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RED & ATOMOS Ninja

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BrandonChristensen

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Didn't want this to get lost in another thread...

I'm heavily considering saving up front and getting a Ninja to compliment the $9750 package (with the RedMote and Power Pack), and I've been looking at the specs and it says that it can handle up to 1080p.

Now, I know it records in 1080p, but do you have to have the Scarlet set to 1080p, or can you use more of the sensor and have the camera set to 4K...thus recording 1080p via Ninja, but getting the 1.6x crop of 4K.

Any ideas?
 
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I've been trying to find answers and I believe we will not know the answer until it comes out. Some says it's possible, but some says it's not compatible yet as with the EPIC. So we cannot yet know for sure.
 
I would hope that, even if shooting in 4K or 3K, that it would be kicking out a 1080p downscale through the HDMI/HDSDI (but I don't have an Epic, don't know if it works that way).

But I feel that, for reasons beyond external recording, you raise an important (to me) point. Which is that, I can appreciate the 1:1 crop-in for different resolutions, but to be dealing with some pretty extreme crop factor issues if I, for example, wanted to simply shoot at a higher framerate... well, that could be a real bummer. Having the option of taking a 1:1 crop or a downsample would really be ideal.

I guess the issue, technically, is the processing power required to downsample a high-res image into a lower one? Doesn't seem like it should be that difficult (doesn't it do this for proxies already?) but I don't know of any other reasons why the option wouldn't be offered. So I was wondering that myself.
 
If it's just using the HDMI to send out a signal for monitoring...then it would make sense that it would be able to work at any resolution.

I guess we wait until someone gets it.

Someone with more money than I will be able to run the tests :)
 
Well,

I thought of the same thing, but an Atomos Ninja have never received a signal of a resolution higher than 1080p. This leaves the question of will it be able to receive the 4k signal and downgrade to 1080p. So yea, as you said, We'll have to wait for someone with more money than we do to run the tests.
 
Patrick Paterson said:
Well,

I thought of the same thing, but an Atomos Ninja have never received a signal of a resolution higher than 1080p. This leaves the question of will it be able to receive the 4k signal and downgrade to 1080p. So yea, as you said, We'll have to wait for someone with more money than we do to run the tests.
Click to expand...

Ninja will not work with anything >1080p, nor will Scarlet/Epic output anything >1080p over HDMI or HD-SDI. But Scarlet/Epic will convert all frame sizes into 1080p output so that is not the issue. The real question is whether the debayer quality on 1080p monitoring outputs is good enough to be worth recording. It sounds from reports of people recording to a PIX240 from Epic that it might be a good option. Hard to say what other unforeseen issues there are for example what modes does it output, is it always 60i or does it change intelligently based on project settings, and then does Ninja handle all those modes.

Someone from RED or someone who has attempted recording from an Epic might be able to give us some good information on this.

This then begs the question, if Scarlet/Epic is capable realtime (high quality?) debayering at all frame sizes and conversion to 1080p for monitoring output, it would not be too difficult for them to finally implement the option of recording downconverted 1080p in all frame modes in camera as they once listed in the Scarlet/Epic specs many years ago. The main concern is just how they would fit that into a Redcode RAW bitstream and whether it would come about it through skipping, binning, or high quality downconversion of each color channel.
 
The epic manual states that the HD SDI will output a clean feed 1080p suitable for recording to external devices. Hopefully this will be the case with Scarlet as well, as many of us would really need to do this from time to time.
 
I am curious about this, as well. I have a Ki Pro Mini already and a Scarlet is on its way. I have come realize that some clients wouldn't want to deal with post and render of Redcode, even though the raw codec is the beauty of RED. I am also curious about the look of footage captured via SDI or HDMI...I can only guess that it will look flat and need serious color correction; i.e. no sexy "out of the box" looks, which is fine

I do have access to an Epic...I will try to get a test shoot this week to see how it behaves. My plan is to shoot at every crop factor and record to the Ki Pro via SDI

Anything that you suggest I look for? Any settings I should check?

While on the subject...should I sell that Ki Pro Mini and get a Samurai when it becomes avail? Anybody know what would make it a better device (besides the monitor) specs look the same
 
steven moreno said:
Anything that you suggest I look for? Any settings I should check?
Click to expand...

My main things to check would be see what output modes Epic puts out over HDMI and HD-SDI at various project and overcrank framerates and frame sizes and see if the kipro can handle them, and then you can point at a highly detailed scene maybe even with a chart somewhere in it and record out of the HDMI or HD-SDI while recording REDCODE so you/we can compare RAW vs kipro frames for detail, aliasing, motion etc in all of those available shooting modes to completely reveal what is possible and useable and what is not. Basically the ideal (which seems somewhat unlikely given the processing power required) is that the 1080p monitoring outputs are derived from full quality full raster debayered frames downscaled in high quality, and output in proper progressive or psf formats that are dependent on the project format and can be easily handled by most external recorders.

