Atomos Ninja Blade manual

EDITION 1: FEB 2014 Have you registered your Ninja Blade yet? Upgrade to 3 year warranty now . Atomos Ninja Blade User Manual W ebsite: www .atomos.com | Sales: sales@atomos.com | Support: support@atomos.com Disco ver Smart Pr oduction[...]

W arranty & Conditions ............................................................................. 1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 2 1. What’s included ................................................................................. 3 2. What you also need .....[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 1 Notice Copyright © 2013 A TOMOS Global Pty Ltd (‘referred to as A TOMOS’). All rights reserved. All information in this document is subject to change without notice. No part of the document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 2 Thank you for choosing the Atomos Ninja Blade: your 10-bit HDMI Recorder/Monitor/Player . It’ s the most compact portable recorder available, with extremely long battery life, a high-resolution screen, waveform monitor and vectorscope. Ninja Blade preserves the pristine uncompressed video q[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 3 We try to provide you with as complete a package as possible: you don’t have to add anything except 2.5” storage media (you can buy additional packs of empty Master Disk Caddies from your Atomos Reseller) and some accessories to suit your set-up, like HDMI cables and tripod screws. All ot[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 4 Spinning Disk Drives (HDD) These are the raw storage medium for Ninja Blade. Y ou can use either traditional “spinning” disks, or the new solid state ones. Choose 2 ½ ” spinning drives if your Ninja Blade is going to be attached to a tripod or if it is not going to be subject to excess[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 5 2. What you also need HDMI cables (not included) HDMI cables are robust physically and electrically: you should rarely have problems with signal transmission unless your cables are either damaged or too long. Please remember that HDMI cables use locking connectors and will not simply pull out[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 6 Mounting drives in the Master Caddy This is simplicity itself. Just insert the disk into the caddy , and secure with four screws. The caddy is light and the disk just needs to be held securely . Don’t over-tighten the screws. There are no connections to make because pushing the caddy into t[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 7 Battery The Ninja Blade is a battery powered device, and has a special feature to ensure that you never have to interrupt a recording to change a battery . We will come to this shortly . Like all batteries, you will need to take care of them. Make sure that you don’t short circuit the conne[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 8 T urning ON power to the Ninja Blade The start button is located on the right hand side of the unit (as you look at the screen). Momentarily press the circular button on the right side of the Ninja Blade as you look at the screen to power up the unit. After a couple of seconds you will see th[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 9 Master Caddy Slot On the left hand side of the unit (as you face the screen) is a slot for Ninja Blade Master Disk Caddies. T o insert a caddy , gently push until it clicks into position. Formatting disks - see page 13 Screw Mounts The Ninja Blade features standard tripod ¼” screw mounts o[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 10 Headphone Line Out V olume Cut and T ag Favorite/Reject Monitor Assist Functions W aveform Monitoring Audio Channels and Levels Rec / Play / Menu T imecode and Record T rigger V ectorscope or W aveform Continuous Power Battery Indicator T ime Remaining Recording Quality Recording Format Vide[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 11 Home Screen and Menu Functions Rec (Record) This is the icon you touch to begin a recording. T ouch it again to stop a recording. While recording the Rec icon changes to a Stop icon. Once your recording has started you have the option to touch the Mon icon to view the signal you are recordin[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 12 File Naming Allows you to select the scene and shot number that will be recorded next. T o select press scene or shot at the top and the number you wish to use from the list below (up to 999). The number you choose will then be shown underneath the word Scene or Shot in a larger font and wil[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 13 Battery Indicator Shows whether you’ve got one or two batteries connected. If there is no battery connected a number will not be displayed in the appropriate slot. T ouching the Battery Indicator takes you to the Batteries screen where you can closely monitor the status of the Batteries. W[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 14 Audio In Located in the bottom left corner of the main screen you can see the Audio Monitoring Levels, with access to Audio in . Y ou can see 2 digital channels (via HDMI input) and 2 analogue audio channels (via the Stereo Line in). Each channel has a small rectangle assigned to it; when th[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 15 Connect to input As soon as you connect a supported input to the Ninja Blade’s HDMI input and have inserted a formatted drive: • Rec and Mon icons will go solid and colourful • The input format will be shown in the top left corner • Audio inputs will show levels in bottom left corner[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 16 SmartControl SmartControl is a versatile set of functions used to control the starting and stopping of recording by automatic or external means. This section outli nes the different methods to start and stop recording. Ninja Blade Start and Stop record control can be triggered by the followi[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 17 W aveform Monitoring Overview W aveform Monitoring Luma Overlay RGB Parade Display V ectorscope V ectorscope Zoom What is W aveform Monitoring? W aveform Monitoring is used for measuring the brightness, luminance or chroma values from a video input signal. This feature has several benets [...