Announcing the new PIX-E Series of Field Recording Monitors

[Paul Isaacs]

There are two ways to make LCD screens more visible in the presence of bright light (sunlight etc): reflect the light, or overpower the light with even brighter light. A purely reflective LCD is pretty difficult to see in the dark, so there are not many of these other than on cheap alarm clocks etc. "Transmissive" displays are the most common - these are backlit, and what you have on most products at this point with color displays (iPhones, 688/633, PIX-E, etc).

Many marine displays use "transflective" displays, which reflect a portion of the incident light back at you as well as transmit the backlight through (about 20% reflective and 80% transmissive). These have mostly fallen out of favor, as they look fairly terrible in all conditions. The colors often look very washed out, and they suffer from very poor off-axis fidelity. Newer transflective displays simply are not made. Most of the transflective screens available are larger, lower-resolution displays. A good portable video monitor needs to be small, have accurate color representation, be high resolution and have great off axis viewing.

The other way to deal with this issue is to use a transmissive display and jack up the backlight power. This works to a point. Eyes respond logarithmically. So if you want 10dB more light, you'd need to put about 10x more power into the backlight. There are a few issues with this: the display would get very thick to accommodate such LEDs, it would get hot such that you might need a cooling system (especially in a small chassis), it would be expensive, and the batteries in the unit would not last very long!

OLED displays are fundamentally different than LCDs: each pixel is a small LED. While they offer superior contrast ratios and color compared to LCDs, they are way dimmer and wash out in sunlight.

The bottom line is that the perfect display has yet to be invented. Said display would be mostly reflective, with great color fidelity, fast-response pixels, low power, reasonable cost, and small.

That said the PIX-E5 IPS LCD offers a great overall performance with its 500nit brightness, 1920x1080 (441ppi) resolution, and great off axis viewing

Paul

[Cliff Totten]

Any more news on the PIX e5?

B&H says my pre order will ship August 1.

Also, is there any news on when the Speed Drive will be released?

Last question: Will 500gig Samsung M-SATA's work in the Speed Drive?

Getting very excited. It's been a long wait since NAB!

[Paul Isaacs]

We are in the final throws of QA testing, so we expect to be shipping any day now.

SpeedDrive will be available at launch.

At launch, only the 250GB Samsung 850 EVO mSATA is tested and on Approved List. It is an excellent drive. We do aim to expand the list.

Paul

[Cliff Totten]

Darn...I just ordered the Samsung 500 gig - 850 EVO mSATA tonight from B&H

Even though the size is not officially supported, it does come from the same family and product line. Do you know for a fact that this will cause problems?

I guess I will be a beta tester for this M-SATA! I need it for long form 4k shooting.

If not, I'm sure you folks will work it out soon enough.

I also have the sun hood on pre order. Is that also slated to ship with the the speed drive?

[Albrecht Ziburski]

Hi Paul, glad to read that you are on schedule releasing the pix-e's and that they will be in the hands of customers these days. My dealer in Germany gave me mid to end of August as a date for delivering pix-e5h and pix-lr. Hope you can meet that too.

I remember reading from Art Adams that he is confident, that the pix-e's will bee a complete product on release and that you at sounddevices will not release something half backed. Lets say with playback software enabled later. Hope there will be no such frustrations after release.

For me the Pix-e5 monitors are perfect to go with the Sony a7s. Not only as not to big video monitors and to record 4k. I will use them as a top audio solution, as a live view monitor for outdoors stills photography e.g.. focussing tilt shift lenses. And with the solid double battery slots as a external power solution for the a7s.

Wish you all success with this product line.

[Cliff Totten]

Hi Paul,

Quick question. Does the Pix E5 firmware "lock out" any drive that is not approved? Another manufacturer does this with their recorder today.

I'm hoping that I can keep my Samsung 850 EVO - 500gig drive for my PIX E5. I'm hoping that it will make your list eventually.

[Paul Isaacs]

Started shipping PIX-E5 today!!!

Hi Cliff,

I would highly recommend sticking with the approved drives. We have not tested the 500 GB version. It may work, but it is at your own risk. Although it is the same 'family', it's performance will likely be different.
We do plan to start seriously evaluating this and other mSATA. Media approval involves much analysis and deep testing - not a quick process. See here for what's involved in the testing process:

YouTube (Short URL)

We do not lock out use of unapproved media.

Sun hood is shipping today too, yes.

Paul

[Paul Isaacs]

Hi Albrecht,

Yes - we are currently on target to ship the PIX-E5H end of August. PIX-LR will be more towards the end of September.

Yes - playback is enabled in the initial release

I recommend reading the online User Guide for the full details on implemented functionality.
http://videodevices.com/download/gui...X-E5-ug_en.pdf

best

Paul

Originally Posted by Albrecht Ziburski

Hi Paul, glad to read that you are on schedule releasing the pix-e's and that they will be in the hands of customers these days. My dealer in Germany gave me mid to end of August as a date for delivering pix-e5h and pix-lr. Hope you can meet that too.

I remember reading from Art Adams that he is confident, that the pix-e's will bee a complete product on release and that you at sounddevices will not release something half backed. Lets say with playback software enabled later. Hope there will be no such frustrations after release.

For me the Pix-e5 monitors are perfect to go with the Sony a7s. Not only as not to big video monitors and to record 4k. I will use them as a top audio solution, as a live view monitor for outdoors stills photography e.g.. focussing tilt shift lenses. And with the solid double battery slots as a external power solution for the a7s.

Wish you all success with this product line.

A

[Cliff Totten]

Thanks Paul for the info.

Does the PIX E5 come with 110v to DC power transformer?

If I need to buy my own, I will probably by a 12v but how many amps does the PIX draw? Will a 2 amp DC transformer work or is more needed?

[Paul Isaacs]

Yes it comes with an AC to DC PSU.

Paul

[Cliff Totten]

Hi Paul,

I might have missed it but I didn't see LUTs for SLOG or any other gamma.

Does the PIX E5 support look up tables? I'm interested in SLOG-2 and SLOG-3

Cant wait to get my pre-order processed!

My PIX E5 shows it's shipping from B&H on Aug1 however, the SpeedDrive and hood have no info or even picture on their site. My order still says "7 to 14 days until shipping"

Thanks!

[Paul Isaacs]

LUTs didn't make it into the first firmware release, but they are coming soon.

See here for pics of accessories:

Accessories - Video Devices

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Paul Isaacs

LUTs didn't make it into the first firmware release, but they are coming soon.

That's sad to hear. Might need to hold off until this is ready. Are there any plans for a record LUT option like the Shogun has? That comes in handy for clients who I know will not do much for color correction.

Also, what is the triggering support like? I have a C100 Mark II, a GH4, and the A7R II. Will the Pix-E5 support record triggering and timecode from these cameras?

[Paul Isaacs]

HI Gary,

What do you mean by a record LUT option? Ability to record the log signal un-processed or the ability to record it as REC 709?

HDMI triggers and timecode are coming. SDI triggers and timecode already supported.

Paul

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Paul Isaacs

What do you mean by a record LUT option? Ability to record the log signal un-processed or the ability to record it as REC 709?

The Shogun lets you load a .cube file into memory and then load it for viewing over your signal or actually recording the LUT burned in on the ProRes file. This can be handy for quick turnover of footage that you know won't actually be graded. This would really be handy for C300 Mark II shoots in which you can deliver color corrected ProRes files straight from the drive for the client (especially if they are still editing in a FCP classic environment) while having the XFAVC Clog2 files for demo reel material.

HDMI triggers and timecode are coming.

Hope this is added soon!