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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 :)

Sound Devices PIX 240 ProRes/DNxHD Video Recorder with EPIC

I should be getting mine shortly, and personally think it will be a great companion piece to the Epic. I'm about to shoot a very small, low budget feature that won't have the benefit of a Mac Pro / Red Rocket combo, but rather, a couple of laptops for media management and editing. The director ideally wanted to look at footage at the end of each day, but I told him we'd either have to preview in very low resolution (possibly without audio) or transcode first, which at best would be an overnight endeavor...with the PIX, the director can go over anything and everything we shot, with audio sync, and start playing around with edits, all knowing that we can take that through the post process until a conform to the R3Ds. On set, it gives me a second monitor (albeit a small one that may not be good for judging exposure or color, but if we're in the mindset of viewing from a videotap, it should work just fine).

As others have already mentioned, in other situations we can also hand off dailies for all those clients that want to walk out the door ready to edit, without having to bring a transcoding station to set.
 
Adam Eden said:
i just finished shooting for 12 hours with the PIX240 today in AVID codec and the machine worked flawlessly. I recorded over 3 hours of vision/audio without a hitch.

Only 2 problems.

1 (WHICH IS THE BIGGEST) the files it records is .MOV and not MXF so you need to re encode the footage unless you link to it via AMA.

2nd (WHICH IS A PAIN THE THE ASS) The vision is great, but when you feed audio via analogue into the PIX240 the audio is out of sync by about 1-2 frames from the frame delay out of the SDI of the EPIC. Easy fix in post but a little painful.


Out of 10... I give this box an 8. Very reliable and stable. I will definately use it again.
Click to expand...

is yours the final release version or a pre production model?
#1- this is a disappointment
#2- deal breaker
 
Greg M said:
is yours the final release version or a pre production model?
#1- this is a disappointment
#2- deal breaker
Click to expand...

I agree Greg. Soft sync is a big problem.

However, one would think its not unsurmountable. . . If Sound Devices can figure out exactly what the delay coming over the SDI input is (one would assume it would be constant, no?) they could easily include some kind of delay on the audio in to compensate.

Or, RED could come up with their own Pro Res module and solve it all in one foul swoop!
 
Andreas Mendritzki said:
However, one would think its not unsurmountable. . . If Sound Devices can figure out exactly what the delay coming over the SDI input is (one would assume it would be constant, no?) they could easily include some kind of delay
Click to expand...

Hi Andreas

You might be interested to hear that we already include audio delay compensation in the PIX recorders exactly for this purpose. Most cameras including EPIC will have some delay from lens to SDI output so we built in variable audio delay from 0-200ms to allow users to align the PIX audio with the video so that there is zero offset between them within the recorded file.

regards

Paul Isaacs
Technical Development Manager
Sound Devices LLC
 
Great to the above, and thanks Haakon for the summary of +'s.

Quick, slightly off-topic question. I'm planning to venture out of my Apple-centric word and switch to CS5.5 PP for editing - maybe even abandon Apple altogether and upgrade to PC. Anyway, is there any advantage to DNX over ProRes (as output by the PIX 240) when editing in PP?
 
Steve Wake said:
Great to the above, and thanks Haakon for the summary of +'s.

Quick, slightly off-topic question. I'm planning to venture out of my Apple-centric word and switch to CS5.5 PP for editing - maybe even abandon Apple altogether and upgrade to PC. Anyway, is there any advantage to DNX over ProRes (as output by the PIX 240) when editing in PP?
Click to expand...

Not that I know of, I've edited using both in CS5.5 on my PC (and on a Mac as well) and everything worked great.
 
Paul Isaacs said:
Hi Andreas

You might be interested to hear that we already include audio delay compensation in the PIX recorders exactly for this purpose. Most cameras including EPIC will have some delay from lens to SDI output so we built in variable audio delay from 0-200ms to allow users to align the PIX audio with the video so that there is zero offset between them within the recorded file.

regards

Paul Isaacs
Technical Development Manager
Sound Devices LLC
Click to expand...

This is why I have had one on order since I first heard of it, these guys think of everything, and to get this kind of feedback quickly is invaluable, thanks Paul!
 
With it now and that is indeed the case. Audio delay compensation is there. Brilliant work guys. So far Scaling is the only issue and only for those times that you need to deliver ready for broadcast files. Red is looking into options for this.

Build quality is exceptional as usual.
 
Did a quick test with Ken Willinger and his Pix240 today to find out what the offset for audio is using Epic to the PIX. We ran a couple of mics to the PIX and then started going through the delay compensation settings. First video you will see was with no compensation. We won't waste your time with some of the lower settings because they are way off. Somewhere around 150ms, things start to line up. You'll find somewhere between 150 and 175 is the sweet spot. So here are the results. By the way, Ken is guessing 163ms will be dead on. But he hates audio guys, so we'll leave it at that....






