day from Sony F3 going to Pro Res 422. I used the Samsung 470 128gb SSD - they are the recommended drive for the PIX 240. No hiccups. Nothing wrong with the image quality.

The device is well built - reminds me very much of the design of the small hd. I had it rigged in the monitor position of my Steadicam Flyer - perfect nice balance. Nice easy way to do s log steadicam on my light weight machine.

The menu system is simple but for what it is - it's simple, easy, and slick. With its low power consumption, light weight and simplicity and so far no issues - I'm right now going to dub it the nanoflash of the 10 bit recorders - until C-D does their version.

The files I've viewed seem fine. I haven't done a thorough test yet and haven't shot s log onto it yet but as of now - I'm very happy with it. It boots quickly - uses ssd drives - doesn't weigh that much (especially after i use a d tap connection to power it). I am interested to see how it performs in the cold and heat - with a touch screen. Hopefully its okay. Doing a s log test today.
 
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I have nothing to compare it to, but it seems to work very well and the workflow is easier than SxS cards. In addition the 422HQ seems to grade much better than the 420. I am using the 750gb Hitachi hard disk which on a tripod setup works fine. I did have one corrupted file, but none since. The caddies and reader seem a little "rough" but otherwise the construction is excellent.
 
in what way would you say "rough?" I found the built of the caddies and the reader is excellent. With a SSD in there - everything was smooth.
 
The plastic of the caddies gets scraped with fine shavings coming off when placed in the reader and it is somewhat difficult to insert the caddies into the reader. I think that they could be a little better manufactured. The reader is not up to the same quality as the Samurai. They fit smoother into the Samurai itself. I think the construction quality of the Samurai is superb, but the reader is a notch down, sharp edges. It seems to work fine. I have used two of the caddies and they are both similar. I have ordered more and plan to try an SSD, but the HD seems fine for stationary use. From a fit and finish standpoint, I don't think it matter which type of memory is used.

I really like the new update which shows clearly when you are recording with a bright box around the image. I believe the Samurai is a great value.
 
Thanks for the write up Ed. Not to derail your thread but I am curious about your Flyer. Have you had the post rewired for HD or are you running an HD-SDI cable from the front of the top stage out and down to the monitor?
 
HDs are fine even for mobile use. We had our Ninja for half a year now and it only skipped frames (showing the kangaroo) once when shooting in a sports car driven quite aggressively. An SSD cured that and I'd always use SSDs for flight in smaller airplanes or choppers.
 
Hi Andrew - just running a hd sdi cable down from the top stage to the monitor. But I could look into rewiring it.
 
eddavid said:
Hi Andrew - just running a hd sdi cable down from the top stage to the monitor. But I could look into rewiring it.
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Just askin, as I am running with a Flyer and am doing the same with a cable running outside the post. Have thought through a few scenarios to get the post done up to HD spec but they are either quite involved and/or expensive.
 
New experience with my Samurai -- I did a short clip with a stationary setup of 6 minutes duration but on the Samurai it was split into two separate clips with a few frames lost in between. It was like the record button had been pressed to stop mid-clip and then immediately pressed again to restart. I had no indication from the Samurai screen that anything unusual had happened and only found out when the clips were downloaded. The SxS clip is a single one without error. I was using a 500 GB Hitachi 7200 drive. There was no cable issue and this has not happened in any of many other clips. Has anyone else seen this or have an idea? I have contacted Samurai's help line with a ticket.
 
The drive was formatted in the Samurai. This was the 2nd and 3rd clips on the drive (should have only been the 2nd). This is the second time I have had a problem with this drive which is newly purchased with the Samurai. The first time I had a skipped frame which was half green and then the audio did not sync with the video. My other drive is a Hitachi 750, and had dozens of clips on it, and never yet a problem. I just purchased two Samsung 470 128gb drives which are only $169 per -- they will hold over an hour at HQ and it is probably best to reformat between uses anyway. For longer projects I will use the 750. I suspect that the 750 might be a newer (faster?) architecture, but an SSD should be better. I actually had formatted the drive that had an issue multiple times on the Samurai after it had a problem the first time. System info shows it to be ExFAT.
 
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Well, I have seen problems with some SSDs on the Ninja which were not on Atomos' list. Maybe the drive you used isn't approved either.
 
Actually, if you read my post, I used a Hitachi 500gb 7200 drive which is the first on the list of approved drives. The SSD I ordered as a replacement is a Samsung 470 which is not on the list, and might not work, but it is on the list for other external recorders (PIX 240) and has very similar specs to the Intel. I have been in touch with Atomos, and they will be releasing a more extensive list of "approved" disks soon. I wanted something bigger than the 64gb SSD which is the only approved SSD on the list. Since other users on this forum reported good results on the Samurai with the Samsung, I thought it would be worth a try. Atomos thought it very strange that one clip was broken into two and suspected it was a disk problem. I have not had any problems with the Hitachi 750 and would recommend that one over the 500 since the cost difference is very small.
 
Yes, sorry, I didn't check the list. Looks like an anomaly with that specific drive, we used Samsung too without a failure.
 
I love the nanoflash and wish convergent design would upgrade that unit. It's still the best of the lot. 10 bit 240 i-frame would be nice.
 
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ddh said:
I love the nanoflash and wish convergent design would upgrade that unit. It's still the best of the lot. 10 bit 240 i-frame would be nice.
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That would be great but CD has stated that the Nano is what it is because of the proprietary Sony chips they used. They only handle 8 bits.
 
Samurai with Samsung 470 128GB seems to work flawlessly. It will record for 1.5 hours ProRes HQ. This seems like a better choice to me than the hard drives -- very fast, draw less power, and no errors on recording. Great workflow with FCP. I got to say, very impressed with the Samurai overall.
 
Samurai 2.61 was released today, but I have not been able to get it to upload. Anyone else have any luck? It seemed not to be a problem with 6.0 but following the same procedure, I cannot get the Samurai to boot off of the new firmware. I have tried two different freshly formatted disks and two different browsers.
 
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