What's the difference between the Ninja/Samuri and the Ki Pro Mini?

[Duke M.]

But the Ninja and Samurai have no fan at all and stay cool.

I had read elsewhere that they did, but I don't have one so you are probably right.

Regarding firmware updates: we got both the Ninja and the KPM at the same time. In the meanwhile Atomos fixed all issues they had in the beginning, but AJA has not even fixed the spanning issue (sometimes even manually switchover is difficult).

To be fair, AJA never promised spanning or rollover so it was not on their immediate "to do" list. It wasn't something for them to 'fix'. However, they have recently said they are going to implement it. In the mean time they have done several firmware updates on the things they said they were going to do.

Regarding cards: Transcend is not qualified by AJA. We tried to use one nevertheless, but the KPM literally killed it – bricked card.

Very true that its no listed as a qualified card and I should have stated that. However, I have them from when I had my Nano so I tested them and they work fine for me at 24fps. (I haven't tested other frame rates.)

Regarding reliability: to make sure they are production safe, we tried pulling power or HDMI on both, since this can happen in the heat of a real production. The KPM ruined the whole recording, since it writes one file only. The Ninja always kept everything till the last frame most of the time, only in rare cases the last 2 GB chunk was ruined (it records in FAT32).

That's a great reason to not use HDMI in, but why would you if you have a choice? Media prices are a definite factor. Hands down a HDD is the best bargain out there, but reliability and portability become a factor with an HDD. An SSD isn't as cheap or big, but much more reliable. Samurai wins there and also in long recordings.

Sounds like your second KPM was faulty too. Also sounds like you were an early adopter, which is risky for any product. AJA's customer service is generally superior.

For me a KPM hasn't been a 'waste of money' but a trade off of features.

 

[kolak]

The KiPro mini only uses Compact Flash Cards... no SSD's or HD's at all.

I'll only use the recommended Samsung SSD's for paid jobs with the PIX, but I've also experimented with various HD's and SSD's. Surprisingly, I've yet to find any 2.5" Sata drive that won't work at 145Mb/s ProRes 4:2:2 !!!

Sorry- forgotten that KPM uses fancy storage

There are many as good SSD drives as Samsung.
Yes- ProRes will work on almost any drive- it's about 20-30MB/sec with spikes maybe up to 40MB. All modern drives can do it. Just use solid ones, which don't have big lags in recording (the bigger cache the better). As I said- Scorpio Black has good shock handling and this is very important.

 

[nomad-3]

@ Duke: True, AJA never promised spanning. But given the limited size of CF cards and the fact of having two slots, isn't it ridiculous not to have it – in their own best interest?
Regarding reliability of hard disks, I found that they need a really hard hit before a recording stops. And in the light of having a CF card ruined too… YMMV

@ Kolak: Currently Ssamsung are the best out there, both in price per GB and in speed, but you are right stating that ProRes doesn't need much speed.

 

[Duke M.]

@ Duke: True, AJA never promised spanning. But given the limited size of CF cards and the fact of having two slots, isn't it ridiculous not to have it – in their own best interest? Regarding reliability of hard disks, I found that they need a really hard hit before a recording stops. And in the light of having a CF card ruined too… YMMV

Its not whether recording stops, its whether it skips. And with the latest firmware Samurai's no longer have the dropped audio issue, but some people are still getting the half green image on frames or clips and macro blocking on DNx. I still say they are all immature products. Its going to be a year before it all shakes out, but the Samurai definitely has the edge in power conservation, price and use of SATA configured drives.

AJA has the edge on video conversion and balanced audio. When the KPM came out cheap SSD's weren't really a factor they are now. You take your best guess at your needs and roll the dice.

 

[kolak]

@ Kolak: Currently Ssamsung are the best out there, both in price per GB and in speed, but you are right stating that ProRes doesn't need much speed.

Samsung cheap?- I see it being one of the more expensive ones (830 series). It may be also more practical to buy 2x 256GB than one 512GB drive.

Point is that you don't need the best SSD for ProRes recording- you just need reliable and reasonable priced one- this is enough. In many cases good HDD is enough and will cost a fraction of SSD and offer more space.
Good SSD is required for uncompressed recording- many SSD may struggle, even if on paper they seams to be good enough.

 

[nomad-3]

@ Duke Thanks, man, very balanced comment, I can subscribe to that any time! Regarding immature products being brought to market: so true, and once they are mature, they get outdated by the next immature product – because we are willing to buy them…

@Kolak Careful when choosing SSDs for Atomos products, we had massive problems with some cheaper ones, only the Intel X25 worked well at that time. For us, this seemed the cause of the half green images Duke mentioned. But now we are keeping a few larger hard disks for every day shooting and one small SSD for the situations were we expect heavy bumps or vibrations. We are doing a lot of dance theatre and need the recording times, and since we stuck to the recommended drives never had a bad frame again.

 

[Duke M.]

Just out of curiosity are you using the Intel X25-M or X25-V? Or does it matter?