Might be interesting to see what comes out of the outputs when in overcranked framerates as well.
 
Getting back to talking about the purpose of this thread, the ATOMOS Ninja, there are a few things to consider.

Yes, the HDMI and HD-SDI outputs will both send 1080p signals to an external recorder no matter what the in-camera resolution is set at, but will not support variable frame rates.

The most important factor is that from all the press that RED has released thus far, the HDMI output will NOT be activated when the Scarlet ships (and who knows how long after).

Also, at the moment (it can be fixed with firmware, I believe) both the HD-SDI and HDMI have a slight "bordering" effect. This will put a very thin black border on everything you record out of either of the ports.

So, to sum that up, the ATOMOS Ninja will NOT work at the moment because it only records through HDMI and the HDMI out on the Scarlet is not activated. The ATOMOS Samurai would work nearly perfectly, with the "nearly" being that it will record a slight border that you'll have to crop out in post.
 
steven moreno said:
I am curious about this, as well. I have a Ki Pro Mini already and a Scarlet is on its way. I have come realize that some clients wouldn't want to deal with post and render of Redcode, even though the raw codec is the beauty of RED. I am also curious about the look of footage captured via SDI or HDMI...I can only guess that it will look flat and need serious color correction; i.e. no sexy "out of the box" looks, which is fine

I do have access to an Epic...I will try to get a test shoot this week to see how it behaves. My plan is to shoot at every crop factor and record to the Ki Pro via SDI

Anything that you suggest I look for? Any settings I should check?

While on the subject...should I sell that Ki Pro Mini and get a Samurai when it becomes avail? Anybody know what would make it a better device (besides the monitor) specs look the same
Click to expand...

Just try 4K in the Epic, and send to the Ki Pro via HDMI.

Samuel Cowden said:
The most important factor is that from all the press that RED has released thus far, the HDMI output will NOT be activated when the Scarlet ships (and who knows how long after).
Click to expand...

I thought that was Epic only? Scarlet doesn't have it at launch either?

Bummer.
 
You can record it no problem we have a AYA KIPRO Mini recording process out of the video tap of the epic and the files holds nice debater quality and so on, but it's not raw and it's to me not the way to go. Only for on set replay and such. I would instead trow money towards a red rocket. that not only solves the problem for you its also a great boost for your post pipeline. It makes grading and making proxies for offline in a breeze. Working with red rocket and using XML files from final cut makes 5k grading very easy.
 
Jay Birch said:
Any idea of the bit rate of the feeds?

I assume:

HD-SDI - 10 bit
Click to expand...

Yeah HDSDI out is 10 bit and 1920 x 1080. You can choose to overlay menus, only frame guides, or a pure clean feed. Unlike the RED One the HDSDI out is VERY high quality.
 
Björn Benckert said:
You can record it no problem we have a AYA KIPRO Mini recording process out of the video tap of the epic and the files holds nice debater quality and so on, but it's not raw and it's to me not the way to go. Only for on set replay and such. I would instead trow money towards a red rocket. that not only solves the problem for you its also a great boost for your post pipeline. It makes grading and making proxies for offline in a breeze. Working with red rocket and using XML files from final cut makes 5k grading very easy.
Click to expand...

Well, my plan is to build the cheapest 'shootable' kit right now. And then add SSD's later for projects that require 4K.

Right now I'm shooting 7D, and while I love it, having the 12 minute file problem and buffer issues is not the best for some work. That's where the Ninja would come in handy. Not everything I do requires to shoot in RAW, so having the option of having my more corporate stuff go right into Pro Res 422 would be amazing for the overall workflow.
 
One more thing....

Is the only way to power the camera with Redvolts is by using the Side Handle? If I were to forgo that, I would be forced to power via AC?

Hmm...this keeps getting more complex.
 
BrandonChristensen said:
One more thing....

Is the only way to power the camera with Redvolts is by using the Side Handle? If I were to forgo that, I would be forced to power via AC?

Hmm...this keeps getting more complex.
Click to expand...

There are rear battery modules coming from RED that take the REDvolts. They should be out by the end of the year.
 
BrandonChristensen said:
One more thing....

Is the only way to power the camera with Redvolts is by using the Side Handle? If I were to forgo that, I would be forced to power via AC?

Hmm...this keeps getting more complex.
Click to expand...

For now, yes - the only RedVolt solution is the side handle. There are battery modules coming out - a quad module and a dual module - but there are no specific ship dates on those yet. Alternatively, you can also consider powering via V-Lock batteries (like the Red Bricks), or I think there are options for Anton Bauer bricks, too (third party, though).

EDIT: looks like Justin beat me to it.
 
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