GEAR MINI TESTS
The round-up of great kit tested in this issue includes the Irix Cine 150mm T3.0, a powerful LED soft light, Lexar SSD and SDXC cards andmore
WORDS ADAM DUCKWORTH
video streams with genlock in and out. After the streams are recorded, you can then import the Atomos XML file into your editing software and your timeline populates with all your edits in place. Themixed analogue stereo audio is also imported, as well as two channels of digital audio embedded in each stream. With HDMI 2.0 you can capture up to 4K60p or via Quad Link, Dual Link or Single Link SDI. It also allows slow- motion capture in 2K up to 240p. You can also check how your content will look on high-resolution TV sets in real time with Dolby Vision output. We’d love to report how good the unit is at doing all this, but unfortunately the switching, 240fps slowmotion and Dolby Vision support is not available at launch. It will come via a free firmware upgrade very soon, promises Atomos. Until then, the unit performs very much like Atomos’ Shogun Inferno monitor recorder, although it does have a different body and new user interface that makes it a step above the well-known unit. And new screen technologymakes the screen appear more consistent right to the edges. The HDR screen uses what Atomos calls Dynamic AtomHDR backlit technology, with 360 zones that give a 1million:1 contrast ratio with ultra- wide colour for very deep blacks, with lots of detail and, thanks to the 1500 nit LCD, vivid, bright performance. We couldn’t measure the claims, but the unit does look brighter and more consistent across the screen even when compared to the Shogun Inferno, which itself is one of the best screens on themarket. And best of all, a forthcoming free firmware update will see the output boosted to 3000 nits. As a seven-inch unit, the Shogun 7 is best suited for cinema cameras, although it can work well on small mirrorless cameras, which, thanks to their large sensors, need critical focusing. The Shogun 7 helps thanks
ATOMOS SHOGUN 7 £1558/$1499 atomos.com
screens very bright for outdoor use. Next came HDR for the next- generation TV screen and, in high-end Atomos units, the ground-breaking Apple ProResRaw offered the benefits of Rawwithout the huge file sizes. Now the Atomos Shogun 7 adds in live switching, making it ideal for event coverage, especially with the boom in live streaming platforms. Of course, for £1558/$1499, it’s not going to replace a dedicated switcher for outside broadcast TV as it’s limited to four inputs, but for themajority of small crews, it can be used as a flexible master recording and production station for livestreaming. The Shogun 7 canmonitor, record and switch between four live HD SDI
Just when you thought fieldmonitors couldn’t get anymore advanced, Aussie firmAtomos continues to push the envelope with its Shogun 7 precision HDRmonitor recorder that now adds functionality as a switcher to its already packed spec. Long gone are the days when external monitors were just that – to helpmonitor what the camera was capturing. First came recording, thanks to large-capacity and fast SSD drives that often unlock higher bit rates and colour depth from themajority of cameras, and Raw recording from others. All converted to edit-ready ProRes in a variety of formats. Add in efficient monitor tools like waveforms and vectorscopes, thenmake the
LEFT The Shogun 7 has a 3000-nit screen upgrade coming soon
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PRO MOVIEMAKER WINTER 2019
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