So someone help me out...

We have a panasonic with P2 cards...unless the cost of cards comes down ALOT, this may be worth a purchase for us. Right

Yes, An E series 64gig P2 card is $500-$600

and this is $345 + $229.00 (Corsair 120gig SSD from Newegg)

This is a WAY better deal!

Does it only work with SSD? Are regular hard disks not fast enough?

So someone help me out...

We have a panasonic with P2 cards...unless the cost of cards comes down ALOT, this may be worth a purchase for us. Right

Yes, An E series 64gig P2 card is $500-$600

and this is $345 + $229.00 (Corsair 120gig SSD from Newegg)

This is a WAY better deal!That 120GB SSD will only record about 15 minutes of uncompressed video which is a less than one quarter of the capacity of the 64GB P2 card. A 512MB SSD that will record for over an hour runs out well over $1000. It turns out that P2 cards aren't that expensive after all:-)

apparently I don't understand how an SSD would store less than a P2 card. boo

whats being written on the p2 card is compressed, so more footage can be written to it. the blackmagic does not compress the footage so less can be written to the same amount of storage.

Spot on Nigel, and thanks for tracking down that info (I was trying to work it out yesterday). The fact that it only records uncompressed really makes this device a strange little beast. Perhaps it helps to keep the price down because the thing doesn't have to do any encoding. But until SDD (and other storage for that matter) comes down in price it seems to me to be a niche product with a mass market price-tag.

On the other hand this could be a really smart play by Black Magic in the near future. Once we get a clean HDMI out from HDSLRs this device could be great for short narrative work. But for documentary or longer form stuff it seems like overkill. Also I think for most uses I would actually want to transcode this uncompressed file to a high quality intermediate (prores or cineform), to help make the media a little more managable.

P2 cards are a great reliable media! I can't seem to bring my self around to trusting SD cards...

DVCPROHD which is typically recorded on P2 cards takes about a little over 12 MB/S. It is actually highly compressed video. Not compressed as much as HDV or AVCHD but still highly compressed.

Uncompressed takes 120 MB/S for 8 bit video. That is 10x larger.

Typically in the past if somebody wanted to record live uncompressed they would have to be tied to a desktop computer with a HD-SDI capture card. Eventually we had portable capture devices but these recorded other compressed formats such as mpeg2, prores422 or DVCPROHD. This helped a lot but some people still prefer the level of quality of uncompressed video. It is no different then with desktop live capture when people had the choice between capturing uncompressed or capturing to a lesser format. Some people had to use uncompressed.

Now BW has a way to capture uncompressed in the field without the need of a computer. This is huge but it isn't for everybody. It is for those who need uncompressed and nothing less. Now personally I find Prores422 or equal formats more then good enough for almost everything. For for me this new BM device is a waste since I really don't need uncompressed.

Think of it like on the PC side BM users typically have two choices to capture to. Their own mjpeg format and uncompressed. For many people the mjpeg format is great and beats the pants off of native camera formats. To some however the quality is not as good as it could be. Any form of compression takes something away from an uncompressed source. That how it is recorded at a much smaller size. Something must be thrown out. Some compression formats do better then others.

This is something that Canon (and others) may or may not choose to address. An example of how Canon feel about this can be found in their new-ish like of pro camcorders. Their XF100 and XF300 (approximately $3000 and $6500) models are available in an '05' version (XF105 and XF305) which primarily add uncompressed output, and add $1000 to the price tag. If this was an option for the DSLRs, I think some folks (myself included) would pay for it. But from what I hear, Canon internally have had a bit of an issue with the pro video side of the house at war with the DSLR side of the house, which might explain the current appearance of two completely different sets of technologies, hardware and product directions.

I am hopeful someday for a "best of both worlds" solution because once we have a DSLR with the flexibility of a 5D Mark II and the level of control of the XF305, that is going to be one hell of a rig. That's pretty much what RED wants to do with Scarlet, but who knows if that'll ever happen.

P2 cards are a great reliable media! I can't seem to bring my self around to trusting SD cards...

Hoodman showed new ruggedized SD cards at NAB. They're potted and include a steel plate.

This is something that Canon (and others) may or may not choose to address. An example of how Canon feel about this can be found in their new-ish like of pro camcorders. Their XF100 and XF300 (approximately $3000 and $6500) models are available in an '05' version (XF105 and XF305) which primarily add uncompressed output, and add $1000 to the price tag....
I have an XF100. It has HDMI out, so it could use the Hyperdeck, or nanoFlash. But the codec on the XF100 is so good I don't ever expect to record uncompressed.

