Lenilenapi
Carbonite Member
If the Samurai cannot output SDI on playback then those guys are nuts and showing the same tremendous acumen as they did when designing the Ninja or virtually no camera in existence. Hope this is wrong. Its absolutely a deal killer for me or anyone I would think who cares about his footage. You have to be able to check it.
tom.wong
Well-known member
just played around with the Ki mini for the past 2 days. it's a love hate relationship with it. first off, the thing DOESN'T do roll over recording. which makes me wonder why they even put a second slot in there. maybe it will unlock with a firmware upgrade? as of now it doesn't do it, it just lets you save a few seconds from switching out a card physically, letting you just press the slot button rolling over to the next card.
scrolling through menus on such a tiny screen is def a pain. feels like being on the back of a R1, and as of now I haven't found any kind of overlay on the display out to use to see your menu settings. best way to navigate and use the unit IMHO is tethered to a laptop. not idea for a lot of productions, but it's the easiest way to manage your settings and change clip names, reel #, etc. not a big deal if your DIT is doing it. if not, camera mounting you'll have to do some menu digging to set up, or set up ahead of time.
an actual physical format of the cards in the unit takes a long time, makes an R1 hard drive format look lightning fast. best way to do it is format it once, and just do the delete all clips option to remove your clips. careful of not unmounting it from a mac properly ever, it will corrupt the mounting structure of the card the ki mini will require a in unit format before you can use it again. but you can hook it back to a computer and run your backup before format no problem.
as far as i can tell, 32 gb sandisk extreme pro 90 mb/sec are working just fine. no dropped frames, no errors out of the couple hours of test recording I did. the sucker gets really hot though. like, burn your hands hot. cards included.
for those thinking of hooking the HDMI out to a HP Dreamcolor, it doesn't have a full RGB output on it, it's a YUV output like most hdmi devices. you'll need a converter box. both outputs are hot coming out which are nice though.
tc trigger for record pretty solid, laptop tether also works flawless. but you have to mind your settings though. If you have some settings disabled it won't create a new clip for you every time you record, but replace the existing clip on the card. Meaning don't expect to rent one and have it work exactly the way you want it right away, check all your settings, 5 times.
nice easter egg, the latest firmware update lets you record 720p/60p. no issues there either, conformed the framerate and scaled it up to 1080 in compressor and it looked pretty good. the noise floor is so low on the camera, i didn't see any additional noise on the upscale, and i'd need a large projection or pixel peeping to see it as softer. broadcast and web this is a nice little solution to get a much cleaner overcrank. and no you don't have to change any settings on the ki mini, you set your f3 to overcrank and start recording, the ki mini will automatically figure out the framerate and resolution it needs to be recording at.
the thing is actually also smaller than pictures and videos you see online. it's pretty compact. I still don't like to fact that it's CF cards for acquisition, I have a lot of beef it it, and I'm peeved it doesn't do rollover recording. a 32 gb at HQ mode is 18-23 minutes of recording depending on the shot. and a 64 gb is 550 dollars, and the 128 gb is somewhere int he 1200 dollar range. price per gb is really expensive, and the larger the capacity of a CF card the less reliable of the speed performance. i think aja only qualifies the 32 gb, and 64 gb's right now. so if you plan to do some really really long takes, or timelapse shots with ki mini, it's not happening right now.
for 2 grand, I think the ki mini is exactly what it is, a 2000 dollar recorder. i don't think it's a rip off, I just think there are areas it can really do better. overlay on your display on the output for scrolling through menus, and roll over recording. other than that, the price seems right.
i'm still holding out for the pix 240 though, it's pretty much everything I'd want from a single link recorder. I'm also gonna try to figure out a way to wifi tether to the ki mini... it's really the way to go for operating the unit IMHO.
