Anybody Considering the Atomos Ninja?

[Mark Goodsell]

Seems like a neat product. Anybody considering it? Has anyone seen one (used one) camera-mounted?

[Leslie Wand]

not quite the same, but very happy with the mrc1. if you're after hmdi recording i can't help, other than to say you're projects should be well paying enough to deal with the added costs of hdmi....

[Adam Gold]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I think it's ridiculous overkill. Unless you are doing heavy post and color grading, you don't need the extra color space that HDMI would provide. We do mostly multicam live stuff and as long as the WB is the same between the cams, I'm a happy guy.

So for me the MRC is all I need. Others will have different needs.

[Gerald Webb]

And another option pops up....
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/841023-REG/Blackmagic_Design_HYPERD_PT2_HyperDeck_Shuttle_2_SSD.htmlWith a 120gb SSD you would have change out of $600.00, and have at least 1.5 hrs of 8 bit DnxHD ( maybe more, could only find example 1920x1080, 1440x1080 would be less, yeah?)
The best thing about this would be if you could use a normal laptop HDD instead of an SSD, a 750gb would give you around 5.5hrs or more.
Im waiting for the reviews to start rolling in.

[Bill Ackerman]

This review may have scared me off:

Hyperdeck Shuttle Review

[Gerald Webb]

Yep, me too.
Back to the MRC1, lol.

[Leslie Wand]

i have to say that there's an awful lot of 'smoke/mirrors/hype/mystique/pretentiousness' about seeking the holy grail of video codecs.

yes, IF you are going to be doing some very heavy cc'ing, chromakey, and the like then 4:4:4:4 followed by 4:2:2 or some other cobination of these numbers is going to prove advantageous. BUT who among the average users requires that lifting power?

i have seen incredible manipulated hdv that looked like 35mm, and some equally heavily manipulated uncompressed footage from a red that looked sh*t.

what really matters in this day and age of youtube mobile phone epics is the content. people will watch content that interests them no matter how it's delivered.

meanwhile the manufacturers can chortle all the way to the bank as they spruke yet another lossless codec, another 3d innovation, and try to render existing equipment obsolete since it doesn't produce 8:8:8:8 @ 32bit...

rant/

[Gerald Webb]

I like rants :)
Yesterday I recorded from my GH2's HDMI into my Blackmagic card in uncompressed 1080p yuv.
I then put the 2 clips, the avchd from cam, and the yuv capture, into Vegas on 2 tracks and synced them up.
It was just footage looking out the window at trees and sky, but ( like the guy in the above review) I could not see the difference when muting the top track on and off.
With more challenging footage and lots of movement, stronger colors maybe, maybe it would be different.

I'm torn at the moment, everything I read tells me that 25Mbps HDV is rubbish compared to the latest 100+Mbps hacks that we are using on the GH2.
Yet some of the best images I have captured are coming from my Z5.
I know it prob has a lot to do with my talents (or lack there of) as a cameraman, maybe the Z5, being a real video cam rather than a DSLR is more forgiving and has more latitude to capture great images.
I dont know, but I'll keep searching.......

[Leslie Wand]

and i'll be watching over your shoulder ;-)

[Chris Duczynski]

Lots of good discussion on link below especially Jays analysis, but MRC for me too

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-hvr...r-keep-z5.html

[Andrew Yip]

We are seriously looking at the ninja. Recently we have been covering seminars lectures from half days to full days. So what appeals to us is the following:
1. We want to look at moving to a tapeless system for long period shoots like lectures/seminars
2. The ninja will give us some spare batteries and charger for the Z5
3. Keen to reduce capturing time (though this could be offset by the 4gig limit per file - might mean more work at the editor end).
4. We work with FCP so pro res 422 or LT are good for us. - Potentially up to 9hrs recording on 500gig drive.
5. It comes nicely boxed in a hard case.
6. 2.5inch hard drives are cheap/can be easily absorbed into the job cost.
7. Larger monitor will be easy on the eyes as the hours pass.

Things we are not looking forward to:
1. Extra weight and gear mounted to the camera - with the wide angle adaptor and matte box on the front, our camera is pretty front heavy - add the wireless reciever on top of that. This might rebalance the camera a bit, but it will make it a bit trickier to move around (however, again we are looking at seminars/lectures and have a smaller sony a1 to walk around with for b-roll footage)
2. We are still unsure how we are going to archive all the digital data and hard drives - for the lectures- we will most probably print to tape the final versions for archival. Important field shoots will most probably get the tape treatment till we see a need to go to ProRes HQ.

The big questions for us is:
Could this be a tape and time saving device that we can easily incorporate into a current workflow?
Will this device prolong the longetivity and futureproof our Z5?
Will this cause more problems than it will solve?

We will most probably get one next week and see how it goes.

[Leslie Wand]

i'm not sure re mrc how large a cf card you can go - but i'm using a $80 adata 32gb with no problems at all.

actually considering my work a couple of 16gb cards was adequate, but i wanted one for my dslr and saw the 'cheap' adata's. they make a 64gb - though i don't know if the mrc will recognise it? ni idea why it shouldn't.

using either the sony cf utility software or device import in vegas i've never noticed the 4gb thing anyway....