Atomos announces $295 Ninja Star - HDMI ProRes recorder w/o monitor

[Zach Love]

Ninja Star | Atomos

More or less a smaller Ninja, w/o the screen & uses CFast cards instead of 2.5" drives.

Personally, I was intrigued until I saw the price of CFast cards. So I'm sure this thing will look extremely cool in 2-3 years when you can get a 120GB CFast card for $120 instead of $1,200.

Kinda wish this had Compact Flash instead, as the AJA Ki Pro Mini has already proved that you can record ProRes to CF. Still neat to see another small & inexpensive recorder on the market.

[Joe Ogiba]

The current Ninja with screen and 480GB Sandisk SSD for $294 is much cheaper than this with four 120gb Sandisk CFast cards at $1,200 each.

[Mark Williams]

The is an SD to CFast card adapter sold over in Europe. Delock CFast Adapter for SD / MMC Memory Cards

[Jeff Pulera]

Zach,

According to Atomos, you can get 128GB for $350, since you only need storage meeting the older 1.0 specification.

Thanks

[Darren Levine]

i don't get it.

It's HD, meanwhile, everyone else is onto 4k, even their new monitor/recorder is 4k, but it's too big for some of us, if it were 4k and a few $$ more, it would be darn attractive. But i think as of this year people will be investing in HD products a lot less than UHD

[Zach Love]

Darren,

I still think there is a lot of life left in 1080. A lot of content will be watched on mobile devices, which 1080 is overkill for. Further, many people won't have 4K sets in their house for years to come.

Even then, I still think 1080 is going to look good enough for a lot of applications, even on a 4K screen.

Originally Posted by Jeff Pulera

Zach,

According to Atomos, you can get 128GB for $350, since you only need storage meeting the older 1.0 specification.

Thanks

Didn't catch that. So in a year then things will be more affordable? As hopefully that 128GB card drops to $100 (or less) in the next 12 months (give or take).

[Darren Levine]

Originally Posted by Zach Love

Darren,

I still think there is a lot of life left in 1080. A lot of content will be watched on mobile devices, which 1080 is overkill for. Further, many people won't have 4K sets in their house for years to come.

Even then, I still think 1080 is going to look good enough for a lot of applications, even on a 4K screen.
.

Oh you misread me, i didn't say that 1080 was dead, i said that new purchases i believe will favor 4k. i'll be on my c100 for quite some time, but the rx10 was the last 1080 camera i will ever buy. keeping up with the times is part of the business, and buying into 1080 at this point in time is investing in something that will of course eventually keel to 4k expectations

[Ken Ross]

Originally Posted by Zach Love

Darren,

I still think there is a lot of life left in 1080. A lot of content will be watched on mobile devices, which 1080 is overkill for. Further, many people won't have 4K sets in their house for years to come.

Even then, I still think 1080 is going to look good enough for a lot of applications, even on a 4K screen.

Keep in mind that if you never buy a 4K display, a 4K camcorder as many owners have found, looks considerably better when downscaled to HD than an HD camcorder shooting native HD. It's far more detailed when starting out in 4K and ending up with HD.

[Zach Love]

Ahh, OK. Still I kinda think that this makes sense for how cheap it is, even if it is only HD.

I'd love to jump on the 4K bandwagon, it's just I don't see a need for it right now & by the time the work I do would request 4K, any 4K camera I buy is going to be a lot cheaper. So investing in something I'll use in 1-5 years from now is just going to lose me money.

It's similar to I never buy a hard drive until I need a hard drive. No matter how good new ones on sale are, it is almost always going to be a better idea to wait to buy.

It is almost the same w/ this Ninja Star. I don't have a current need for it, so while I think it is really cool, I'm not going to buy it, especially until CFast cards get cheaper.

[Bill Koehler]

Originally Posted by Zach Love

Ninja Star | Atomos
Kinda wish this had Compact Flash instead, as the AJA Ki Pro Mini has already proved that you can record ProRes to CF.

And Black Magic Design has already demonstrated you can record ProRes to SDHC/SDXC.

[Luis de la Cerda]

It should've come with Compactflash instead. I have lots of 600x, 800x and 1000x cards lying around from every time we upgrade our dslrs.

[Mark Williams]

If you are interested in shooting 60fps the Star will record 720p60 but not 1080p60.

[Zach Love]

Originally Posted by Bill Koehler

And Black Magic Design has already demonstrated you can record ProRes to SDHC/SDXC.

Technically yes, but how many cards can do ProRes HQ? I remember seeing a couple bloggers get pre-production Pocket Cams & not being able to record anything until they ordered the fastest of the fast SDXC cards. And these are guys that already had a LOT of fast SDXC / SDHC cards, just not a single one of them worked with the Pocketcam.

Granted, the Ninja Star can do ProRes & ProRes LT, so you wouldn't need as fast of cards. Still I think possibly CF cards would've been a better bet. It comes down to availability & price for cards that are fast enough.

Though since the Star only needs 1.0 Cfast cards & you can get one of those for $350ish / 120GB, it doesn't seem like it will be DOA.

Anyone that wants a really, extremely light & small ProRes recorder, it looks like this is the one to get. And then $300 for the recorder + $350 for a card really isn't expensive at all.

[Michael Kraus]

Seems like a good partner to the C100 or 5D III for those wishing for a simple and sweet upgrade without having to buy more accessories for your accessories.

[Darren Levine]

Considering it maxes out at 220mbit, using the Delock CFast Adapter for SD should be just fine along with SD cards with a write speed of 40MB and higher. pretty darn affordable