Small HD Finally is here

[Warren Kawamoto]

Thank you!

[Trevor Meeks]

Originally Posted by Warren Kawamoto

Thank you!

no prob buddy! the build quality certainly shows - it's American for sure!

You certainly don't see iKan or Marshall putting their monitors in beautifully machined aluminum 'unibody' enclosures! heh... heh...

[Shawn Kessler]

Hello All!!
Has anyone tried runny this monitor into an anton buaer battery yet
curious to see how you do it. The 2 1/2 battery that you can get wont get me
through a day I would like to run it into my 120 brick is this possiable?


Thanks Shawn

[Trevor Meeks]

Originally Posted by Shawn Kessler

Hello All!!
Has anyone tried runny this monitor into an anton buaer battery yet
curious to see how you do it. The 2 1/2 battery that you can get wont get me
through a day I would like to run it into my 120 brick is this possiable?


Thanks Shawn

I can't speak for the anton bauers, but I can tell you that the smallHD batteries are well worth the (small) cost. I bought two, and with one in the monitor and one on the charger at all times I can go all day with only seconds of monitor downtime. If I must, I can power the monitor with my Tekkeon MP3450 which will certainly last all day, except there is that obvious weight/mounting difference.

[Andrew Dean]

Originally Posted by Shawn Kessler

Hello All!!
Has anyone tried runny this monitor into an anton buaer battery yet
curious to see how you do it. The 2 1/2 battery that you can get wont get me
through a day I would like to run it into my 120 brick is this possiable?

Hmm. Interesting question. Mechanically it should be easy. If you have a plate with a powertap on it, then its just a matter of buying an AB powertap to 2.1mm dc adapter cable. Nebtek has one for $55. (which seems oddly high). If you don't already have a plate/tap, then I reckon you could buy a different battery solution for less than the plate and keep the ab for other stuff.

Bigger question is the voltage. Hey Dale, does the DP1 have a published operating voltage range?

If the dp1 is listed as "12v" and thats it, it makes sense. Batteries are often inexact. If a circuit is designed for a 12v battery, it will almost always have a few volts of tolerance. However, there will always be a voltage where something burns up, so you have to err on the side of caution. If the dp1 smokes at 16v, then a 12v battery should be fine, and so would a 14.4 that is run down a bit, but a freshly charged 14.4 could spit out 17v and kaput. (depending on the battery design/quality/etc.) If it smokes at 22v, then the 14.4 should work fine. etc. Since the range is only published as "12v", then I'd suspect the safe range is a few volts in either direction and thats it.

So the three obvious solutions are:

1. If Dale says the 14.4v is safe, you buy the physical adapters to hook the hytron up.
2. If Dale says you need to stick with 12v, so you buy a 12v voltage adapter that spits out a safe 12v from your 14.4. (Pretty cheap and sold for hooking laptops up in cars)
3. If you don't already own the ab tapon plate and also need to convert the voltage down, then you'd probably be able to buy a whole 12v solution (smallhd or otherwise) for the cost of the plate/tapon cable and voltage converter... and free up the AB.

Hope that helps,
-Andrew

[Adrian Price]

Hey all

question for those who have managed to get their hands on the pre-release models...

How easy/hard is it to properly calibrate? I can see that as a focus assist these would be great, but a big issue for me is knowing that what I'm shooting is what i'm recording in terms of colour/exposure etc.

I think I read somewhere that these don't have a blue gun mode?

[Terry Martin]

First off, I have not attempted to calibrate the monitor at all. Given the lack of any documentation and the semi awkward controls, it was not a high priority.

I can report using the monitor to shoot a ballet performance. I color balanced all the cameras by shooting a grey card on stage, so color balance at the monitor was not an issue for me. The great surprise was that the improved resolution (detail) greatly improved exposure control. I previously used a 800x480 monitor which improved focus relative to the XH A1 LCD screen, but now the SmallHD resolution revealed the detail in such things as white ballet tutus. If you have ever shot a ballet, the exposure challenge is that some hot stage light catches a white tutu which goes all white and blows out the detail. The image was not perfectly color balanced, but wow was it sharp. I stopped looking for zebras on the A1 LCD, and just set exposure for good detail on the SmallHD… worked perfectly.

