the editman.com

After several months this much anticipated recorder arrived the Atomos Samurai - a big brother of their Ninja recorder.

This recorder had several features I fell for. First it uses solid state drives (or spinning discs) so you don't have to swap smaller cards. It records to a proven codec - Prores in 10-bit and 4:2:2 and it has a very good power solution.

Samurai comes in a waterproof case it seems and everything except harddrive and BNC cable is included. Well you get two mini BNC to male BNC adapter cables but you still need a straight BNC-BNC cable to hook up your camera.



After having seen demos and the talk about sticky fingers to make something happen on the touch screen I was gladly surprised that it only takes a slight touch to navigate the user interface.

It's a very self explained user interface and I figured it all out in a couple of minutes.



On the left side there are connectors for HD SDI in/out, LANC in/out, analogue audio in and headphone output. Included with the Samurai are two caddys to hold harddrives. On the back there's room for two Sony NP-style batteries (included) that power the unit with either battery. You can monitor each battery to see if it needs to be changed and you can swap one even when running when it powers from the other one. A dual charger just like the one I have for my iLed 312 LED panels is included and because I have three iLed 312 panels with six batteries in total I can use all of them plus the two included with the Samurai!



You can record to Prores LT, 422 or HQ and Atomos will sell an upgrade to included DNxHD codecs in both 8-bit and 10-bit. These files are ready to be edited without to much decoding from a computer and for FCP users you can just drop the footage into a project and start editing.

I have one 120GB SSD drive that gives me between about 2:48h and 1:20h recording time and one larger 320GB spinning disc that provide plenty more. When you do overcrank/undercrank on the AF101 the output signal when recording is just plain 1080i50 but if you playback that sequence the Samurai starts recording and you can thus record overcrank after each take. You will loose the higher bitrate since the original clip is recorded but still have edit friendly files to hand over to a client.

It records both video and audio coming from the HD SDI input. It can even be set to trigger from the HD SDI stream and sync with the TC coming from the camera.

I had to try it with my Panasonic AF101 and it worked right away without any fuzz. I got video and it started to record as soon as I hit record on the camera. You can also record by pressing on the screen but I think it's great you now can do dual recording on the AF101 providing greater confidence.



With the Samurai comes a small docking station to bring material into the PC. It's USB3 and transfers very fast. Image quality is pristine. From the HD SDI you get 1080 50i with an embedded 25p signal. You can set the Samurai to record straight to 25p doing 2:2 pulldown on the fly. Or you can just record 50i and do it in the editing program.

The unit feels solid but if I have to criticize something it's the use of mini BNC connectors. I'm convinced they could have put ordinary BNC connectors on the unit somehow so why? Another thing that's really bad is the locking mechanism for the harddrive. The second disc I tried got stuck and I had to remove the side panel in order to get it out. I ended up disabling the HD lock for now. Inside there's a little plastic piece holding the disc and the button on the right side is suppose to release it but I can't have a stuck drive during a job so I'll have to do without it.

I always feel disappointed when opening things to peek inside and you realize quality is less than what you'd expect.

Update: I opened up and re-engaged the lock and learned one thing. You must first push the release level and then pull the disc. If doing it the other way around it can get stuck.

On the top and bottom are 1/4 standard tapped holes to mount it. The first batch had a wrong tapped mount but this unit works with my 1/4 arms and ball heads.

You can do full playback and output in full resolution from the HD SDI output. It's fast and no apparent lag. Be careful not to record more than 2 tracks before Adobe solves an issue with more tracks than 2. It wont import footage into Premiere Pro if more than 2 tracks. The screen on the Samurai is rather dark even with brightness at max but resolution is good. Some sort of peaking/scaling is involved that makes focus a bit easier to achieve. You get that "zing" in fine details when they get in focus. Atomos have said they will come with more functions to check focus and exposure next year.

The first impression of image quality it looks great. AVCHD have a tendency to get a little bit soft which sometimes can hide noise and other times a bit unrefined. The Prores-files look pristine and playback is smooth as ever thanks to the I-frame encoding.

I will use this unit for all upcoming jobs with my AF101 and we'll see how it will improve everything from workflow to image quality.

