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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

ATOMOS Samurai Blade review

Trying to get this thing to record clean images without the overlay. (No matter what I try, the edgecode and the image of record icon in the upper right hand corner get recorded onto the QT files. Am I doing something stupid, or is this just something I have to live with? (A 10% blow up takes care of it, but it would be nice not to have to do that.)
 
Jim McKinney said:
Trying to get this thing to record clean images without the overlay. (No matter what I try, the edgecode and the image of record icon in the upper right hand corner get recorded onto the QT files. Am I doing something stupid, or is this just something I have to live with? (A 10% blow up takes care of it, but it would be nice not to have to do that.)
Click to expand...

You have to set the HD-SDI output of the camera to "CLEAN", rather than "OVERLAY", in the "Monitor Control" menu.
 
Tom Hamilton said:
Has anyone tested the Blade focus tool, how accurate is it?
Click to expand...

Hey Tom,

The Focus Assist tool on the Blade is razor sharp and has always given me accurate results when shooting.

Here's some raw images from the Blade (then converted to JPG), so these aren't Photoshop'd. (This footage was supplied by David Newton)

image1.jpeg


image2.jpeg


image3.jpeg


image4.jpeg


If you have any other questions I'm happy to answer.

We have also updated our audio meters, so image is from AtomOS 5.02, the new meters are super accurate.

Thanks Tom.

-Brooke
Creative Director | atomos.com
 
Thanks Brooke, what we all need to know here, can we use the focus tools on the monitor, and still have a clean image recorded to 422, independently, without the overlays?

My clients are counting on that, makes the outs that much simpler.
 
Tom,

We don't record any of our GUI overlays or elements onto the ProRes files. The images above are taken for my dev build allowing me to take screen shots, but as far as video is concerned we only record clean regardless if you have our overlays on or Waveform/Luma Parade on or even our safe frame camera guides active.

The one thing is, you have to make sure that the camera you are recording as the source has clean HD-SD SDI/HDMI output. If it you can see the menus from the camera on our monitor, then it will record it. The EPIC does clean out as long as you enable it.

It's the same as the Ninja and Samurai (One), we don't record our overlays onto the ProRes files.

We can also loop out of the Blade into SDI monitors or HDMI devices (using the Atomos Connect) with the signal being clean. I created this video for you to see it in action.

Download it here:

http://www.atomos.com/social_media/reduser/2013_Oct/id00064_Clean_Overlay_Oct_2013.m4v

image5.jpg


Hope this helps or answers the question correctly.

Regards,

-Brooke
Creative Director | atomos.com
 
Brooke Atomos said:
Tom,

We don't record any of our GUI overlays or elements onto the ProRes files. The images above are taken for my dev build allowing me to take screen shots, but as far as video is concerned we only record clean regardless if you have our overlays on or Waveform/Luma Parade on or even our safe frame camera guides active.

The one thing is, you have to make sure that the camera you are recording as the source has clean HD-SD SDI/HDMI output. If it you can see the menus from the camera on our monitor, then it will record it. The EPIC does clean out as long as you enable it.

It's the same as the Ninja and Samurai (One), we don't record our overlays onto the ProRes files.

We can also loop out of the Blade into SDI monitors or HDMI devices (using the Atomos Connect) with the signal being clean. I created this video for you to see it in action.

Download it here:

http://www.atomos.com/social_media/reduser/2013_Oct/id00064_Clean_Overlay_Oct_2013.m4v

image5.jpg


Thanks for the video Brooke.
Is the Samurai Blade 8-bit (true 8-bit) 16.7 millions colors?
What is the Contrast Ratio of the Blade? and the Luminance (Max.) cd/m² (center) ?
Click to expand...
 
Hi Alexandros,

I believe that the Blade is 16M colours, I'll confirm tomorrow if it's true 8-bit when our Head of Hardware is back from leave tomorrow.

It's a 1280x720p 325dpi screen, with Contrast Ratio of 1420 with a White, cd/m2 547. These values are approx however, and will run higher or lower depending on the display's life and usage. I've heard that the CR is actually much higher but I haven't tested it.

We support Rec 709 colour space that can be calibrated in real-time with the Atomos Spyder and we are adding S-Log and C-Log to it.

It's a super bright display, the video above doesn't do it justice really as I had the brightness down and it I filmed under the ceiling fluorescent lights.

I still recommend the our Sun Hood, but if you have a Ninja or Samurai (One) and the RED display and place it next to this, the difference is amazing and noticeable immediately. I never looked at the RED display once it was setup correctly with the Blade.