 
Paul Isaacs said:
Hi Andreas

You might be interested to hear that we already include audio delay compensation in the PIX recorders exactly for this purpose. Most cameras including EPIC will have some delay from lens to SDI output so we built in variable audio delay from 0-200ms to allow users to align the PIX audio with the video so that there is zero offset between them within the recorded file.

regards

Paul Isaacs
Technical Development Manager
Sound Devices LLC
Click to expand...

Hi Paul

Thanks for chiming in on this thread. Always great to have a suppliers input.

That is great news about offsetting the audio delay for an epic. Any idea of what the exact delay offset should be for an EPIC?

Also is there any plans for wrapping the MOV file into a separate MXF files instead? I love your product and it is very well built and rock solid. But for me... And I am Avid based, having and MOV DNX hd file
is a real deal breaker. If you guys can work on this I will defianately buy your product.

And to Greg... I was renting one from LEMAC in Sydney, Australia, so I don't know what verison the Sound pIX 240 was.
 
With premier 5.5 taking raw red footage, would this only be necessary with either avid or fcp? Would it have any application for someone working with premier?
 
Great work Steve! Thank you for the offset data. Hope to have my 240 in a week or so.

Mike
 
will focus on image side of things next. we'll post some video samples soon.
 
Fantastic work, Steve. Appreciate your effort to share.
Look forward to your image test on those 1080p files. This might just buy us back quite a few "1080 is good enough clients".
 
David Dennis said:
Why are people so excited about this thing? I thought the whole point of RED was higher resolution. And doesn't RED already create 1080p proxies as part of the recording process?

I'd think the Scarlet crowd would be better off buying $3k worth of SSDs than paying almost $3k for this!

D
Click to expand...

If you and/or your clients want (and will pay for) REDRAW, then I agree. But Real-World, esp down in the trenches where Scarlet will be competing, 1080HD is the day-to-day choice right now. So for me, having popped $9K + (??) for a camera, its a leap to buy, what? Three 256gig RED SSDs for the same money (3x $3200)? When prob 90% of my clientele won't need/want REDRAW 3K.

So the math of, instead, spending $3K for a PIX _220_ (not the 240, since its SDI and Scarlet isn't apparently going to support this) and FOUR 256gig PIX-spec SSDs for $3K ($1600+ 4x$370)
vs
one RED 256 SSD
makes this a no-brainer for many in the Scarlet crowd, I am thinking...

And, as I have stated before - am MORE than happy to revisit RED SSDs-only once Moore's Law starts bring the price down. Love REDRAW, but happily there is sooo much more to the camera than just this!

Stu Aull
Alaska
 
Guys, the PIX 240 is aimed at a specific market, at least in terms of the RED. Primarily, it's for productions that plan on going back to the R3Ds in a finish, but want ProRes or DNxHD files to begin editing with immediately. You skip the transcode, Red Rocket phase. Secondary, it could be used as a nice 1080P recording device, but there is a big problem right now and that is the letterboxing. This will be a no go with many clients. So, i suspect RED will provide a way to scale to 16:9 image that fills frame for those situations. Or Sound Devices might also offer some kind of scaling feature.

I'm not sure I see this as the answer for the Scarlet crowd. I think a 1080 RGB mode in camera may be better for them. Two reasons I feel this way. One is the extra cost, the second is that this is defeating the purpose of a low profile camera for those times when you're looking to steal shots, which many indy filmmakers are always looking to do. Who knows what will be announced November 3rd. Unless there has been some new breakthrough in storage and price point, I think everyone considering a Scarlet should be planning on the media necessary to shoot on. Maybe it gets cheaper, maybe it doesn't. But I do suggest being prepared. As it stands right now, it's a significant cost of getting in on a RED camera because you need to buy multiple SSDs to be practical.

But the PIX240 is going to be a great time saver for the shoots it's aimed at. And those Sound Devices guys always have tricks up their sleeves. They are like RED. They will tweak the firmware. They listen to their customers. The unit will continue to get better, although it's already pretty solid.
 
Steve Sherrick said:
Secondary, it could be used as a nice 1080P recording device, but there is a big problem right now and that is the letterboxing. This will be a no go with many clients. So, i suspect RED will provide a way to scale to 16:9 image that fills frame for those situations. Or Sound Devices might also offer some kind of scaling feature.
Click to expand...

The best solution is for Red to offer a 5K HD mode and/or fix 4KHD to full raster. Then problem is solved.
 
For those of you saying "We have an Epic, we don't need to record 1080p!" I'd like to point out that we had this EXACT disscussion withthe RED ONE oh, about 1 million different times. Needless to say, it's been talked to death. Feel free to search it...

Bottom line of all 1 million or so comments on the subject: Horses for courses.. We all agreed to disagree. It's a good solution and I think it's a great idea to continue it.

But like i said, if you want the details.. Just search.. By the time you finish reading it all, we'll be on Dragon sensors.

Jay
 
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