BTM_Pix

This video from the excellent Media Division channel is a good run through of doing it purely as an experiment with a single camera. The challenge to do it with multiple cameras is the rigging and sync of the controls. Small sensor in a box cameras like the BMMCC and the Z camera would be ideal as they are compact enough and are easily controlled remotely so that the controls can be ganged. The Sigma fP would be absolutely ideal if it weren't for the shortsighted decision to make the only way to remote the camera controls being through the same port as the recording media so you can do one but not both. Pocket 6K in vertical orientation would be workable as they can be timecode synced with each other and a single control solution to control multiple cameras simultaneously would be doable by someone industrious if there was a need.

Well, its funny you should mention shutter release for cameras that don't have them as we have literally just finished creating a one-off custom PBC system to do it mechanically for stop frame animation for a customer for on a Pocket4K. Unless you are powering the camera from the mains, trying to do it over wifi is going to be problematical over any great length of time due to the battery drain. Mechanical is definitely more straightforward, providing that, again, you have power for the Arduino or whatever you are running it from. As long as you can position it correctly and the shutter button stands out from the body, then a simple servo can be used to activate it and an Arduino programmed easily to control it. There are plenty of options from that basic point to be able to finesse it in terms of how you trigger it so you can have a basic wire and switch attached to the Arduino or add a radio or IR sensor or even a BLE or WiFi module if you want to do it wirelessly.

The F mount versions are good though so it would be a shame if they didn't produce Z mount versions. They've got their hands full with L mount though so it could be a while.

I know. I was being petty.

I'd be very interested in seeing any links you've got for the great reviews of any of these Sigma Z mount lenses. Meanwhile, here is the Sigma CEO saying that they haven't decided whether they will actually make any. Have I missed something ?

Hawaii Five Overheat

With this test, it doesn't really need anything more than a testing oven and a wifi connection to a testing app so I don't think that is at play here. This method is how they would, of course, have achieved the guideline figures that they initially published so it has been done at one temperature at least and it would seem implausible that they didn't then turn the oven up and do more tests. So I would be confident that those figures at different temperatures do exist somewhere in the test department so, yes, the "story" would be where the decision to deem them acceptable was made. Sending cameras out to YouTubers in different parts of the world to do different things with them would no doubt yield some valuable feedback for Canon on operational issues, as well as the free promotion of course, but performance testing shouldn't be part of that remit. That needs to be done in far more structured and controlled environments by actual software testers.

Erm....yes, that is precisely what it does so there is absolutely no falsehood involved. There is a TempStatus property in the firmware that causes the camera to react in various scaled responses. These are : Normal Warning Indicator Reduced Frame Rate Live View Prohibited Shooting Prohibited Degraded Still Image Quality Restriction Of Video Recording At some point, all of these different responses will be triggered if the temperature begins to increase. The reason the different record times and behaviours are seen by different "testers" is that the temperature of their camera is different so different ones are being triggered at different rates but at some point they will all trigger. This status is externally readable on the camera so Canon could easily provide the simple test tool to these "testers" to create a real structured test instead of the scattergun ad hoc ones that are happening now. I have got no idea why Canon continue to let these unstructured random tests play out in public without doing something official about it. The only reason I can come up with is that the noise generated by these contradictory "findings" is giving them cover while they work away in the background to remedy it. The TempStatus pre-dates the R5/R6 and has been part of the Canon firmware for a long time and is there for a reason for that so none of this is new for them in testing so it begs the question why more seemingly wasn't done to test it in simulated real environments.

Obviously on a technical level it would be trivial for BM to incorporate NDI but I can't see them doing anything that would aid and abet Newtek further establishing it as a standard. I think if BM were going to embrace NDI they would have done it a couple of years ago as part of their Mini Converter range but didn't because the obvious by product of that would be more Tricaster sales for Newtek or software sales for vMix. Its a pity though as a BM version would likely be far cheaper than even the budget one from Birddog. The supposition from the Stream Bridge would be that BM are looking to make their own version of NDI which they will no doubt have to do at some stage anyway as those big multi point routers they sell will eventually have to give way to IP based ones.

