Hot News...Hot Swap in Next Release

[Mike Schell]

The long awaited hot swap feature is working in our lab and will be included in the upcoming Flash XDR and nanoFlash firmware. The hot swap will allow users to pull out the inactive CF cards and replace with a blank card while continuing to record. Furthermore, you can press the record button while in record mode to force the recorder to automatically switch to the next card. This is a very useful feature if you want to continue recording, but want to take the footage you just captured direct to edit. (For example, your team just scored a goal, so you want to take the goal shot to the edit room, but still want to continue un-interrupted recording of the rest of the game).

Also included in this release is image flip/flop, Canon MXF file support, TC trigger delay, and a bunch of minor bug fixes. We are testing the XDR and nano firmware now and hope to post betas very soon.

[Billy Steinberg]

:)

Thanks.

[Andrew Stone]

Image flip/flop. Nice feature. Steadicam ops rejoice.

[Lance Librandi]

Hi Mike,
Well done your implementation of the Hot Swap feature has taken the Nanoflash to a new level and set a very high standard for others to meet. I love the ability to be able to press the record button while in record mode to force the recorder to automatically switch to the next card. For my live production work this feature will be highly desirable.

[Daniel Symmes]

Some might complain about delays, but Team CD continues to break new ground.

I for one am astounded by the evolution of this product. There simply is nothing LIKE it in any way.

One key aspect is that the bigger companies (AJA, etc.) have higher overhead, many more employees, bigger facilities, big PR budgets...all of which weigh on the development of new features. Simply, they MUST charge for the MKII model. They need to come out with new hardware every year.

CD has a very different business paradigm. They keep the overhead down, have practically a handful of people covering many bases, seem to be able to keep PR costs down, and by continually improving on their product, the product has a much longer usage life, which is very rare today. Like driving a new car off the lot for most equipment. The nanoFlash and XDR CONTINUE to evolve and by extension are worth MORE now than when you made your purchase. And with no moving parts, should last indefinitely.

Most important to me: their customer service is off the hook, as they say. Perhaps a UNIQUE example. I know of NO manufacturing company with such one-to-one access.

Lastly, they LISTEN to their patrons. We users have contributed to all this and one often sees results in no time. We're investors and the dividend is a product that earns many of us our rent money.

I know CD has some "interesting" plans/developments that we can only imagine. It's sometimes like Christmas when new firmware comes out. The last one was GREAT.

If any of the CD people make it to LA, I'll take you to the BEST Mexican restaurant in America. My treat.

[Luben Izov]

Well said Daniel! I second that. The NF gets better and better with every new firmware
Cheers

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Friends,

We greatly appreciate your very kind words.

It is very gratifying to us when our friends are happy.


Background:

We are very pleased to offer both Hot Swapping and Image Flip and Flop.

As everyone knows, it took us much longer than expected to finish Hot Swapping. We were close many times, but then something with higher priority came up, preventing us from finishing this feature.

Image Flip, Image Flop and Image Flip + Flop have an interesting background.

Image Flip (alone) was something that we wanted in the Flash XDR and nanoFlash from Day 1.
But, we had higher priority features to develop.

Then, our Chief Engineer looked into it and determined that it was impossible for us to do, with the resources that we had in the Flash XDR and nanoFlash. So, we felt that we were never going to be able to offer this.

Then our Chief Engineer evaluated it again, and implemented Image Flip, plus Image Flop (Horizontal) and both. I was just amazed that he pulled off what we had considered impossible and more.

In my opinion, another amazing feature that our Chief Engineer has pulled out of his hat is Anaglyph support. (Anaglyph = Old time Red/Cyan 3D images). This is, of course for the nano3D.

We determined that we were not going to be able to offer Anaglyph support in the nano3D, due to the computing horsepower that this takes. So our Chief Engineer found a way to streamline the process, and now we have a great feature.

For some, this can save the cost of a 3D monitor, as this allows a 2D monitor to be used to view the stereoscopic separation on set. Of course, one can still record the full resolution, full quality, isolated video channels without Anaglyph, while viewing Anaglyph images.

Yesterday was a great day for us.

Just as soon as I have confirmation that it all works, I will be posting great news for Panasonic HDX900 users.

Stay Tuned for more!

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Congratulations, Mike and Dan!

When I learnt about Hot Swapping coming soon, after the long period of uncertainty - I immediately purchased more CF cards, as this feature means the ability of continuous recording theoretically forever - if only one has a device to offload one card while recording to others...

Keep the good job, please, CD!

Piotr

[Andrew Stone]

Hi Dan,

Is it possible for CD to implement image flip so one has the choice to flip both incoming signal or to flip the outgoing signal or both?

Reason for this is to help speed up "low mode" change overs for Steadicam operators who may be operating their cameras with a monitor that doesn't do image flip. Unfortunately Marshall has a popular HD monitor that is appealing to steadicam types (on a lot of levels) that doesn't do image flip. There can be requirements where one would want the image in camera to stay in normal orientation but have the monitoring flipped.

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Andrew,

Thanks for the interesting idea.

I will ask our engineers.

[Andrew Stone]

Assuming the coding is straightforward Dan, the big part, in my view, would be implementing it in the menu system so it isn't confusing to the user and adding clutter to the menu system.

[Gints Klimanis]

Will the image flip help users of 35mm adapters (RedRock Micro et al.) ? That would be an image flip to the encoder as well as to the external monitor. Please confirm.

[David Issko]

Mike, Dan, Chief Engineer and the entire CD team,

Congratulations on the next (major upwards/forward) step with the Nano & XDR recorders.
Yrs, H.S. will be great but so too will all of your other advances.

Tough work but so rewarding not only for you but for everyone who has one of these fantastic units.

Best wishes.

[Andrew Stone]

So people completely get this (as I am sure it will come up) if you flip the signal from the output of the camera then the menus are flipped as well. It's an inherit limitation coming from the camera itself not the nanoFlash.

Like on a video camera you have the option of using the menus on the viewfinder. You would be treating your external monitor as a "framing" and focusing device and not a display to adjust menus with, if you required the flip feature. For some the addition of this flip feature can save time on a shoot with a gazillion production people drumming their fingers in wait or having to purchase an HD monitor capable of image flip which could be well in excess of the cost of a nanoFlash with goodies.

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Gints,

Yes, this should help those with 35 mm adapters that are not already flipped.

And it should help those who have removable flip modules, if the flip modules have a light loss.


This will be a Flip, Flop or Both of the HD-SDI input coming in to nanoFlash, prior to recording and before we send it out through the HD-SDI output.

But, as far as I know at this moment, if one enables Video|E to E Direct, then the HD-SDI pass through would not be Flipped, Flopped, or Both.

I assume that this also works with HDMI, but I have not confirmed that yet.