The main difference between the XF100/300 and the XF105/305 is the addition of SDI which is a more common professional connection for uncompressed out, plus the ability to time sync with other professional cameras.

My expectation is the the next generationof SLR video cameras will have full HDMI out. With a nanoFlash this could get around the codec limitations; or maybe they'll just have much better codecs.

The one piece of equipment that blew me away from NAB was the BlackMagic HyperDeck. I did not even see this coming! $350 for HDMI/SDI in/out recording to off the shelf SSDs in 10bit 4.2.2 prores ... incredible. Now, I know this part of the forum is about AJA and Ki Pro but I didn't have anywhere else to state this. Anyone else find this product ... well ... shocking!

Dean H. - If you want to post about non-AJA products, you can do so under the general "Tapeless Video Recorders" heading as opposed to the AJA-specific sub-category. Please ask Chris Hurd or someone else at dvinfo.net to move your post to the appropriate location.

Also, to the best of my knowledge, it is an uncompressed only, not Apple ProRes, capable recorder.

Regards,
Jon Thorn
Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
California

Dean H. - If you want to post about non-AJA products, you can do so under the general "Tapeless Video Recorders" heading as opposed to the AJA-specific sub-category. Please ask Chris Hurd or someone else at dvinfo.net to move your post to the appropriate location.

Also, to the best of my knowledge, it is an uncompressed only, not Apple ProRes, capable recorder.

Regards,
Jon Thorn
Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
California

Thanks Jon ... I'll do that ... sorry about the intrusion and by the way, don't refer to me as Dean H.

Chris ... can you put my comments into the general tapeless category?

can you point us to the website for the free version of DaVinci Resolve...

Thanks

I found the answer on the BlackMagic site... the software is the DaVinci Resolve Lite version... the site says it will be a free download starting in July... its a dumb'd down version and you can upgrade to the full version for $1000... still not bad for free, might be interesting to play around with...

Was hoping that BlackMagic would put up the manual for the shuttle today... didn't happen... but looking a the specs and looking at the input/outputs it looks like your going to need an extra card in your computer if your going to use the shuttle for off loading the files... it has a usb, but that looks to be for control/firmware upgrades... so the only other outputs are the HDMI and SDI ports... for HDMI I'm thinking you'll need the intensity pro card...??

Ray, all you need to do is buy a $30 eSATA / USB dock for your computer and you can just take the SSD out, plug it into the dock and transfer files at ridiculously high speeds (provided you have a good RAID array in your computer).

Done. Apologies for the delay.

I need to gather all of the various BMD threads and merge 'em together.

Dean, I too am very interested in the BM $350 box. I've got a couple of questions.

1. What are the mounting options for the unit?
2.Did they have any power options on display?
3.Did you find out what the specs/requirements were for the SSD's?

I will probably pick one of these up as soon as they become available no matter what. At $350 it's worth checking it out.

Thanks,
Garrett

I too found this to be one of the highlights of NAB - and an indicator of things to come.

Many of the specifics on this unit are still up in the air. I know that Blackmagic is compiling a list of SSDs that have been tested, but nothing was available on this at NAB. As a reseller, I'm also working to determine what accessories I'll need to stock to make it a complete solution (i.e. power tap cable, mounting screws).

This is practically a "disposable" recorder at the price.

Since the SSDs are so volatile in cost, I'm holding off purchasing any for my initial stocking order until I get an approved list and know that my order has shipped.

Allan Barnwell
Omega Broadcast Group - Professional Video Sales, Rental & Services (http://www.omegabroadcast.com)

I find this a strange product at this price point. It seems insanely cheap for the kinds of people who need uncompressed video, and largely useless for everyone else. AFAIK, high end broadcasting is already more than happy with the likes of Panasonic's AVC Intra 100 offering, and the other Sony, Canon systems available. Of course if BM provide smaller data rate options it should fly off the shelves, but for most people it looks - how can i put it - like too much information. I may be wrong, but i find it hard to believe there are many people who really need to capture video at over 400 GB's per hour.

If BM decide to offer smaller file sizes via a firmware update, then this will be a great piece of kit to invest in. For the time being, it looks like a fantastically cheap option for a relatively small number of people at the very high end.

If BM decide to offer smaller file sizes via a firmware update, then this will be a great piece of kit to invest in. For the time being, it looks like a fantastically cheap option for a relatively small number of people at the very high end.