A sidenote with regards to my preorder on the C300:

Canon C300 will be a very popular camera when it arrives in the end of January. After I got the Samurai recorder and started to calibrate it together with my AF101 I came to the conclusion a new camera is not what I need at the moment. The AF101 is such a great camera and it fullfill almost every shooting scenario I will run into next year. With the Samurai I'll get I-frame 4:2:2 in an easy edit-ready format, dual recording and on top of that a good 5" monitor.

I still think the basic concept of the C300 is great but with shortcomings like no 1080p50/60 and no 10-bit output it's a bit of "to little to late for to much cash". What I love about the AF101 on the other hand is it has everything one wants. You do get so much for what you spend and now that I have a proven set of lenses with 12/1.7, 25/0.95, 35/1.2, 50/1.1 and 75/1.8 that works on this camera I think it's wiser for me to wait.

I don't know how serious you should look upon something that spells "Kolor" instead of "Color" but here it is. A quick search on google and I found this funny video.

The image above is a frame grab from my AF101 and the Digital Kolor Pro checker card I got from ebay. It was inexpensive at about $7 plus shipping and I didn't have anything to loose really. I needed something to give me a pure white/grey/black to help me when grading and I found this item to full fill my need. As a bonus I also got a complete color checker.

On the back the card has markers for 1:1, 4:3, 3:2 and 16:9 aspects. I reckon this is a low budget card but what the heck it does provide me with something to get levels more accurate. Whip it in front of my camera and then calibrate and check when doing post. I have to say that colors with my AF101 are spot on when you look upon the card and what's displayed at the monitor and compare. I'll tuck it inside my bag and use it on the next shoot!

I made this chart showing my workflow when shooting and doing postproduction. This is something I came up with in 2008 and implemented for all our projects. My goal was to provide a safe way to handle P2 files but at the same time incorporate other material. It's been a rapid transition from tape-based capture and mastering to a file based workflow. Long gone are the days when we used to master on DIGITAL BETACAM or DV/HDV.

Memory card based system and HD has really transformed everything. It's much easier these days to do a complete production with small resources. Give me a big enough bag and I probably can squeeze everything in it. We used to have a machine for every different type of tape and these days you add a codec to your editing suit. To me it was the Panasonic HVX-200 that started this rapid evolution. It felt shaky at first only having files instead of a physical tape in your hand.

I use mostly Western Digital 2.5" external drives. They are small and fast enough for doing some quick adjustments directly from the drive. I do master everything in a filestructur that contains; master, codec files, original files and work files. It's very easy to plug in the drive and make another updated version if I like and since every project is handled the same way it's easy to find masterfiles when you need them.

I had to get a new laptop since my Dell M1530 broke down. Being a PC-man I opted for another Dell, a Vostro 3700. Not ideal since I really wanted a full-HD 15" screen. But this laptop ticked many boxes on my wish list and it even has some useful features I appreciate.

This laptop works great to edit AVCHD/H264 files like the ones from Canon DSLR cameras or Panasonic G-series cameras. It got a healthy GT330M 1GB graphics and 6GB of ram runned by an Intel i7 processor. I love the fact that Dell computers are so free of rubbish software. You start it up and do a quick configuration and it works without being slow. Not a thing I can say about most other manufactures (except Apple) were there are tons of "trial" software you don't need.

A feature I love is the backlit keyboard. It makes it so easy to write even at night. Every laptop should have it!

The downside is the screen. It's not as good as the one in my old Dell M1530. It's lacking in contrast and viewing angle. Most laptops screens are bad and I rank this one somewhere in the middle. Not superbad but certainly not great. For serious editing and grading I have a 19" LCD screen that represents what an end user will see. And my Pioneer 50" plasma is my big reference screen. What a plasma screen this is!

Despite being a not so great screen it has a good resolution of 1600x900 pixels. It matches 16:9 perfectly and considering the big 17" screen it's a decent size for a 17" laptop. Pretty lightweight also at 2.7kg. Much less than an Acer 7730 I had before. I had my eyes at and Apple laptop but I think you don't get the goodies inside which this one offers. NVIDIA graphic cards is a must when working with the Adobe suit and I tend to work more and more with Adobes Premiere. OS is the excellent WIN7Pro 64-bit so I can take advantage of all that 6GB RAM.