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 18 W aveform Monitor T ypes Inside the W aveform Monitoring menu, two types of Waveform Monitors are available for use: Luma Parade, RGB Parade, V ectorscope and V ectorscope Zoom are enabled simply by touching the corresponding icon and will be by default displayed at the bottom right hand cor[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 19 Monitor Assist Overview Monitor Assist Focus Assist Zebra Pattern False Colour Blue Only Exposure Using the Ninja Blade as a eld monitor and viewnder With its 5” high-resolution color 1280x720pixel screen, the Ninja Blade makes a great eld monitor. So good, in fact, that you don?[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 20 Focus Assist T ypes Inside the Focus Assist menu, four types of focusing tools are available for use: Focus Assist, False Colour , Zebra Pattern and Blue Only Exposure are enabled simply by touching the corresponding icon in the menu. You can apply all lters to your monitor at the same ti[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 21 Blue Only Exposure Displays a black-and-white image that is based on the blue channel of the input signal. Used to observe the noise content of a video image and the judge the overall exposure quality . Safe/Areas/Grid Lines AtomOS5 now includes Safe Area/Grid Lines overaly to help frame for[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 22 SmartLog SmartLog gives you the ability to tag your clips during recording (or playback, more on this later). By the pressing the Favourite and Reject icons you can assign a “good clip” or “bad clip”. This information can then be imported into a non-linear editing system to speed up [...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 23 Y our nal stage is to Export the XML ag: • Enter Play or Media Information • On the bottom right hand side there is an icon Export XML • Press this once • Y ou will be shown a please wait screen (the length of time will vary depending on your recording time and amount of ags[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 24 Organising material on the disk Ninja Blade uses a unitname, scene, shot and take naming convention: NINJABLD_S001_S001_T001 This was recorded on a Ninja Blade unit called NINJABLD , the scene selected was 1, the shot selected was 1 and it was take 1. Below is an example of your playback bro[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 25 Atomos Anti-Shock T echnology Spinning disks are very reliable in a controlled environment where movement and vibration are minimal and within the capabilities of the devices. They are ideal for low-cost recording, but will suf fer reduced performance if they are jolted or receive a sudden i[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 26 9. Timecode Using Timecode T ouching the timecode display on the home screen, just above the three main coloured controls, will take you to the T imecode setup screen (this is also accessible by touching Menu and then T imecode) Occupying the lower-centre part of the screen is the timecode d[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 27 What is Pulldown? Many professional and consumer cameras available today do not send true 1080p24, 1080p23.98, 1080p25, 1080p29.97 or 1080p30 signals down their SDI or HDMI outputs. Instead they send 1080i59.94 in NTSC regions (eg USA, Japan), and 1080i50 in P AL regions (eg Europe) In order[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 28 Using the Playback and Playout features The Ninja Blade has a powerful playback function that allows you to playback pristine Apple ProRes or (optionally) DNxHD recordings in real- time with controls to navigate quickly to any part of a clip, the ability to play recorded content faster than [...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 29 11. Playback & Playout cont. Once a le has been selected for playback, you will see the following options: Scrub Bar This is the thick blue line along the bottom of the playback screen. A vertical white “now” line shows the current playback position. Y ou can think of the scrub ba[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 30 Loop Mode The Ninja Blade has the ability to play back a single clip in loop mode via the HDMI output. This can performed with captured clips at full broadcast quality or the nal edited clips from your hard drive. T o do this: • Go into Playback mode • Pick the clip you want to loop N[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 31 12. Connecting and Editing Connect T o access and edit your recorded material, connect the Master Caddy Docking Station to a Mac ® or Windows ® editing workstation via USB 2.0 or USB 3.0. Eject the Master Caddy from your Ninja Blade and insert it into the Docking Station. After a short wai[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 32 12. Connecting and Editing cont. Importing Final Cut Pro (version 7), Final Cut X , Adobe CS5 (with 5.51 update), EDIUS 6, Sony V egas 10, Lightworks and Avid Media Composer 6 support imported les from your Ninja Blade disk. Importing Ninja Blade footage into Final Cut Pro Y ou can import[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 33 SmartLog with FCP X Prior to importing the XML les into FCP X, ensure that: • Y ou have exported XML whilst the drive is in your Ninja Blade • Y ou have connected your Master Caddy Docking Station and inserted your Master Caddy into the Dock • Y ou are using an operating system that[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 34 13. Using Ninja Blade with external power supplies 14. Using Ninja Blade with Atomos Connect Converters AC Adaptor (included) This connects on the battery slot on the back of the Ninja Blade. Please ensure it is connected to slot 1. The end of the adaptor will connect to a mains plug. Altern[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 35 15. Softwar e updates Updating AtomOS (Firmware) From time to time we will issue software updates for your Ninja Blade. T o update the rmware (that’ s the software that runs inside your Ninja Blade), there is a simple procedure you have to follow . • Go to http://www .atomos.com/ninja[...]

Atomos Ninja Blade – User Manual Edition 1: Feb 2014 36 Construction note: Y our Ninja Blade is designed to operate in ambient temperatures up to 40°C/105°F . It features a fanless design which dissipates internal heat through the aluminium chassis. If you wish to extend the temperature of operation in high temperature conditions, you can choos[...]