Atomos Removes Their Customer Forum?

[Cliff Totten]

Atomos' forum is down today. It's unclear as to why. Could it be simple technical problems? Or, was it removed by Atomos deliberately?

There have been many customer complaint posts about the Shogun recently. Right now we are desperately waiting on a firmware fix that will give the Shogun playback ability...something it does not have yet even after being on the streets for almost a month now.

Atomos has been very quiet about what it's doing behind the scenes and is taking allot of heat from it's customers because of it.

Hopefully the forum will be back up soon. Hopefully it was a simple technical "glitch" and not deliberately removed by Atomos.

Any thoughts?

CT

[Gary Huff]

Probably got attacked with a DDOS by one of those "desperate" customers.

[Cliff Totten]

There is some good news for Atomos...Only the forum is down, not the rest of their site. And,...they don't have to deal with angry customers publicly posting bad things about the Shogun and good things about their competitions recorder.

I guess the "hacker" did Atomos a big favor.

I really hope Atomos pulls this next firmware together quickly. At the moment, things are going downhill fast for them and they are being dead silent about their problems.

I like them as a company but I am concerned for them. I don't think they are handling their issues properly form a public relations point of view today. They can't hide from these problems, they must address and discuss them head on at this point.

They might not be in any hurry to get their forum back up any time soon.

[Michael Stevenson]

I was wondering myself. Most likely they are working on the site not "hiding."

[Cliff Totten]

Yes, you are right, it very well could be simple maintenance or something.

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Cliff Totten

Yes, you are right, it very well could be simple maintenance or something.

Yeah, could be a upgrade to their forum software, or a DDOS, or they got suddenly flooded with spam accounts.

I don't think the negative postings on the forum are going to do much to effect the sales, and the fact that CD now feels they have to bundle two SSDs for the Odyssey 7Q+ shows more pressure on that end. And ultimately, the Shogun is good for certain shooting scenarios/cameras and the Odyssey is better for others. I would never recommend the Shogun for Sony FS700/FS7/C500 users who don't want to wait until CinemaDNG is implemented and working.

However, for A7S, GH4, and HD recording, the Shogun may be a better option as, frankly, miniHDMI is not a good option for connecting (one of the reason they included a cable with the new setup).

[Cliff Totten]

I'm sticking with Atomos and will ride it out with the Shogun until it matures at bit. So far, I like what they have inside it.

Like other vocal customers, I just wish the company did a better job on the communication front. All we have had is "Atomos_Patrick" on the forums to give us the limited info that he is allowed to give.

Maybe they are embarrassed, maybe they are worried about a flood of 30 day limit returns...I dont know.

At the end of the day, I think the "radio silence" policy is going to backfire on them and frustrate their customers much more than they really need to be.

Another way to put it is:

Keeping quiet about the problems is like pouring gasoline on the fire....
Openly and candidly discussing the problems goes a long way in helping to put the fires out...

I dont know....time will tell.

CT

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Cliff Totten

Keeping quiet about the problems is like pouring gasoline on the fire..

Here's the thing. I'm pretty sure they said that playback wasn't stable (they said the recording of 4K was). It's probably that 1080 plays back fine on the Shogun, but 4K is causing a system lock-up.

Now, I'm not sure exactly what more can be gained as they try to make that more stable by chiming in, "Hey, still not stable!" Where there was an issue with blue half-frames being recorded, that came out over the holidays and Atomos resolved it with a firmware upgrade shortly after that. That's nice in my book.

I'm not worried about playback myself. I know what I just shot, and I rarely used it on the Blade. Not that they shouldn't have it, but I would definitely think that at least until the end of the this month that, for me personally, I'd give them that leeway.

[Heath Vinyard]

So far I like the Shogun. The monitor is awesome and I'm only recording 1080 on it and it seems to do that well on the C100MII. Playback would be nice but I record to card too so I can playback on the camera and see on the Shogun. Their tech support is a little lacking. I submitted an upgrade issue over a week ago and never heard a word. Fixed it myself.

[Michael Stevenson]

The forum is up again.

[James R. Wilson Sr.]

I received one of the first units, shipped Christmas Eve. Impressive out of the box and for the first 24 hours, until the battery life of 15 minutes became apparent, followed by the on/off button sticking in the body. The darn thing was beautiful, great display, and it appeared to be a continuation of Atomos quality, but then it went south. Additionally, it was a bit annoying to get a product with key features inop, promised soon in firmware upgrades. I sent it back and am going to give them six months to get their act together. In the interim I bought a Samurai Blade which works flawlessly, but won't help me with ProRes 4K on my FS7, It's just bad juju to let the market dictate when you release a product. A great rep can get flushed quickly.

[Ronald Jackson]

Reading the comments and cries for help on the Shogun Facebook site doesn't inspire me to go out and buy one.

Give it a while to get sorted then reconsider a purchase.

Wonder what Panasonic may have up their sleeves with the "GH5" that might take some of the wind out of Atomos's sails?


Ron

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Ronald Jackson

Reading the comments and cries for help on the Shogun Facebook site doesn't inspire me to go out and buy one.

If that's your issue, I'd say you don't need an external recorder at all. Especially if you can wait until the GH5 comes out. I wouldn't even give a purchase a second thought in that case.