TM-900 and Ninja Blade

Al Bergstein · May 10th, 2014, 03:29 PM

Sort of. Looks like I was wrong. Well I thought I would share this with you. I just hooked up my TM-900 to my Ninja blade using HDMI and I'll be damned, I thought it produced clean HDMI out

It appears as if I missed the only thing that keeps it from doing clean HDMI out, which is a small display of MNL or iA in the upper left corner. It was hidden by the stuff on my Ninja screen. Oh well. It would be great if Panny did a ROM upgrade that would take that thing out so we could use it for a camera for web casts. Looks like I'll have to buy a newer camera. Sorry for the false alarm, but I can't seem to delete posts here.

Wladislav Artsimovich · July 1st, 2014, 09:18 AM

Jesus effing Christ,
I'm so mad I had to sign up to DVinfo just to tell you:

Read the freakin' manual, or at least try to google.

You CAN turn clean hdmi on, with the remote. Says so in the manual and a quick google just as well.
Other things gotten wrong about the HDC TM/SD-900/909 :
You CAN change the ISO.
And yuo CAN go 25p/30p for lowlight without using the stupid lowlight function, that turns everything into garbage. (these functions got renamed bcause panasonic are not the brightest and like to confuse their users.)

Lastly:
With good lighting and lowest gain/iso the camera delivers superb images. Using a ninja on it isnt a bad idea, but the hdmi out limits itself to 8bit out and the "cinema color" is just marketing bs. It has been proven time and time again, its just an saturation slider applied before encoding, still 8 bit.
Doing measurments the 28mb/s isnt true, as its drops to 24mb/s when in motion blur, going much higher with a ninja though wouldnt give you that much of a image quality boost.
If you want to use the NINJA you obviously care about a good image, the apeture however is square, so bokeh lets down from time to time. Other than that a upgrade wont give you much over a mid ranged dslr.
If you can, jump to the GH4, if your money allows it. But other than that, providing you can work around the lens, there isnt much a t3i or a 5d can give you over this.

With the exception of the god aweful image mode, which upscales images to blurry a 14mp mess. (there is a workaround however)

Last tip from a longtime user:
Go into the image setting and turn sharpness down to -2. -5 is the original image. Default applies a shapening, that leads to a lot of articafting. You will want to keep at least a bit of shapening, as you will have to do it anyway in post and doing it after the encoding is not a good idea. If you decide to use the LCD of the camera apply the following settings: +5 Brighness and -4 color in LCD settings.
A higher contrast and more color has been applied for marketing reasons to the lcd, with a lot of footage looking like garbage, once you see it on a big screen. Use this settings and adjust the apeture accordingly.

edit: incase you are interested: 20min film shot on the hdc 909, VFX heavy, trailer: saires.de/launch

May 10th, 2014, 03:29 PM	#1
Al Bergstein Major Player Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Port Townsend, WA Posts: 456	TM-900 and Ninja Blade - It works! Sort of. Looks like I was wrong. Well I thought I would share this with you. I just hooked up my TM-900 to my Ninja blade using HDMI and I'll be damned, I thought it produced clean HDMI out It appears as if I missed the only thing that keeps it from doing clean HDMI out, which is a small display of MNL or iA in the upper left corner. It was hidden by the stuff on my Ninja screen. Oh well. It would be great if Panny did a ROM upgrade that would take that thing out so we could use it for a camera for web casts. Looks like I'll have to buy a newer camera. Sorry for the false alarm, but I can't seem to delete posts here. __________________ Al Upper left hand corner of the map Last edited by Al Bergstein; May 10th, 2014 at 03:57 PM. Reason: Possibly wrong in my assumption

July 1st, 2014, 09:18 AM	#2
Wladislav Artsimovich Saires Art Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: Saxony Posts: 2	rtfm Jesus effing Christ, I'm so mad I had to sign up to DVinfo just to tell you: Read the freakin' manual, or at least try to google. You CAN turn clean hdmi on, with the remote. Says so in the manual and a quick google just as well. Other things gotten wrong about the HDC TM/SD-900/909 : You CAN change the ISO. And yuo CAN go 25p/30p for lowlight without using the stupid lowlight function, that turns everything into garbage. (these functions got renamed bcause panasonic are not the brightest and like to confuse their users.) Lastly: With good lighting and lowest gain/iso the camera delivers superb images. Using a ninja on it isnt a bad idea, but the hdmi out limits itself to 8bit out and the "cinema color" is just marketing bs. It has been proven time and time again, its just an saturation slider applied before encoding, still 8 bit. Doing measurments the 28mb/s isnt true, as its drops to 24mb/s when in motion blur, going much higher with a ninja though wouldnt give you that much of a image quality boost. If you want to use the NINJA you obviously care about a good image, the apeture however is square, so bokeh lets down from time to time. Other than that a upgrade wont give you much over a mid ranged dslr. If you can, jump to the GH4, if your money allows it. But other than that, providing you can work around the lens, there isnt much a t3i or a 5d can give you over this. With the exception of the god aweful image mode, which upscales images to blurry a 14mp mess. (there is a workaround however) Last tip from a longtime user: Go into the image setting and turn sharpness down to -2. -5 is the original image. Default applies a shapening, that leads to a lot of articafting. You will want to keep at least a bit of shapening, as you will have to do it anyway in post and doing it after the encoding is not a good idea. If you decide to use the LCD of the camera apply the following settings: +5 Brighness and -4 color in LCD settings. A higher contrast and more color has been applied for marketing reasons to the lcd, with a lot of footage looking like garbage, once you see it on a big screen. Use this settings and adjust the apeture accordingly. edit: incase you are interested: 20min film shot on the hdc 909, VFX heavy, trailer: saires.de/launch Last edited by Wladislav Artsimovich; July 1st, 2014 at 09:54 AM.