[Chris Simpson]

I own 5 ninjas to work in a multicam set up, utilising FCP7 multiclip feature. Not with an NX5 but V1, and I can confirm that the video produced is full 1920×1080 (rather than 1440×1080) through hdmi and the colour is richer, so I believe it is real 10bit 422 pro Rez, there’s a little more graining maybe than tape but on bad whip pans doing tape and recording to ninja (at the same time) a ninja frame has none of the blockiness or streaking of the HDV frame. Ninja is the real deal. I was toying with an nx5 rather than an ex1, as it is the v1 footage, or rather the cameras have been given a second life by the ninja. Also a 6 camera shoot usually produced 30 60min tapes, ingest pro Res (HDV) would require sitting in front of fcp ingesting capture now, for 48hrs. I imported the same ninja footage, to my raid in 4hrs. Also using the multclip feature, HDV tape like dv is prone to tape drop outs, and dragging half a clip through a 15min sequence can take an hour. No broken clips in Pro Res, that saved me another 6-10 hours in post. I’m trying to convince them to embed day and time (down to frame) so I can slave/synchronise one to another on timecode and I’ll save another 6hours. Again meaning you could use prosumer cams rather than timecode cams for multicam work.

Another useful use of the ninja, i’ve found FCP transcoding of HD avchd, when rendering out in Compressor for standard def DVD the avchd footage even transcoded to pro Res is full of terrible artifacts and ghosting, however putting the avchd camera into play mode and attaching the hdmi you can play it out (as though to a tv) to the ninja record that signal as pro Res hd (admittedly in real time, which is not much slower than transcode) this then can be used in fcp and after exporting a sd DVD none of the artifacts nor ghosting could be seen.

They are cheaper than the competition, the drives are cheap enough to used as a master/archive. Battery life/power consumption claims are real. I ran one for 24hrs recording on 2 npf970s.

Finally their web & email support is superb. (no I’m not employee of Atomos) yes I am a fanboy!

[Chris Simpson]

Thanks David.

Although the associated cost to change leave me as Mike says. 7 works for me. I figured after the sneak peek that I’d stick with 7, allow it be debugged and missing features be added. I did give some thought to learning it running parallel, on some personal projects, but instead, I’ll have to save the cash for necessary upgrades. Which from a business pov, if 7 pays & meets my clients needs. I stay with 7. Which is a shame, but that’s life!

[Chris Simpson]

So does adobe have multiclip sequencing now? I only ask as I only came over from PC/adobe, for 2 reasons, my PC could never be made stable or reliable enough and multiclip sequencing. It’s the foundation of more of workflow, so I’ll be sticking with FCP7 until it’s there, I also see Lion, a graphics card upgrade are required. I do wonder if my dual core mac pro will have the stones. You see when the announced the cheap price… Well really like trading in a car it’s not the price of the new car, it’s the cost to change.

[Chris Simpson]

So LaCie appears to be the way to go. Cheers.

[Chris Simpson]

No it’s not for editing, just to use as a portable device to transfer files from camera cards, or from one mac pro to another.

I do like g-tech and was giving it serious thought so how would you use it with a macbook pro which has ex card adaptor slot, loads of USB ports, fw800 port? Card in, fw out to g mini, I presume?

[Chris Simpson]

Cheers Peter,

All valid points, I’ve gone with not 1 but 2 Tascam DR-08, mostly I have to say because they are small enough to look like digital dictaphones, I got a good deal, but because it has a timer recording function, where I can set a time, like an alarm clock to start recording.

Your other points have crossed my mind, I’m going to employ an assistant to run them along with some static cameras, and work with the race team to swap out onboard cameras, while I rush around trying to shoot the pit lane, some circuit shooting.

I intend to take the line out of the car comms run it into the DR-08, hopefully I can line through to a sennhesier radio transmitter to the left hand channel of my cameras, which is good for about 100-150metres in the pitlane, at least.

[Chris Simpson]

The XDcam User website has a blurry glass cased modular mock up of avchd 35mm sensor cam in it’s Tokyo blog piece.

So long as it’s got an uncompressed hdmi/hdsdi, and xlr audio, then perhaps it’s really designed to be used with a nano/ki pro, to much greater effect than avchd, perhaps avchd in the 35mm should be viewed like having a stills facility in camcorder… a tad unfair, but perhaps it’s real power for a professional is bypassing the codec, and using the front end.

[Chris Simpson]

I confess I can’t answer your question but I’m also interested in the answer.

I was looking at XDcam user website sorry haven’t got the link on my iPhone, that had an article about using a nano flash on ex1 to video lightning bolts or something and it went on to discuss the subtle but observable improvement when capturing at 50Mbps or a 100Mbps 422, over 35Mbps on the Ex1.

I’m left wondering what to do I want my next camera purchase to have a 20x zoom like my V1, I fear the ex1 will be to short, adaptors have vignetting on the short end, I’d consider an ex3, but adding a Canon KH20 would make it prohibitively expensive, and mad, if I could just add a nano/ki pro mini/ atomos ninja to a more humble, but Essentially supercharged by bypassing the camera compression to say 50Mbps 422 1920×1080 on a Z5 or NX, I do motorsports so I have good light, but need reach, but also need the flexibility, additionally I do some broadcast work that requires DVcam. I thought choosing my next camera would be easy, but it’s really quite hard!

[Chris Simpson]

Oddly enough jeremy I’m considering doing that, but if it works the ninja retails for £7-800, by the time I’ve added a 256 Gb SSD and bits and bobs to mount it I reckon it’ll be something like £1250-1300, in the UK the ki pro mini is advertised above £2000 add the mounting stuff and potentially id like at least 6 of them. Plus though I’d have no problem navigating around the ki pro mini, I have some people helping out who aren’t ‘pros’ and the ninja interface looks like a simple and intuitive GUI.

[Chris Simpson]

Gary,

I meant I wouldnt invest in an EX if I could significantly boost my V1 performance by bolting on the ninja to the hdmi of the v1, i.e. Taking pro res HQ at 1920×1080 off the chip, rather than converting the compressed hdv 1440 x 1080 on ingest to fcp.

I travelled to the macvideo expo in London in October and had a chat to main man jeromy young, i suggested buiIding in timecode synchronisation feature so the ninjas could all record the same timecode at the same time for cameras without that feature built in, or running cables between pro cameras, he subsequently responded by email, and came over as a genuine good guy. Was disappointed not to see a functioning prototype, he told me they would be in QA testing about now, that there are plans for a hdi/sdi version, this version was squarely aimed at the dslr market (i assume these are hdmi) but having completed a pre order interest form I’d really like to see one working soon, or hear of progress, otherwise I might buy an ex1/3 after all before a january tax change in the uk. A lot of show appearances but otherwise fairly quiet on the Atomos website, and I really do hope this is for real as it has great potential and is a good idea. It would take 3-4 days of ingest out of my multicam post at a stroke.