scrolling through menus on such a tiny screen is def a pain. feels like being on the back of a R1, and as of now I haven't found any kind of overlay on the display out to use to see your menu settings. best way to navigate and use the unit IMHO is tethered to a laptop. not idea for a lot of productions, but it's the easiest way to manage your settings and change clip names, reel #, etc. not a big deal if your DIT is doing it. if not, camera mounting you'll have to do some menu digging to set up, or set up ahead of time.
an actual physical format of the cards in the unit takes a long time, makes an R1 hard drive format look lightning fast. best way to do it is format it once, and just do the delete all clips option to remove your clips. careful of not unmounting it from a mac properly ever, it will corrupt the mounting structure of the card the ki mini will require a in unit format before you can use it again. but you can hook it back to a computer and run your backup before format no problem.
as far as i can tell, 32 gb sandisk extreme pro 90 mb/sec are working just fine. no dropped frames, no errors out of the couple hours of test recording I did. the sucker gets really hot though. like, burn your hands hot. cards included.
for those thinking of hooking the HDMI out to a HP Dreamcolor, it doesn't have a full RGB output on it, it's a YUV output like most hdmi devices. you'll need a converter box. both outputs are hot coming out which are nice though.
tc trigger for record pretty solid, laptop tether also works flawless. but you have to mind your settings though. If you have some settings disabled it won't create a new clip for you every time you record, but replace the existing clip on the card. Meaning don't expect to rent one and have it work exactly the way you want it right away, check all your settings, 5 times.
nice easter egg, the latest firmware update lets you record 720p/60p. no issues there either, conformed the framerate and scaled it up to 1080 in compressor and it looked pretty good. the noise floor is so low on the camera, i didn't see any additional noise on the upscale, and i'd need a large projection or pixel peeping to see it as softer. broadcast and web this is a nice little solution to get a much cleaner overcrank. and no you don't have to change any settings on the ki mini, you set your f3 to overcrank and start recording, the ki mini will automatically figure out the framerate and resolution it needs to be recording at.
the thing is actually also smaller than pictures and videos you see online. it's pretty compact. I still don't like to fact that it's CF cards for acquisition, I have a lot of beef it it, and I'm peeved it doesn't do rollover recording. a 32 gb at HQ mode is 18-23 minutes of recording depending on the shot. and a 64 gb is 550 dollars, and the 128 gb is somewhere int he 1200 dollar range. price per gb is really expensive, and the larger the capacity of a CF card the less reliable of the speed performance. i think aja only qualifies the 32 gb, and 64 gb's right now. so if you plan to do some really really long takes, or timelapse shots with ki mini, it's not happening right now.
for 2 grand, I think the ki mini is exactly what it is, a 2000 dollar recorder. i don't think it's a rip off, I just think there are areas it can really do better. overlay on your display on the output for scrolling through menus, and roll over recording. other than that, the price seems right.
i'm still holding out for the pix 240 though, it's pretty much everything I'd want from a single link recorder. I'm also gonna try to figure out a way to wifi tether to the ki mini... it's really the way to go for operating the unit IMHO.
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Lenilenapi
Carbonite Member
Just received this email from Samurai:
"The Samurai will play back video on it's internal screen. It's a high resolution screen that is intended to work as a field monitor and we will be adding monitor-assist functions to it. Most of the feedback we have had with the Samurai is that people will be using it instead of a field monitor as it will save them money and reduce the amount of equipment that they have to carry around."
I told them I think its a big mistake. I'd rather have a recorder with no screen and SDI playback that i can hook up to the monitor I picked from all the choices out there. In my case a TV logic that costs as much as the Samurai. No SDI playback is probably a deal killer for me - guess its sound devices and an extra $1300 - Damn!
Curious what you guys think.
"The Samurai will play back video on it's internal screen. It's a high resolution screen that is intended to work as a field monitor and we will be adding monitor-assist functions to it. Most of the feedback we have had with the Samurai is that people will be using it instead of a field monitor as it will save them money and reduce the amount of equipment that they have to carry around."
