Atomos Ninja

[James Cairns]

Hi all, had anyone heard of the Atomos Ninja? I had not but. I had the honour of speaking with Jeromy Young about his cracking device at this years BVE in Earls Court.

Enter The Ninja

Rather than me trying to sell you such an amazing device, why not check it out and see if it helps your work flow in any way with the Z7 or S270.

James

[Greg Laves]

Interesting. I am sure we will be seeing more products like this in the future.

[James Cairns]

I agree, with the Atomos Ninja coming in and offering what it is, for the money...

I would never have looked at any devices like this for my work flow, with the cost of the ninja and allowing me to bring in Apple Pro Res to my Final Cut over my current HDV, Bonus.

[Michael Liebergot]

I read about this last week when I was inquiring about choosing a Z5U or HMC150. It was suggested that if I wanted to go with the HMC150 I could use this.

I love the aspect that I can record to ProRes LT and go straight to the timeline in FCP, very fast indeed.
Good price pint too, although it looks kind of clunky in size.

[Scott Cantrell]

Tapeworks Texas Inc has been awaiting the release of the Ninja for over a month now. We placed a stocking order early February and already have clients that have placed pre-orders
TapeWorks Texas | Atomos Ninja Portable ProRes HDMI SSD / HHD Recorder Call us 866-TAPEGUY

Tapeworks will be testing the Ninja as soon as we receive it on the NXCAM. Stay tuned via our website, facebook and twitter accounts for updates!

I just received word today that the final version of the firmware has reached the US and is currently being intsalled onto the hardware and test's are being ran to verify that it is rock solid before shipment. Hopefully Tapeworks will have the Ninja by next week!

Best Regards,
Scott Cantrell
Tapeworks Texas Inc - DVinfo Sponser
tapeworksscott@sbcglobal.net
TapeWorks Texas | Home page Call us 866-TAPEGUY
TapeWorks Texas | Facebook
TapeWorksTX (TapeWorksTX) on Twitter

[Andy Rowe]

Just got a Ninja and it doesn't work as advertised on my 7D! HDMI output on Canon DSLR's is compromised. Atomos does not reply to my emails. It's going back if I can't find a work around.

[David Stuart Shapton]

Hi Andy,

Who have you been emailing at Atomos? I haven't seen any emails from you and I personally check all the support emails. Please email support@atomos.com if you want to contact me.

The 7D outputs viewfinder objects in the HDMI feed. There is nothing we can do to remove these. We had originally been told that the 7D gave a clean feed, but, when we got one, we found that it didn't.

You may find that if you crop the video, you can remove the stuff you don't want. If this is not acceptable to you, please let me know.

We have been getting great results with virtually ALL video cameras (as opposed to DSLRs).

Dave Shapton
President
Atomos EMEA

[Steven Campbell]

(this is for David Shapton)

Hi David, being so new to the Z7 I am taking baby steps with it all.I saw this post before, as you work at Atomos and say you have been getting great results with Video Cameras....

How did your test with the Z7 actually go and as a newbie what will this do for me over (if I bought a Ninja) my Z7 & Compact Flash which I am using at the moment.

The main reason I ask is so far no one owning a Z7 has actually provided feedback and who better to ask than yourself, me thinks.

Steven

[David Stuart Shapton]

Hi Steven,

We have tried the Ninja with the Z7 and it seems to work well, although I can't say that our tests were extensive - all we did was have one plugged into a Ninja for four days at NAB.

Another user that we know of is using a Z7 successfully and he reports that he is getting better images and simply prefers the file-based workflow.

Hope this helps,

Dave Shapton
President
Atomos EMEA

[Zach Love]

Originally Posted by Andy Rowe

Just got a Ninja and it doesn't work as advertised on my 7D! HDMI output on Canon DSLR's is compromised. Atomos does not reply to my emails. It's going back if I can't find a work around.

Welcome to the world of video on a still camera aka HDSLRs. No one that makes a recorder (Atomos, AJA, Convergent Designs, Sound Devices...) can record higher quality video than the signal being sent to the recorder. Anyone saying that it can would be guilty of false advertising or stupidity. Still this is a widely known issue with video on a still camera.

If you use something like a Z7 instead of a 7D, well then you'll be able to bypass the HDV codec & record much higher quality video because the Z7 is a video camera that shoots video & the HDMI live output is straight off the chips.

I'd love to see some samples of footage shot on HDV & ProRes from a Z7, so anyone that can make this happen, please share!

[Scott Caplan]

Ditto that. I'd love to get a few more years of use from my Z7U using the Atomos Ninja - how about some test footage postings? $1000 in my pocket with no place to go, it could be atomos' if they got that posted somewhere for a comparison!

Scott Caplan
GKCOC

[Mark Goodsell]

Nice thread. Couple of dumb questions:

1) How do I determine if my camcorder with HDMI output is 4:2:2 or not? Is there a HDMI standard, or list I need to look at? I'm thinking of the Canon XA10.

2) From Prores, what does one do to edit in Adobe or Vegas? Is there a transcoder, or are there other files it outputs as?

Thanks.

[Zach Love]

1) I think the spec is 4:2:2 10bit. As far as I know, every camera sends out 4:2:2, though I don't know how to test it. Also many cameras only send out a 8bit signal with a two extra zeros at the end to put it into a "10bit" signal, with only 8bits of information.

2) You should be able to download a free Prores codec from Apple that works on PC. Once you have that, your NLE should be able to edit Prores natively without any transcoding. At least that is half of the point of recording in Prores. But I'm on FCP & I could be wrong about Adobe & Vegas. Also depends on what version you're using.

Browse those forums to see if other people are editing with native prores files in those NLEs to get a confirmed answer.

[Scott Caplan]

I've tried the Mainconcept free codec to use ProRes422 on my NLE (premiere 5.5) and my NLE still doesn't like it, the same with .MXF format files I get from Panasonic cameras. Hrmf. Is it a PC vs. MAC issue? Or do I need a different codec?

The main advantage to using ProRes from everything I hear, is it the best codec for Color Correcting in post. More degrees of latitude supposedly.

Scott

[Zach Love]

If CS 5.5 can't do ProRes, it is a codec issue. Everything I hear about Premiere is that it can edit nearly anything natively with some limitations. (Things like raw r3d files off a Red camera, it plays at 1/10 the quality or something, but still plays the files straight off the camera.)

I've been more Mac than PC since 2007, so I can't offer too much more help. I'd say look in the NLE forums for specific PC CS ProRes help.