To get something that looks good and can be used as a reference is to calibrate the LCD inside the NVIDIA settings. I think that before calibrating it was like 40% correct and with tweaking you can get to about 85-90% and that makes it useful. I still don't think you get that snap-crackle-and-pop that other screens can have.

Built quality is not up to par compared to an Apple laptop. Not even close. It's mostly plastic parts and the keyboard flexes when typing. Sound level from harddrive and fan is low except when you stress the four cores but is very acceptable. There are 4 port USB, one E-SATA port which can be used as another USB port, HDMI, VGA, RJ45 and Firewire.

Since so many things has broken down (laptop, harddrives, mouse, speakers) I'm rebuilding the complete editing setup from scratch. This is the first central part and I think it's a good choice price/performance. But there are better ones if you look at built quality and screen. The real butter is that editing is like butter. It just flows like butter in the sunshine. Inside is also a 500GB 7200RPM harddrive and I will be using this one as an editing drive while having an external USB drive as a backup disc.

The touchpad is pretty good for being on a PC. It's not as great as the ones on Apple but larger than before and supports multitouch. Love to zoom in and out with easy. There is a similar spec Sony Vaio with higher resolution screen at 1920x1080 but it's way noisier. The boxes which I wanted to tick were these:

1920x1080 screen (1600x900 instead)
i7 processor
4GB RAM or more (6GB)
NVIDIA graphics GPU
15" (17" on this one)
4 USB (It got 5 ports)
Under 3KG
WIN7Pro 64-bit

So despite compromising with the screen I think this is a good choice for an editing laptop. Fast and so far trouble free!

I did a quick test today mostly for myself to remember. My work flow almost exclusively consist of Avid MC and Adobe AE. I edit and do a premix in Avid. Sometimes a slight video eq to even things out before going into grading. Grading, graphics and effects I always do in AE. When going back and forth you gotta keep levels and resolution so that you don't end up with a mess of video levels.

When exporting video out of Avid you can use ref files and this is the most effective way. It's quick and doesn't involve any recoding. When you're done doing your AE thing I render a high quality QT file and import that into Avid to show clients or align video/audio. Often with shorter stuff like commercials I do the final version completely in AE and don't use Avid for anything else than to edit.

Many prefer Final Cut since many use Os X based machines but a Win7 or a stable WinXP machine has many pros to the Os X based machines. You can use Adobes Premiere but when it comes to editing Avid is the fastest system on the planet! It's not a great grading tool, it's not a good graphic/text-editor and it hasn't any useful effects. But it's fast than fast to cut, move and do basic editing tasks.

Avid uses the excellent DNxhD codec and it's free to use with any editing system. Basically the higher settings makes for master files and they are in 4:2:2 10-bit. Lower versions are in 8-bit format and works for daily work where you don't do any heavy grading or blow-up.

If you can't use quicktime ref files. That is if you have to move files to another system, you can take advantage of DNxHD codec. In order to keep colours/levels on the same level when tossing files around you have to do like this.

Levels exported / Import setting:

RGB / RGB
709 / 709
RGB / 709

If you try the last option:

709 / RGB

Then you will end up with changed levels. RGB is always 0-255 and 709 (601) is 16-235. These two spans refers to as RGB-levels and video-levels. Never mix these!
What happens in the last option 709 / RGB, is that on import the program assumes RGB and takes 0 and place it at 16 and 255 is put at 235. You will end up with a washed out picture. In the reverse option RGB / 709 when importing, the program assumes 709 and does nothing. The levels stay the same.

It's really simple really, just choose RGB or 709 and stick with that in export and import. If you want to import files from Canon 5D/7D/550D use the RGB setting in Avid. If you choose 601/709 black and white will be crushed.

Now, you can bump into problems since most graphics are made in RGB format and captured video is video-levels. But keeping in mind if the file is RGB or video makes it easy in most cases to get it right. Speaking of correct colour is difficult. If I have a client and he/she likes the image in one monitor, I say choose which ever monitor and that what you'll get! Since every monitor/TV is calibrated different there is really no way knowing how it will turn out. But I've been doing video for TV during so many years I know how it will look on most monitors when I have a roughly calibrated monitor infront of me.

In the age of digital it's even hard to go completely wrong! If you push levels to much it will probably break in grading rather than doing so when broadcasted. Often is a certain look not technically correct but will play on the right strings for the mood you're after.