Atomos Samurai Blade as main recorder? Anyone

[John Hope]

Hi, i'm working in a TV network and we had the luck to start working with a pair of Scarlet.
Next year we could receive 20 of these...
Most of the work will be done in a hurry, so we would record into Samurai Blade in Prores from SDI to speed up the process.
Anyone as some experience to share?
Thanks

 

[Björn Benckert]

Best option for the price. But possibly next year you might also got better workstations like the new mac pros Then 4k raw might not be much of an issue. But if you buy 20 scarlets then I would say a few blades would come handy as they are both recorder and quite good as second monitor. If you want to deal with a lot of external audio then the PIX sound device might be another option as it's also a really good sound recorder with XLR ins. But for the size and price the blade is probably what I would pick anyway.

 

[John Hope]

Thanks Björn,
i will check the PIX
Can't wait to get the Scarlet...
Cheers

 

[Clayton Burkhart]

The blade is really practical. It doubles as a nice waveform monitor as well. I find that particularly helpful and then can switch it over as a client monitor or focus confirm as the resolution is a big step up from the previous generation.

 

[Doug Beatty]

If you want to deal with a lot of external audio then the PIX sound device might be another option as it's also a really good sound recorder with XLR ins. But for the size and price the blade is probably what I would pick anyway.

Or you could get yourself an A-Box + Blade and essentially have all you could want from a Pix with the added benefit of a better field monitor.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Or you could get yourself an A-Box + Blade and essentially have all you could want from a Pix with the added benefit of a better field monitor.

The price of PIX brings more than just additional connectors. PIX is a high quality audio recorder as well.

 

[Brooke Atomos]

Hi, i'm working in a TV network and we had the luck to start working with a pair of Scarlet.
Next year we could receive 20 of these...
Most of the work will be done in a hurry, so we would record into Samurai Blade in Prores from SDI to speed up the process.
Anyone as some experience to share?
Thanks

Hi John,

I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about the Blade. We work closing with RED to ensure we work with their file naming spec.

I'm happy to create any demo videos for you if you need to know anything about our recorders.

Here is a quick setup guide we created:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?106802-Atomos-Samurai-Blade-and-RED-EPIC-setup-video

Thanks John.

-Brooke
Creative Director | atomos.com

 

[John Hope]

Hi Brooke,
thank you very much! i appreciate.
I think i will use the Samurai as main monitor for the Scarlet, as it has all the needed specs (peaking, histogram...)
I'm wondering if the Scarlet at 5.6K is able to output (while not recording) up to 25 fps via the SDI connector...
I doubt, but it's not a problem anyway.
Cheers

 

[Brooke Atomos]

John,

You can record on our device without having to record onto the internal media. The SDI should output to 1080p, even of you are recording to 4K.

Does that help?

Also, if you watch the video above and compare the RED Display to ours, the Blade display is amazing. When you see it up close in your hands, it's an accurate and sharp display. If I haven't used the Blade for a few days then come back to it, it still surprises me how good it looks. I actually use it here internally for reviewing videos and play back edits from Final Cut.

-Brooke
Creative Director | atomos.com

 

[John Hope]

John,

You can record on our device without having to record onto the internal media. The SDI should output to 1080p, even of you are recording to 4K.

Does that help?

-Brooke
Creative Director | atomos.com

Sure.
Yes the Samurai records 1080 from the SDI. What i wonder is: the frame rate while recording is the same that the Sensor is able to send to the SDI output? Just curious. In a week i will have the answer.
The other question is: i suppose that the camera, when not recording, is cooler, so i could se the fan to a lower rate. Is this right?

 

[Brooke Atomos]

So if you trigger record on our device or on the RED, it will do whatever frame rate is set on the RED for SDI out. We always recommend recording on both devices as the ProRes files can be proxies and the RED files are the ones you can swap out more in the end for final output or grade.

Eric Young from another thread about the Blade said this:

"Think HD-SDI output on the Epic defaults to 24Hz, even if the Project and Record framerates are 25fps. It's in Settings>Display>Monitor Control>Brain HDSDI>Frequency."

Look under those settings and see on the Scarlet if it is the same.

Thanks John.

-Brooke
Creative Director | atomos.com

 

[John Hope]

So if you trigger record on our device or on the RED, it will do whatever frame rate is set on the RED for SDI out. We always recommend recording on both devices as the ProRes files can be proxies and the RED files are the ones you can swap out more in the end for final output or grade.

Eric Young from another thread about the Blade said this:

"Think HD-SDI output on the Epic defaults to 24Hz, even if the Project and Record framerates are 25fps. It's in Settings>Display>Monitor Control>Brain HDSDI>Frequency."

Look under those settings and see on the Scarlet if it is the same.

Thanks John.

-Brooke
Creative Director | atomos.com

24?
ouch! this is not good.
I hope it does 25 too.

 

[Brooke Atomos]

I'll chase it up for you with some phone calls, I know I have recorded 25p in the past with no issues.

-Brooke
Creative Director | atomos.com

 

[Brooke Atomos]

Hi John,

A mate of mine records to 25p (based in Australia), it's hidden. He said it might be under monitor out sub menu.... He had the same issue of only 24p, but found it in the end.

Thanks John.

-Brooke
Creative Director | atomos.com

 

[Tom Van]

Hi Brooke,

A user on Vimeo asked and I'd like to know also... if you accidentally trigger Rec from the Blade instead of the camera do you screw up the naming?

 

[Paul Hazlett]

what would be nice is to have Epic file names as an overlay option on the blade

 

[Brooke Atomos]

Hey Tom,

We will continue to generate file names however they won't send the signal back down the line to the EPIC as it's not in the SDI spec. This is from another forum post I wrote about file naming:

To get an exact match with the Red filename:


- The camera must be set to TOD.


- RED camera trigger must be used. Set this in the timecode page.

- On the File Naming page, enable RED One/EPIC under source.


- The record button on the RED camera must be used to start and stop all recordings.

Exact file naming only works correctly if you hit record on the EPIC and stop on the EPIC. If you press record on our device either before or during when file naming is active you will run into issues.
Make sure the Blade is running 5.03 and the Samurai is running 4.2. I just did a major update with RED file naming.

Cheers,-Brooke
Creative Director | atomos.com

 

[Tom Van]

Thanks Brooke, I can see how anyone not familiar with the process will trigger rec on the Blade. But let's say you do start and stop on the Blade, would that not just add 1 extra Prores file to unit's HDD/SDD and leave the RED untouched? What sort of "issues" will we run into?

 

[Brooke Atomos]

Hey Tom,

Here's an example;

1st Record:
Trigger on EPIC, Stop on EPIC. - Blade and EPIC/RED share the same file name

2nd Record:
Trigger on Blade, Stop on Blade. - Blade records the current RED file name and then adds _TXXX (Take, with number 001) to the file name.

3rd Record:
Tigger on EPIC, Stop on EPIC. - Blade and EPIC/RED share the same file name

So it will go back to normal, you will just have that extra file in your bin with you edit, so you will just have to be aware of that.

Does this help?

EDIT: The issues you run into is a RED file not having the same name as a BLADE ProRes when you want to switch files. The Blade won't delete files or anything like that. But that is corrected again by only triggering via the EPIC.

Cheers,

-Brooke
Creative Director | atomos.com

 

[Tom Van]

Super. That's the exact scenario I ran through my head. Thanks for clearing that up.