I told them I think its a big mistake. I'd rather have a recorder with no screen and SDI playback that i can hook up to the monitor I picked from all the choices out there. In my case a TV logic that costs as much as the Samurai. No SDI playback is probably a deal killer for me - guess its sound devices and an extra $1300 - Damn!
Curious what you guys think.
David Shapton
Well-known member
Personally, I don't think I'm nuts. And presumably, if your logic is right, the very large number of Ninja customer are connecting them to their washing machines. I should add that one of the reasons that we're getting such a large number of pre-orders for the Samurai is because it has a high resolution screen for monitoring playback, which means that they won't have to pay the same price again for an external monitor. We're not claiming to be as good as a dedicated monitor, but, for most people, we're more than good enough.
Dave Shapton
President
Atomos EMEA
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Postmaster
Dark Side of the Camera
I tried to figure out my future workflow for that.
Scenario 1
BM Shuttle = 300 Euros
two Intel® 320series 2,5" SSD 300 GB = 900 Euro
Laptop for dumping on set = 1200 Euro
External eSata Storage and docking station = 600 Euro
= 3000 Euros
Scenario 2
BM Shuttle = 300 Euros
two Intel® 320series 2,5" SSD 300 GB = 900 Euro
Docking station that copies without a laptop = 40 Euros
Six 300 GB HDDs for dumping = 220
= 1460 Euros
The problem here is, you cant check or review what (or even if) you have copied your material.
Scenario 3
Cinemartin = 1800 Euros
6 HDDs = 360 Euros
= 2160 Euros
I really like this scenario, cause I have everything in one single, mobile, battery powered unit. Less cluttered than Scenario 1 and cheaper.
By the way, uncompressed can be lossless squirreled away with WinRAR at about 10-20% (depending on material) of the original data space, which brings it in the same league as DNxHD, ProRes, JPEG2000 or Cneform, with the only difference, that we are talking REALLY lossless, not only virtually lossless.
This is useful for storing/archiving only though.
my ct2, Frank
tom.wong
Well-known member
going by the aja data rate calculator, if you are shooting a high ratio narrative, let's say 2 hours of footage a day. which is a pretty good amount for narrative, at 10 bit YUV, 23.98 framerate and 2 channels of audio embedded, it's almost 1 tb a day. 955.54 gb according to the calculator to be exact. and the number should fluctuate depending on how much contrast and detail is in each shot. and if you make just won redundant copy, than it's 2x 1 tb drives you are going through a day. so if you just copy to cheap internal drives with dock station, roughly, that's a 130 dollars a day going to drives. (You can get a 1 tb internal hd for 65 dollars these days)
still cheaper than a single 124 minute hdcam sr tape
it's all about what people can manage, the workflow can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be.
still cheaper than a single 124 minute hdcam sr tape
it's all about what people can manage, the workflow can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be.
Matttrebor
Member
The Samurai does have a SDI output. And I think you can disable the monitor making the batteries live longer. So I don't see why including a monitor should be an issue considering the price.
G
G.P.
Guest
going by the aja data rate calculator, if you are shooting a high ratio narrative, let's say 2 hours of footage a day. which is a pretty good amount for narrative, at 10 bit YUV, 23.98 framerate and 2 channels of audio embedded, it's almost 1 tb a day. 955.54 gb according to the calculator to be exact. and the number should fluctuate depending on how much contrast and detail is in each shot. and if you make just won redundant copy, than it's 2x 1 tb drives you are going through a day. so if you just copy to cheap internal drives with dock station, roughly, that's a 130 dollars a day going to drives. (You can get a 1 tb internal hd for 65 dollars these days)
still cheaper than a single 124 minute hdcam sr tape
it's all about what people can manage, the workflow can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be.