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I have the Sony 18-105 f4 and it is a very good all rounder, particularly for a one lens travelling setup. With it having the zoom rocker and with the clear image zoom extending that range on to about 210mm, it effectively turns the A series cameras into APS-C camcorders. The downside is that it is f4, although I'd rather have a constant f4 than a variable f3.5-f5.6 which would be common with a lens like this. With it being f4, you aren't going to get shallow depth of field at the wide end but you do actually get decent separation and smooth bokeh at the long end. The OSS and AF work well but whilst its by no means a soft lens its definitely fair to say it could be a bit sharper but thats less of an issue for video than it is for stills. The focus by wire is a bit rough but that comes with the territory. Also, its quite hefty in size if not weight so it can make the A series cameras feel a bit unbalanced but I don't mind it being a bit of a lump as it aids stability as far as I'm concerned when its planted in your hand. This video is a very decent and fair view of its pros and cons. With regard to the Sigma, I haven't got that one but I've yet to see anyone who has have anything but fulsome praise for it. If you are looking for an interesting bargain for E mount, one Sigma I do have is the now discontinued Sigma 60mm Art f2.8 which you can pick up very cheaply secondhand now and you'll have few regrets checking one of those out.

The circular buffer would only be two tracks, itself and the main output, so that is more manageable than the five needed with the full ISO recordings. But yeah if you are continuously recording fragments you might as well be recording the whole thing, so it would be two continuous tracks, one of the preview bus and the other of the main output. That would give you the same capability of changing your cut points after the event. Looking at something like vMix which offers ISO recording, the track capacity is related to overall CPU/GPU power of the computer you are running it on so its possible that the hardware difference over the Mini Pro is a beefier or even additional processor just to handle the ISOs I'll get the screwdrivers out and have a look when it eventually turns up !

It would have been even cheaper for us Ninja V owners if Atomos hadn't mysteriously dropped the AtomX module ! The downer about NDI if you wanted to use it in these small ATEM Mini link up scenarios is that you'd need an encoder at one end and a decoder at the other unless BM introduced NDI inputs which I suspect is not going to be on the cards. What they could do though is add their own format as an input to yet another ATEM Mini product which they will no doubt announce within 24 hours of me receiving my ATEM Mini Pro ISO. A two HDMI matrix switcher output version of the Streaming Bridge that could pull in four or eight network inputs would be a good add on too.

Yeah, that would be a great little product. If they extend the functionality to be able to operate the Pocket camera controls from the studio end as you can with the ATEM then BM would sell a lot of cameras at the moment to broadcasters having to bring in remote feeds from talent who are working from home and may not be the most camera tech savvy !

I had to have a lie down after working through those scenarios 😉 If you are using the Pocket cameras then just writing an xml file of the cuts would suffice as the ISO files in that instance are all recorded in the camera with their timecode synced from the ATEM Mini Pro so it would then work exactly as per the ATEM Mini Pro ISO. If you aren't using the Pocket cameras then you'd have to rely on manual re-sync of the cameras. Unless someone works out how to extract the timecode that the ATEM puts out on the HDMI port and distributes it to the cameras.... I've got the ISO version on order now so expect poking around in that general direction. A way to offer a halfway house to the ATEM Mini Pro would be to have two short (five or ten second) circular buffer recordings of whatever is on the preview bus pre and post cut onto the output bus. That would give you the ability in post to cut in or out five or ten seconds earlier but as you've restricted it to the preview and main output only then you've given a differentiation between that and the full blown ISO recording. I don't know what additional hardware is included in the ISO version to enable the continuous recording of five streams but there may be enough in the Mini Pro to record the two streams that would be needed for that. I'd probably say that if they included it as a firmware upgrade for the Mini Pro then that taste of the possibilities would likely stimulate people to go the whole hog and upgrade to the ISO version.

Well it will no doubt heat the motors up until there is steam coming out of them so there will be thermally generated sound at least.

Obviously, its funny that you should say that....

The Mini Pro generates timecode to the Pocket Cameras the same way as the ISO version so I can't see why it wouldn't be possible. I don't think it would impinge on sales of the Mini Pro ISO version if they did it either as the people who want ISO recording want ISO recording so buying the Mini Pro wouldn't be an option for them anyway.