Regards,

-Brooke
Creative Director | atomos.com
 
Thank you Brooke,

Answers most of my questions, the Epic outputs a clean image via HD-SDI, if you connect to HDMI, then all of the Epic generated overlays are present.

We are fitting the Blade into an Amphibico Rouge underwater Epic housing, the Rouge has two viewing ports, one assigned to the Red LCD. As u/w focus is problematic, even under the best of conditions, we will be relying on the Blade focus tools to achieve critical sharpness. Shipwreck documentaries are fraught with difficulty, not least the great depths we are working at, and the very limited time dictated by our breathing apparatus to achieve the shot list. The deeper stuff is measured in mere minutes.

Happy to pass on the results, let me know if you'd like to see it.
 
Yes Tom, I'd love to do a story on our Smart Producers site. We mostly have Canon 5D users that feature their underwater rigs, so I'm keen to feature an EPIC.

Let me know how it turns out.

-Brooke
Creative Director | atomos.com
 
Tom Hamilton said:
Thank you Brooke,

Answers most of my questions, the Epic outputs a clean image via HD-SDI, if you connect to HDMI, then all of the Epic generated overlays are present.
.
Click to expand...

Tom just to clarify. It's very possible to get a clean feed out to any monitoring device from the epic, also from the HDMI port, just as any other port. It's all possible to set in the menus for monitoring.
 
Thanks Bjorn, yes that is true, i was thinking of the opposite scenario. On a recent project the length of cable from camera housing to topside dictated the use of SDI, we found out that you can't get overlays to HD-SDI, last I checked anyways. Has that changed in recent builds?
 
Tom Hamilton said:
Thanks Bjorn, yes that is true, i was thinking of the opposite scenario. On a recent project the length of cable from camera housing to topside dictated the use of SDI, we found out that you can't get overlays to HD-SDI, last I checked anyways. Has that changed in recent builds?
Click to expand...

No I'm pretty sure that all outputs can show with or without overlay. In current and not current builds.

Edit: as Jim says.
 
Just to report, I've been very happy using my Samurai Blade on a couple of jobs. Considering that I would have lost camera rentals to non-RAW cameras, the Blade has already paid for itself. In addition, the monitoring features alone make this a good choice for a stand-alone 2nd on-board monitor. A bit of a nitpick here, the focus assist can be a bit "too" sensitive at times. It would be nice to adjust it with a knob! Just a suggestion for future iterations. I haven't run this thing through every sort of test yet, but so far, I'm delighted!

It's pretty intuitive and so far, the performance has been rock solid.
 
Jim McKinney said:
Just to report, I've been very happy using my Samurai Blade on a couple of jobs. Considering that I would have lost camera rentals to non-RAW cameras, the Blade has already paid for itself. In addition, the monitoring features alone make this a good choice for a stand-alone 2nd on-board monitor. A bit of a nitpick here, the focus assist can be a bit "too" sensitive at times. It would be nice to adjust it with a knob! Just a suggestion for future iterations. I haven't run this thing through every sort of test yet, but so far, I'm delighted!

It's pretty intuitive and so far, the performance has been rock solid.
Click to expand...

I agree. I've been using mine since it's been out and it has been a solid performer. (with the right ssd of course)One downside that irks me though is that it WILL NOT take a true time lapse signal into the recorder. It will just record in realtime w/ audio to your hard drive. It's great for going straight into edit on projects for broadcast.
 
Jim McKinney said:
Just to report, I've been very happy using my Samurai Blade on a couple of jobs. Considering that I would have lost camera rentals to non-RAW cameras, the Blade has already paid for itself. In addition, the monitoring features alone make this a good choice for a stand-alone 2nd on-board monitor. A bit of a nitpick here, the focus assist can be a bit "too" sensitive at times. It would be nice to adjust it with a knob! Just a suggestion for future iterations. I haven't run this thing through every sort of test yet, but so far, I'm delighted!

It's pretty intuitive and so far, the performance has been rock solid.
Click to expand...

Jim, not sure what you mean about the focus assist being too sensitive. Is the focus tool not a function of your lens focus control, the monitor focus tool just shows you what is/isn't in focus? Maybe I'm missing something here...
 
Hi Tom, In some situations (and not in others), the red pixels seem to extend in a zoom a little to the front and to the back of true focus (in areas that are definitely soft). The effect seems to dissipate front and back of true focus, but is still there. I'm thinking something like a peaking knob that could modulate the effect could be quite helpful.
 
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