I think you're underestimating the amount of footage being put away per day. I would say around 4 Hours to be safe for a 12 hour shooting day at a medium ratio and thats only with 1 camera not 2. Lots of directors like to say "still rolling" and continue to reset while the camera burns away. Theres also lots of times where the takes are long like in an action sequence, or a long well rehearsed conversation on a 2 camera shoot. Those takes can be 5 mins or longer each. And if its a 2 camera shoot thats 10 mins a take right there. Making it around 8 hours of footage a day and lots more data to backup.
bgundu
Veteran
The Samurai has SDI loop through.
http://www.atomos.com/samurai/
EDIT: sorry missed the conversation about playback through the Samurai to external monitors. Looks like the SDI output is just for live feed.
http://www.atomos.com/samurai/
EDIT: sorry missed the conversation about playback through the Samurai to external monitors. Looks like the SDI output is just for live feed.
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G
G.P.
Guest
So after all it seems like "both" is the option I'm going with haha. Its so cheap I can't afford not to buy the shuttle. So I can also use the same SSD drive in that which I would use with say the Samuri. For $336 street price, you can't not buy it. So thats my conclusion. I can use it whenever we do green screen work, or just higher end feature work that only want the best.
tom.wong
Well-known member
whoah nelly, you gotta find yourself more director's that have some discipline
the bane of digital and long record times, makes you appreciate shorter record times to kick start the production to go for what they really want, rather than rolling a ton off stuff and pray they got something. Worked about 4 features now, and never saw 8 hours a day on narrative on single camera shoots. Max was 3, average was 1-2. The last RED feature I was on, we were averaging 300 gb days, which is an hour and a half ish. and they were rolling a lot of takes.
even at 8 hours a day, if you are doing R1, Epic, or Alexa at pro res 444, that's still a lot of data to backup no matter which way you swing it. You should see how much data they are pushing through with ArriRaw workflows... again, it's more about what the production can and cannot deal with. is a indie music video really gonna dish out that much for hard drives when they barely have enough for crafty? probably not. will that high end commercial going to get it's finish at Deluxe ,Technicolor, or Company 3, be able to handle it better? of course. It's not as hard to accomodate as you think, it's just about whether you really want it or not.
G
G.P.
Guest
the 8 hours was for 2 camera shoot, not one. 4 hours each. I'm on my 11th feature and about half of them have hit the 3 hours and up mark a day per camera. We shoot a lot per day. The hardest shoot with long takes I did was the Hitchock film "Rope". I DP'ed the remake (which I have no idea when its coming out). The film hardly cut, we shot with 2 cameras constantly and for half the film 3 cameras. 2 RED Ones and a panasonic HPX. We had hours and hours of footage per day. It really depends on what you're shooting, but out in Africa on my last feature we hit 3 hours from one camera a few times, and mostly stayed around 1.5 to 2.5 hours depending on the setup.
Bottom line is, you always need to take into consideration not just what you're used to working with, but whats going to come in the future. I work mainly in feature film shoots now, so its always completely different. But figuring out the worst case scenario is what you need to figure out. Shooting uncompressed with a 2 camera shoot with a director the lets the cameras roll will end up with a DIT crying every day. But thats what you need to know. on ROPE we had a good DIT, and everything went smooth (sort of). We did our doubles and at lunch time did our categorizing with sound files on the drives. (we were on a sound stage the whole film so no locations to factor into).
And as far as the double backup vs triple.... Out in Africa I was doing a triple backup, and thankfully so, because by the time we got through with half the shoot, there was only 1 drive working left. We had to get another to dupe. On a feature I would never go less than a 3 dupe backup. The prices in harddrives are nothing compared to losing days/weeks of footage and/or sound files. So for me at least those numbers are tripled.
So on a heavy shoot with 2 cameras and triple backup of 10bit uncompressed you're looking at about 5TB's a day of footage. That ends up being much more expensive. On a 30 day shoot thats 150 TB of footage. Now again this is a worst case scenario... but thats the whole point. You'll never know what comes your way until you're hired. It could easily swing the other way and only put away about 1.5 hours a day which would be around 937.78 GB a day from the camera... so thats 1TB a day with a triple backup thats 3TB times 30 days of shooting thats still 90TB of footage. again even on a super light shoot, cut that in half you're still at around 45-50TB's of data you'll be dishing out.
