Cinedeck

[Christopher T. Paul- SOC]

Wondering if anyone out there has any feedback on the Cinedeck. I know that its 1000 NIT, and I'm thinking that it might just replace my TB-6? Does anyone out there currently use this for your rig, or elsewhere in the field?

 

Thanks,

 

Here's their site: http://www.cinedeck.com

[Ken Nguyen]

Wondering if anyone out there has any feedback on the Cinedeck. I know that its 1000 NIT, and I'm thinking that it might just replace my TB-6? Does anyone out there currently use this for your rig, or elsewhere in the field?

 

Thanks,

 

Here's their site: http://www.cinedeck.com

 

No LCD monitor in the near future can replace the TB-6 yet.

Here is a link about the Cinedeck: http://www.fdtimes.com/news/?p=2361

 

Cheers,

Ken Nguyen.

[richard bellon]

hi

 

i have been told by a DIT and former HD video head of Panavision JHB that these things are the shit.

dunno about being put on steadi but for what they are they are apparently truely revolutionary. Absolutly amazing

[richard bellon]

really badass :)

[James Puli]

I had the first one in Australia on a job a few weeks ago. Its a great concept but the kinks with it still need to be worked out.

 

We actually did use it as a monitor for the Steadicam and the screen in full daylight was rubbish compared to my Boland 8.4inch. But wasn't too bad at night though. Maybe we had the brightness turned down or something, but with the problems the focus puller had with it, we didn't get a chance to play with it. I wouldn't believe it was 1000 nits, ive had better results from my classic 7inch Panasonic monitor in full sun.

 

For those who dont know, it is literally a little windows PC in a box, with a monitor on it and some custom software.

Theres a whole lot of stuff with the software / recorder that went wrong. It kept freezing, which you literally had to wait up to 10mins to get a live picture again... you had to follow specific processes with it to stop it from cracking the shits with you. When shutting down, if you did it through the Cinedecks custom record software it would take up to 5 minutes, if you save and exit the software and shut down through windows it took about 30 seconds. Plus dont even think of letting the battery die or run down to a low level ... far out did it spit the dummy then! There was more things happening with it, just have to ask my focus puller again to refresh my memory.

(and of course none of this was in the literally 5 page manual that came with it)

 

There was no 4pin xlr power input on the back of it, so when in highmode, I had to fly with the large battery on the back of it and in lowmode, I still flew the large battery but we put that in the bottom (now top) battery mount on my Steadyrig battery hanger and ran a Dtap cable the deck.

 

But the biggest problem we had with it was ..... We had about a 4 hour pre-production / testing period with this thing before we used it. (I know, I know should have had more, but it was a pick gear up at 3pm test day, and none of it was available before then and the Cinedeck was just flown in from another city for us) Anyway .... We recorded some tests on it in various settings and luckily the particular rental company we were at had a post guy upstairs. So we took the drive up to him, and a few of the videos the Cinedeck said it was recording at a particular setting, wasnt actually recorded at that particular setting. So we basically found a setting in camera and in deck, that it liked and worked with the recorder and post guy said was recording accurately, so left the camera set at that. There was no variable frame rates, and literally no changing of camera settings while on the job as we didnt know what the deck was going to record and how it would look at the other end.

 

We were only recording 4:2:2 into it. I wonder what problems we would have doing 4:4:4 or with the high data streams of an Alexa.

 

Long and the short of our experience with it ... It needs a shitload more RAM (was wayyyyyyy too slow), and to fix all the softwares bugs before I'll want to use one again.

 

The whole concept behind this thing is fantastic.

If it actually did what it fully said it could do, then WOW and it would be THE shit vs just shit!

 

JP

Sydney Australia

Edited September 25, 2010 by James Puli

[Pedro Guimaraes SOC]

I have used the ALOT this year,

 

They are not even close to my transvideo........ABSOLUTELY not 1000nits....they are almost unusable during the day.

 

 

As a recording device it is brilliant. used with Arri alexa recently.

 

For 3D, the cinedeck is amazing. I have used the 3D cinedeck on 5 different 3D steadicam jobs this year. Work great. Survived the amazon and Africa with me this year. In very challenging conditions.

 

 

I have used it as my steadicam monitor once but strongly advise against that since you'll be flying blind. Cinedeck did tell me they were planning on a "daylight" version soon.

 

As described, it does have it's faults. It is a PC after all. In 3D mode is freaks out sometimes and you need to wait for a reboot....It overheated once...the touch screen doesn't have a "lockout" screen....the SSD's you use to record on sometimes fail (much less recently)....and a few others. Even with it's shortcomings it's a great solution especially as they continue to improve.

 

here some pics....

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2010 by Pedro_Guimaraes