But wouldn't it then be the same as the rest of the recorders out there? Don't get me wrong I would love to see a recorder from BM similar to other recorders like the Nano or the Ninja, etc. but if this was added then the price would probably triple.
All that this product does as far as I understand it is that it brings uncompressed video to a whole new price point. I do understand your point though that the high end isn't asking for such a cheap device. But I think that this is going to be used a lot all across the production segment. Except for the very low end...

Sanjin

"if this was added then the price would probably triple."

Why would that be? surely BM would love to take business from their competitors, and this device with lower data rates would hit the spot. Bring it on!

"I think that this is going to be used a lot all across the production segment."

Still don't understand this line of thinking. High end TV is already very happy with systems like Panasonic's 100 mbps AVC Intra. Who on earth wants to capture video at over 400 Gig per hour?

"Except for the very low end..."

low end like the BBC?

Dom, the entire reason the recorder is so cheap is because it does almost no internal processing apart from repackaging the file in a QuickTime wrapper. In order to offer compressed codec options, they've have to fit a powerful processing chip and that would increase the price to around the same as a Ninja.

Felix

Thanks for getting back. So this is not something i'm interested in. Just wanted to confirm that.

Sanjin

"if this was added then the price would probably triple."

Why would that be? surely BM would love to take business from their competitors, and this device with lower data rates would hit the spot. Bring it on!



Dom, the entire reason the recorder is so cheap is because it does almost no internal processing apart from repackaging the file in a QuickTime wrapper. In order to offer compressed codec options, they've have to fit a powerful processing chip and that would increase the price to around the same as a Ninja.

Thank you Felix for answering that.


"I think that this is going to be used a lot all across the production segment."

Still don't understand this line of thinking. High end TV is already very happy with systems like Panasonic's 100 mbps AVC Intra. Who on earth wants to capture video at over 400 Gig per hour?

"Except for the very low end..."

low end like the BBC?

This is not going to be used by television companies if you ask me. I to can't imagine why they would need such a product... I would use this for promos and music videos and so forth when the benefit of uncompressed would make a difference. And in my opinion this is where it's targeted at.

As for the low end: I wasn't thinking of television off course. Low end promos, corporate, music videos, etc.

4:2:2 uncompressed... Is there really such a diference betwen this and let's say prores from ninja at 220 Mbits?? Why not go 4:4:4? 4:4:4 would be great for chroma key work. But uncompressed 4:2:2 compared to prores 4:2:2 at 220 is it really worth it?

No, it isn't worth it. The Ninja's ProRes at 220mbps is visually identical to uncompressed, and makes storage six times cheaper. You can buy a Ninja with the cost of an hour's worth of uncompressed solid-state storage. And with a Ninja, you can use spinning drives: $50 for 2.5 hours of video that's visually identical to Uncompressed!

And it's got a monitor. And a carrying case. And it comes with batteries. And ProRes is much better for editing.

Dave Shapton
President
Atomos EMEA

It would be great if HyperDeck comes with an analog audio jack for cameras like XLH1 that doesn't include audio with HD/SDI.

Dave,

I think your products and the BM products are both revolutionary in how that change the economics of quality. While I haven't worked with the Atomos products, they seemed to be designed for acquisition and ingest in a widely accepted Codec, ProRes. I look at the BM shuttle as a post edit, codec agnostic mastering and SDI playback device. Not everyone wants ProRes.

Both look like great products for the money. It wasn't long ago that you had HDCAM tape at 3:1:1, at 144 Mbits.sec (I think that was the bit rate) and at a 100 times the cost.

I don't disagree with anything you've said here, but my concern is that a lot of people on this forum and others don't realize the cost implications of recording uncompressed video to solid-state media, and the difficulty they will have with transferring and editing. Of course, for short shoots, blue-screen and adverts, there is a place for this sort of thing, and we welcome competitive products as a validation of the market space. I just want people to understand - whether they buy our product or someone else's - that they're not saving money with a low-cost device that records uncompressed onto SSDs!

Dave Shapton
Atomos

As promised, several BMD HyperDeck Shuttle topics have now been merged into one.

Nice to see some more competition in this market. Seems there are pros and cons with each so it's really a matter of which one works best for your particular workflow. Interestingly the Nanoflash holds it's own despite all the new offerings at NAB this year.

So from what I've seen so far we have the following:

Blackmagic Design - Hyperdeck Shuttle
Convergent Design - Nanoflash and Gemini
Atomos - Ninja and Samurai
Sound Devices - Pix 220 and 240
Aja - Ki Pro and Ki Pro Mini

Did I miss any?

Did I miss any?

Sidekick HD.
Cinedeck.

Ah thank you Simon,

I wasn't aware of the Sidekick HD and had forgotten the Cinedeck completely. Thank you!

