Hello all,

Just received my Ninja 2 couple of days ago. Having 750GB HDD in, I'm quite impressed. Having though some questions.

1) My camera is HVR-Z5 and Ninja 2 is now attached to rear accessory shoe. When using cameras shotgun microphone, I can hear Ninjas
HDD spinning hum in the recording. I use E-image EI-A03 shoe mount. Anybody found a good solution to isolate Ninja 2 body better from camera body?

2) Yesterday tested different settings in the camera to obtain best video quality. In Ninja2 I can choose between 1080i50 and 1080p25.
In Z5 I have set it to record progressive p25. Should I choose also 1080p25 in Ninja2? If I let it be 1080i50, the quality is just the same but my NLE (Edius)
founds file as interlaced and probably is doing pull-down in post?

3) Only problem is, when I record with Ninja2 as 1080p25, my Sony LCD TV wont display files recorded progressive. i50 files work fine. So far this is not big problem, as I mainly transfer files to my PC and do
the editing. Sometimes tough, it should be nice to review clips just recorded in bigger screen and judge if some of them are not worth to transfer to pc at all.

4) is there a way to delete single clips in Ninja2 unit? For example, if my HDD is full and I still need to record something, I could delete some old/bad clips?

5) there is no Firewire in docking station anymore?

Kind regards,

Johannes

The Z5, like my similar vintage design V1, will not out put true progressive when set to p25. It records the p25 on tape as i25 with two identical fields, and the HDMI output will likely be the same. You can treat it as PsF - Progressive segmented frame. I use a Ninja 1, which does not allow me to select the type of incoming video, so it is treated as i25.

I use Premiere, and if I set it to create a sequence to match the ingested clips, it creates an interlaced sequence. There is a setting to tell it to regard the clips as progressive, and if this is done, it creates a progressive sequence, and the quality of the video exported is then higher.

Thanks for your answer Alan. Maybe I let my Ninja2 record Z5 output as i50 so it will be also possible to monitor with my TV. Then if I just tell Edius that the source file is progressive, it should be ok?

Johannes

I'm thinking of buying the Samurai Blade to run with my Z5 - will this have the same irregularities ??

The Samurai Blade will not take a HDMI input, will it? If so you will need the HDMI to SDi Connect for the HDMI output of your Z5. As far as I can see the Z5 is identical to my V1 as far as recording goes.

If by "irregularities" you mean the recording of 25p as 50i with two identical fields, then yes it will. As far as I know all that generation of camera which could record progressive on tape used this method. In fact many cameras which offer progressive HD record it as PsF, so that it appears to Premiere as interlaced with two identical fields making up each frame.

Have a look at the series of articles by Allan Tepper on the Provideo coalition web-site.

This irregularity is not a big deal, all you need to do is to tell Premiere to interpret the footage as progressive, and there are no problems.