Also, if anyone is interested, I made a simple bracket to strap on a Tekkeon battery to the back of the monitor. The monitor used about 40% of the battery in about 2.5 hours.

[Garrett Low]

Hi Terry,

Do you have any pictures of your strap for the battery?

I recently shot a dance recital and ballet too and it was so much easier with the monitor. I've been meaning to calibrate my SmallHD but haven't had the time since I'm now editing the shows.

Thanks,
Garrett

[Adrian Price]

thanks for the info Terry re yr experiences so far. Sounds very promising. Has anyone else had success calibrating? I'm confused about the blue gun option as I think I read on one of the posts that it doesn't have this but on the website it says blue option is included?

[Terry Martin]

I too am waiting for someone to post a detailed calibration specification (hint hint SmallHD folks). Also, I’ll try to get some Tekkeon battery mount photos up this weekend.

[Terry Martin]

Attached are some photos of a quick battery mount for a Tekkeon battery. It is just a scrap aluminum plate screwed to the back, capturing two Velcro straps.

[Terry Martin]

6/28/09
By request I will report some observations about color balance options, although I am happy with the out of the box performance. Bottom line: Seems mostly accurate, but reds seem less saturated. It looks like a jpg in Adobe RGB, displayed in an sRGB color space.

Testing Methods:
Set up a Canon XH A1 in a room with natural sunlight through a skylight. Step 1, set aperture for 100% zebras on white paper (4.4). Step 2 White balance to a grey card. Step 3, introduce a color chart and compare to DP1 display. As I said very close, with less saturated reds. Photo 1: color chart, Photo 2 color chart on monitor. Note, there is a slight blue cast on photo 2 that was not apparent live. (photos taken with an old Nikon 990)

Looking in the setup menu, there is a color temp option with choices: normal, warm, cool, blue, red, and green. Photo 3 is color bars from the camera in normal mode, and Photo 4 is in “blue” color temp mode. Not sure if this is really a blue gun effect. All modes except normal looked unreal compared to the actual color chart.

Photo 5 is the color adjustment screen. As I said, I am happy in factory “normal” mode, but I just learned that those spyder monitor calibration systems are now inexpensive, so I might get one and use it for all my monitors including the DP1.

[Nick Hiltgen]

For what it's worth I've found a cheap and somewhat effective way of getting the blue gun effect is folding up a CTB gel until all you can see is blue only, which may help out in calibration if the blue only effect isn't really as advertised.

[Bill Busby]

It's no doubt this monitor is amazing (I've yet to purchase one), but advertising having a blue only mode, when... from what I gather, is just a "color temp" setting is very misleading.

[Trevor Meeks]

SmallHD General Ordering will start July 1st!

This e-mail was sent from the folks at SmallHD today:

The Wait for the DP1 is Almost Over


On July 1st at 9PM EST, a freshly updated website will appear at SmallHD.com, which will be open for DP1 and accessory orders. It will include a knowledge base in the form of a Wiki, which will function like an expandable user guide as we continue to get useful feedback from DP1 field testers. A variety of short video tutorials are planned for release shortly after July 1, as well as a periodic video blog which will answer FAQs we get in emails.

DP1 orders beginning July 1 will be shipped within 48 hours of receipt. If initial demand is EXTREMELY high and a backorder situation develops before the middle of July, backordered DP1s will ship around July 22nd. Backordered units will be shipped in the order they are received. In the event of a backorder situation, a backorder announcement will be sent out to the SmallHD mailing list, and an estimated ship date will be posted at the top of the "Store" page of SmallHD.com. More detailed shipping information will be found at SmallHD.com on July 1.

In the past month, we've added several features to the DP1's menu system such as expanded scale options and programmable "overscan" presets (geared toward RED and EX1 users that allow the menu data from each camera to be properly displayed on the DP1), all in addition to finding and fixing a few glitches related to progressive signals.

As for those of you currently in possession of a Pre-ordered DP1, we will soon be announcing a plan/schedule to update the firmware on your unit(s) to include the software additions mentioned above.

Thank you to all,

The SmallHD Team