Ninja Star not auto starting, but Assassin does

[Nick Haman]

Yo all,

I own an Atamos Ninja Assassin, and it's great. Start recording when I press the button on the camera and stops when I press it again. For an upcoming project, I've borrowed a Ninja Star. There's a lot of walking about, and having a monitor on the cam just isn't practical. Anyway, it was my understanding that The Star should start recording when I press go on the camera, but for the life of me, I can't get it to work.

I've checked all the settings in the camera, including the HDMI timecode stuff, but it's just not working. I also tried going from camera to Assassin then output from Assassin to Star, to see if that kind of chain would work, but it still doesn't start the Star recording.

Could this be an issue with the cable I'm using? Am I missing something?

Just to clarify, in all of the above situations, I could press record on the Star and it would record the file, so I know that it does record. I just need to it take the cue form the camera. Otherwise I have to press record on the camera and the Star for every shot, which opens up the possibility of missing footage here and there.

EDIT: The Star also isn't showing me any audio levels, but there is sound on the file on*the CFast card. I wouldn't exactly base my audio off the LEDs anyway, but it's certainly a nice thing to have if it can work.

[Christopher Young]

Hmm!

What camera? You didn't say.

This is straight from the Star User manual:

"Recordings can also be triggered to start/stop by the camera if HDMI stop/start commands are sent by the camera."

So if the camera can send the required stop/start signal down the HDMI it should work. Question is does the camera in question do this.

Also from the manual:

Checking firmware has been updated
To check if the firmware has been successfully updated, you must record a
quick clip with the Ninja Star.
You can then look at the file name to check if
the clip has been recorded with the new update.
If your file name has the firmware update number (see below), you have
successfully updated your Ninja Star, Congratulations!

Name NJS_ANJSR0GF3_4S.02_00012.MOV

The firmware number in this case is the "4S.02"

Firmware page:

https://www.atomos.com/firmware/ninja-star

The Star manual here:

http://downloads.atomos.com/ninja-st...1-Oct-2014.pdf

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Nick Haman]

Hey Christopher,

Thanks for your info. Sorry, I should have said I'm using a JVC LS300, which even on Atomos's site, says its compatible with the HDMI trigger. Like I said, this camera also works flawlessly with the Assassin, but not the Star.

The Star is also on the latest firmware, that was the first thing I checked. Again, I should have mentioned that in my original post.

[Gary Huff]

Atomos developed their own protocol for HDMI start/stop commands. I believe this protocol was developed after the release of the Ninja Star and they never updated the firmware to support it. The Ninja Star is a wonderful little device, but Atomos' lack of support for it means that it misses out on a lot of usefulness today.

You'll have to manually trigger recording with the LS300 and the Ninja Star.

[Nick Haman]

Thanks for the info Gary, that really is a shame.

EDIT: Regarding the audio levels. I found if you hold the PLAY button for about 2 seconds it changes modes from the analogue input to the embedded HDMI audio. I was simply on the wrong setting there. D'oh!