Its a funny period for this really as, depending on your location, any investment will likely be a short term one as 5G begins to roll out as the problem will then in all likelihood go away. But if you need something in the here and now then both the Terradek Vidiu Go and the LiveU Solo products provide good bonding capabilities. I have the older Vidiu Pro, which I used to use for streaming press conferences, and it is a bit weird in that it bonds together iPhones (I used to use cheap secondhand 5c ones) as well as regular cellular modems to give you coverage but it worked well. Because it is an older product, the Vidiu Pro can often be picked up used for €500-600 or even lower. The important thing with the Terradek and LiveU products is that they offer dedicated cloud services to aggregate the data from each cellular modem and then route it to the service that you are streaming to. Neither of these options are free so expect to pay around $450 a year in subscription fees to use them, although Terradek do have a low cost pay as you go option if you only need it for the odd event. What you get in return is easy setup and reliability versus having to configure your own cloud server, for which you would also likely have to pay a fee, albeit smaller. There a lot of much cheaper options than the Vidiu Go and LiveU Solo such as this one but I've no idea how they would compare and how the backend setup is done. At least with the Terradek and LiveU products you can hop onto YouTube and have a look at what people are doing with them. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000147478548.html

Its the linking of different sites aspect of it thats the most interesting. So a central control room can be pulling in multi camera feeds into their ATEM from different places in the same building or from different sites all over the world. In a YouTube live broadcast situation for example, EOSHD might be the central host and is pulling in guest feeds from different contributors, each of which can be switching their own content locally. It makes for a more dynamic programme obviously than having the remote guests just being a single angle feed. All of that can be done anyway with existing outboard gear but the Streaming Bridge takes the network feed from each ATEM natively so doesn't require additional encoding equipment and setup process. If you rewind the YouTube stream to the start there is a more in depth presentation of it prior to the ATEM part.

Its nowhere near as comprehensive or flexible as NDI but the Streaming Bridge product that they also announced today is a pretty neat way to repurpose the network output of ATEM Minis and link them across local networks and the internet. Much cheaper than NDI and might be enough for a lot of people's needs in the applications that ATEM Mini is being used. https://www.provideocoalition.com/atem-streaming-bridge-announced-by-blackmagic-design/

I feel your pain over this as it is has come with almost indecent haste after the Mini Pro. It certainly does feel like there has been a "hang on, maybe we could add...." moment post launch of the Mini Pro that they could have had prior to it. I think both products are valid as not everyone needs the ISO facility and the multi-view and master recording of the Mini Pro was an upgrade worth having over the original Mini. But it just doesn't sit right that the two pro variants couldn't have been announced at the same. This morning I was doing my usual (fruitless) check stock scouring for the Mini Pro so I've really dodged a bullet in one respect but if they don't get this new one in stock until they've cleared deliveries of the Mini Pro then my new product for ATEMs is just getting pushed further back again as I have to have this one now to test it on. And it will cost me more money. So, swings and roundabouts for me too, I suppose.

Yeah, I'm interested to see where they could go with it in terms of being able to replay the multitrack ISO recordings on the control surface itself like it is a music portastudio so you can re-do the cuts before putting the project file into the computer to do a final tweak and online it as its a lot more tactile and responsive that way. I think this thing has the potential to be a lot more than just a live tool.

Quite bold of BM to be releasing a new version of the ATEM Mini Pro when they have barely delivered any of the current one but here we are. As the name suggests, this new one lets you do ISO recordings of each individual camera, audio track as well as the master tracks to a single USB drive. It then saves your live cuts and all of those recordings (and other media such as overlays and titles etc) to a project that you import straight into DaVinci Resolve onto a timeline for further tweaking. If you are using BM Pocket cameras then they can be recording BRAW internally at the same time and Resolve has a new function to swap these as the source tracks in that edit with a single click. With the addition of the ISO tracks this is now some serious capability not just for straight live to air/net productions but also for anyone doing any multi-camera production that you would want to have post edit control of like a live performance recording, sports game, YouTube tutorial etc or even a low budget soap opera ! The developments that BM have been up to with the ATEM Mini series is probably not, on the surface, of that much interest to a lot of people on here but it is very innovative and is a real showcase of their end to end pipeline. Using an ATEM Mini, the Pocket 4K/6K cameras are turned into fully fledged studio cameras with remote control of on board colour correction and automatic tally functions but without losing their ability to simultaneously still be recording BRAW cine formats internally. So you can simultaneously do a live production in HD, use its built in encoder to stream live to the internet, hand off a USB stick with a video of the ready cut version to a client, record each individual track for easy post refinement of the mix and still retain the option to use 4K or 6K RAW master versions of those tracks to create a higher resolution finessed version with a single click. A four camera system that can do all of that for a total of under £6K or £9K depending on whether you go with 4K or 6K is arguably as revolutionary as any of their camera releases. I can also see it having a lot more applications in the "new normal" and offering some potential new opportunities to anyone who is already invested in Pocket4K/6K cameras. The bonus is it is a new product launch that can be discussed without reference to thermometers and stop watches 😉