About the Shuttle:

1) from what I have read, it requires a computer connected to it for adjusting and checking its settings.

2) It has no monitor or display so it would be crazy NOT to have either a monitor or computer connected to make sure it is working/recording properly.

3) I am very very interested to see what SSDs BM says are ok to use because current non-enterprise SSDs are not designed to handle a constant stream of data being written. Further, most SSDs greatly lose write speeds with a constant stream of data being written. Several websites tested this by using a hard drive speed testing program such as HDTach or HDTune. After about half full, many drives dropped from 200+MB/s write speed to half or less. However, most enterprise SSDs don't have this issue (these SSDs use SLC memory) but cost 2-4 times more. For example, a 64GB Intel X25-E Extreme (SLC) costs $725. Also, MLC drives have 'up to' write speeds and 'sequential' write speeds with the latter far lower and usually not high enough for uncompressed 10bit. A good example is the $500 120GB Vertex Turbo, which has 'up to' write speeds of 200MB/s and 'sequential' write speeds maxing out at 120MB/s.

A good read about SSDs is here: SLC vs. MLC : Solid State Drive Buyer's Guide (http://www.tomsguide.com/us/ssd-value-performance,review-1455-5.html)

4) I bet Convergent Design's 256GB and 512GB SSDs would work great but I don't know if they will have the same interface as a regular SSD. Their prices will be $749 (256GB) and $1349 (512GB). They are sourced and made in the US so no price fluctuation with Japan. These prices should give an idea as to how much a regular SSD should cost in order for it to work with the Shuttle.

5) I really can't believe anyone wants to record uncompressed from a Canon DSLR with all of its noise and aliasing problems.

About other recorders:

1) People should realize that Pro Res HQ uses a different Variable Bitrate for each frame rate and frame size. For example, 720 24p has a 'Target Bitrate' of 88Mb/s and Apple says the actual bitrate is 5-10% lower. Also, 10bit uses about 20% of the bitrate for the extra data. With 1080 24p, it has a 'Target Bitrate' of 176Mb/s. So, doing the math, subtract the 10% of the extra VBR and then subtract the 20% overhead of 10bit, and you get only 127 Mb/s I-Frame for 8bit material. This explains why 50Mb XDCAM HD looks just as good as Pro Res HQ (Long GOP vs I-Frame).

This drops to only 84 Mb/s for regular Pro Res 1080 24p which is visually equal to 35Mb XDCAM EX.

From Apple's whitepaper: "Except in the case of unusually complex material, actual bit rates are typically 5 to 10 percent lower than these targets."

2) Realize that all HDMI camera outputs are 8bit only.

You're making some rather sweeping statements here in what is a very interesting post. You're comparing worst cases with best cases: the lowest bitrates of ProRes with the highest bitrates from Long-GOP cameras. Long-GOP is a very efficient way to get good quality from a low bitrate, but that doesn't make it immune from motion artifacts and problems around sharp edges, etc: all the things we're familiar with. Recording at high bitrate ProRes (HQ at 220 mbps, for example) is unarguably better than any Long-Gop format if you have the higher bitrates available. You can see the difference immediately when there is a lot of motion with a complex background, and text and sharp edges look cleaner. No-one claims that any of the Long Gop formats is "visually lossless", but that is a justified claim for ProRes HQ. Of course, if you lower the bitrate of ProRes, then you will find that quality drops off.

Another area where ProRes shines above both Long-GOP and uncompressed is in ease of editing. ProRes is optimised for low CPU use. What this means in practice is that you can play more layers in real-time, scrub more fluidly, and yet retain the highest-possible quality. ProRes is good for many generations, and is extremely popular for high-end post-production. Uncompressed undoubtedly has advantages in that there is no generation loss, but it places great demands on the quantity and speed of a computer's storage, and, compared to ProRes, which even at HQ level is one sixth of the size, is very much harder to live with on a daily basis, and very much harder to afford.

Long-GOP formats based around h.264 were only ever designed for delivery. Quality tails off very quickly with multiple generations, which is exactly what you'd expect if you start cutting material in the middle of a GOP, losing important I-frame data and having to base new I-frames on what were previously only predicted frames. This is not to say that you can't get good results from Long-GOP; surprisingly good, in fact, but it will always be a restricting factor in any high-quality workflow.

As far as the number of bits is concerned: this is a more complex subject than it would appear to be at first sight. ProRes will add 2 bits to any 8 bit recording. On the face of it, this might appear to be wasteful, but there are advantages. All subsequent processing will be done at 10 bit resolution. All grading and dissolves will have additional levels. This is not going to improve the quality of incoming material but will make the overall project more robust.