So working uncompressed at any scale is still an expense that needs to be though about.
Bottom line is, you always need to take into consideration not just what you're used to working with, but whats going to come in the future. I work mainly in feature film shoots now, so its always completely different. But figuring out the worst case scenario is what you need to figure out. Shooting uncompressed with a 2 camera shoot with a director the lets the cameras roll will end up with a DIT crying every day. But thats what you need to know. on ROPE we had a good DIT, and everything went smooth (sort of). We did our doubles and at lunch time did our categorizing with sound files on the drives. (we were on a sound stage the whole film so no locations to factor into).
And as far as the double backup vs triple.... Out in Africa I was doing a triple backup, and thankfully so, because by the time we got through with half the shoot, there was only 1 drive working left. We had to get another to dupe. On a feature I would never go less than a 3 dupe backup. The prices in harddrives are nothing compared to losing days/weeks of footage and/or sound files. So for me at least those numbers are tripled.
So on a heavy shoot with 2 cameras and triple backup of 10bit uncompressed you're looking at about 5TB's a day of footage. That ends up being much more expensive. On a 30 day shoot thats 150 TB of footage. Now again this is a worst case scenario... but thats the whole point. You'll never know what comes your way until you're hired. It could easily swing the other way and only put away about 1.5 hours a day which would be around 937.78 GB a day from the camera... so thats 1TB a day with a triple backup thats 3TB times 30 days of shooting thats still 90TB of footage. again even on a super light shoot, cut that in half you're still at around 45-50TB's of data you'll be dishing out.
So working uncompressed at any scale is still an expense that needs to be though about.
G
G.P.
Guest
Also to put it into perspective... those were all numbers for uncompressed... If shooting in ProRes 10bit 422 HQ the use of data is 10x LESS per minute. Thats a huge amount less
1 minute footage in Uncompressed 10bit = 10.42 gigs
1 minute footage in ProRes 10bit 422 HQ = 1.3 gigs
Producers might say screw the uncompressed once they find out how much less data is needed for ProRes HQ. Again its all about quality vs quantity ($$$)
If it was a VFX movie, I would tell them they'll actually save money going uncompressed for post work, keys will take much less time, as well as tweaks and that will save time in post. You might actually cost more money shooting in ProRes HQ for a vfx movie if you hit post only to find out theres not enough data there to pull a lot of keys clean, or are unsatisfied with the amount of data to work with and need to tweak every vfx shot to get a stamp of "final" from the director or V.S.
1 minute footage in Uncompressed 10bit = 10.42 gigs
1 minute footage in ProRes 10bit 422 HQ = 1.3 gigs
Producers might say screw the uncompressed once they find out how much less data is needed for ProRes HQ. Again its all about quality vs quantity ($$$)
If it was a VFX movie, I would tell them they'll actually save money going uncompressed for post work, keys will take much less time, as well as tweaks and that will save time in post. You might actually cost more money shooting in ProRes HQ for a vfx movie if you hit post only to find out theres not enough data there to pull a lot of keys clean, or are unsatisfied with the amount of data to work with and need to tweak every vfx shot to get a stamp of "final" from the director or V.S.
Lenilenapi
Carbonite Member
My apologies to Atomos for ill considered rudeness. I'm sure they're not nuts and I was just reacting quickly at night. Maybe i'm wrong.
Frankly I hope their strategy works. I don't need the extra features in the sound devices unit, but will be reluctant to purchase a Samurai unless it seems like the industry in general feels comfortable without the SDI playback.
I don't know - does playback on a 5" screen seem reliable enough?
With an F3 you could still playback SDI through the SxS card .
I agree completely about uncompressed. Too much data for ordinary use.
Frankly I hope their strategy works. I don't need the extra features in the sound devices unit, but will be reluctant to purchase a Samurai unless it seems like the industry in general feels comfortable without the SDI playback.