HDMI is intrinsically capable of receiving 10-bit material and 10-bit HDMI recorders are ready to receive this resolution should any camera manufacturer decide to output it.

Dave Shapton
Atomos

2) Realize that all HDMI camera outputs are 8bit only.

That's why the Nano is great. It's 8 bit...

and if the Nano only cost $350... it would be even greater. :-)

Smilies aside... Nano is already priced competitively for what it does.

The $345 cost of the BMD Shuttle is an anomaly. Basically they're giving
it away. It would be a mistake to assume that other manufacturers are going
to follow suit... they're not about to do that.

Blackmagic won't be selling the SSD drives from what they have told dealers like myself - although they will be offering plastic cases to hold them. No one wants to stock SSD in volume - they pricing is so volatile. While I'm tremendously excited to be a reseller for this, it is a product that will take off in a proportional trajectory to the cost of the SSDs. You are going to need to spend upwards of $850 for one hour of record time from what I'm finding online right now - and you need to be very careful to pick SSDs that have the necessary performance.

I plan to package these units with certified SSDs listing both the size and the record times. I'm still waiting for Blackmagic to release a list of drives they have tested.

We should see these units start arriving in the next few weeks.

Allan Barnwell
Omega Broadcast Group - Professional Video Sales, Rental & Services (http://www.omegabroadcast.com)

I think one would have to consider a price of an external monitor along the starting price of 350$. Right? There is no way to monitor what's going on - or is there?

Yes - if you need to monitor the signal, you'll want an external monitor to go with this.

You'd need to factor that into the price of a NanoFlash, Ki Pro, or Ki Pro min as well. But most of my customers who purchase or rent these units are using larger field monitors anyway.

Then again, it can be nice to have physical buttons to operate these units. Many of the units that have touch screens present field operation challenges as a trade off. I like the simplicity of the buttons on this unit.

Allan Barnwell
Omega Broadcast Group - Professional Video Sales, Rental & Services (http://www.omegabroadcast.com)

Nano and Aja mini both have screens which show what's going on -> this HyperDeck Shuttle doesn't have a screen of any sort. That's what I meant with "needing a monitor" so you can see some basic info - I wasn't referring to monitoring your image... The fact that it doesn't have even the smallest of a screen would suggest that's it primary intent of purpose is for studio use maybe?

Is there a way to trigger the unit via running timecode - like the NanoFlash? So, you're basically hitting the camera's record button and activating record on the HyperDeck.

The Tech Specs at the BMD site claims "NO CAMERA CONTROL".
Should that be taken at face value, i.e. manual start/stop with control buttons?

It also says a computer is required to adjust settings.

Btw, there is a 'studio' version with dual record slots and is rack mounted for around $1000.

Pardon my ignorance, but will this work with the HDMI out on a Panny HMC-150?
And, even though that cam has an HDMI out, would I still only get 8 bit color?

FOR THE PRICE, this seems like it might be well-suited for much of what I shoot, i.e. equestrian barrel racing - short (20 sec +/-) bursts of horses running at full-gallop, intended for web and DVD.

And with a 2nd unit, could I hook that up to a laptop and external monitor, and swap SSDs to show footage shot just moments earlier?

Yes, all HDMI outputs from cameras are only 8bit even though the HDMI 'standard' supports up to 12bit (aka Deep Color).

Normally, I would suggest the nanoFlash or Atomos, but horses racing is extremely hard on all codecs so using uncompressed would significantly increase the quality. Btw, in the Convergent Deisgn forum (makers of nanoFlash), there is a thread showing how well various codecs handled recording a horse race. The 280Mb I-frame Nanoflash was noticeably superior to the Pro Res HQ.

I just want to add something I forgot when discussing one recorder versus another: the Aja Ki Pro Mini formats its cards to HFS+ only which makes like difficult for Windows users. Just to read the CF card, you must purchase a program for each computer. Secondly, many clients who want the CF card at the end of a shoot won't have a Mac to access the files.

Which brings me to my next thought: what does the Atomos use? Just found that it uses FAT32 - much SMARTER than Aja.

Mac users of the Aja Ki Pro Mini of course will be pleased that the cards are formatted as HFS+ so as to avoid the 4GB file size limit of FAT32.

If they were formatted to NTFS then Windows users would be happy to escape the 4GB limit & Mac users would be happy too as Macs can read NTFS files without the purchase of additional software.

So I guess that both Mac & Windows users could be unhappy with the Atomos Ninja.