I don't know - does playback on a 5" screen seem reliable enough?
With an F3 you could still playback SDI through the SxS card .
I agree completely about uncompressed. Too much data for ordinary use.
macgregor
Veteran
I like the idea as someone said about purchasing the BMshuttle besides getting the PIx240. THe BM shuttle being so cheap would be usefull when you need a shot with greenscreen, and you can use the same SDD drives you´re using on the pix240 if i´m not wrong.
But for 99% of the jobs where the F3 will be used I think uncompressed is a waste of space (and potentially a post problem, ie: really fast raid to playback in real time, way more HDD space, more time to download files...) considering how good prores looks and the image quality that the F3 delivers.
But for 99% of the jobs where the F3 will be used I think uncompressed is a waste of space (and potentially a post problem, ie: really fast raid to playback in real time, way more HDD space, more time to download files...) considering how good prores looks and the image quality that the F3 delivers.
tom.wong
Well-known member
I've absolutely concluded that in a controlled environment, a ki mini is a great tool. but on sets that are less so, it's not reliable, and I'm sticking with that. I operated a ki mini all day yesterday, the camera was tethered to it, and I set up DIT next to video village. for the most part the thing runs really smooth, and I had it laptop tethered naming clips and making sure it was working properly. The thing dropped frames on me once, and I had one clip that had corrupt frames. Thankfully it was at the very beginning of the clip, and it was only 1-2 flash frames of green. But for this to be mounted on a camera and for you to try to trust it to work without supervision won't be the case. I was running footage on it all weekend to try to get it to drop frames and couldn't but yesterday it did.
so there's just no telling when it's going to happen, and I don't blame the unit but the fact that it uses consumer CF cards as its primary form of acquisition. the cards slowed down at no predictable rate, and the file naming system is slow without laptop tether. I'm not saying I'll never use the ki mini again, when it was recording it recorded great, and the quality of the picture IMHO was far superior to the internal xdcam. It could hold contrast and subtly with the dynamic range capable of the camera perfectly, while XDCAM i always feels like it muds up your very subtle shadows and bands up your highlights. not to mention XDCAM adds macro blocking and introduces additional noise from the compression, while the pro res hq was virtually spotless even at 9 db gain. But I've talked with several AC's about it already, and they hate the thing. I really recommend someone dedicated to keeping an eye on it if at all possible.
so there's just no telling when it's going to happen, and I don't blame the unit but the fact that it uses consumer CF cards as its primary form of acquisition. the cards slowed down at no predictable rate, and the file naming system is slow without laptop tether. I'm not saying I'll never use the ki mini again, when it was recording it recorded great, and the quality of the picture IMHO was far superior to the internal xdcam. It could hold contrast and subtly with the dynamic range capable of the camera perfectly, while XDCAM i always feels like it muds up your very subtle shadows and bands up your highlights. not to mention XDCAM adds macro blocking and introduces additional noise from the compression, while the pro res hq was virtually spotless even at 9 db gain. But I've talked with several AC's about it already, and they hate the thing. I really recommend someone dedicated to keeping an eye on it if at all possible.
You might have dropped frames after writing to the media many, many times and not ever reformatting the media at any point. You admitted in another post that you didn't want to take the time to reformat the media because you felt it took too long, but instead, just deleted the clips. Formatting the media clears out any possible directory issues that can occur from numerous writes and erases of media; that is what we would typically recommend.
If you, or others, have questions or concerns about the operation of the product, don't hesitate to contact AJA Technical Support; it's free of charge and they can assist you via phone or email from 9am to 5pm PST.
If you, or others, have questions or concerns about the operation of the product, don't hesitate to contact AJA Technical Support; it's free of charge and they can assist you via phone or email from 9am to 5pm PST.
tom.wong
Well-known member
Thanks for responding Jon, you may very well be right, but at the pace we were moving through the day, full formats would have taken too long. I'll keep what you say in mind next time I use the mini's, which will be next week. and do a full format when opportunity allows.