External Recorder (Atomos Ninja / Blackmagic Video Assist) ProRes RAW Recording and HDMI Transmission Cable Pitfalls

1. Breaking the shackles of in-camera compression: the revolution of external recording monitors

Many mirrorless cameras are limited by chip computing power and internal heat dissipation during in-camera recording, and can only record H.264/H.265 8-bit or 10-bit videos with high compression ratio:

1. Unblock 12-bit ProRes RAW pure data stream:

• The camera body directly ejects the original, unmosaiced, unbaked color 12-bit RAW data stream captured by the CMOS sensor through a full-size HDMI interface;
• External surveillance video recorders (such as Atomos Ninja V+, Blackmagic Video Assist 12G) are equipped with dedicated FPGA hardware codec chips and active large fans for heat dissipation, and can directly encode massive data into large-capacity SATA/NVMe solid-state drives (SSD);
• In DaVinci or Final Cut Pro later, photographers can non-destructively adjust white balance, ISO gain and highlight recovery just like refining SLR RAW photos, and the tolerance is increased by more than 3 stops.

2. 1000~1500 nits daylight viewable high-brightness screen:

• Completely remove the dim small screen that cannot be seen clearly on the fuselage, and clearly monitor the focus peak value and waveform under direct sunlight.

2. Fatal physical bottlenecks and pitfall avoidance rules of HDMI transmission lines

Many photographers have bought tens of thousands of dollars worth of cameras and monitors, but a low-quality HDMI cable worth tens of dollars has resulted in frequent black screens, blurry green screens, or even crashes:

1. Terrible physical data bandwidth throughput:

• Transmitting a 4K 60p 12-bit RAW video stream requires a staggering 18 Gbps (HDMI 2.0 standard upper limit) in real-time uncompressed bandwidth, and 8K RAW requires even 48 Gbps (HDMI 2.1)**!

2. Three dead ends in wire selection:

• Look for HDMI 2.0 / 2.1 certification: The cable body must be clearly marked with Premium High Speed or Ultra High Speed 48Gbps;
• It is strictly prohibited to use slim and ultra-long cables: Copper cables attenuate very quickly at the high frequency of 18Gbps, and the length of the shooting connection is strictly prohibited to exceed 45 cm to 60 cm (Atomos special customized short spring cable is recommended);
• Choose an all-metal shielding cover and an anti-electromagnetic interference magnetic ring: to shield the studio from high-power wireless image transmission and powerful high-frequency electromagnetic clutter interference from brushless motors.

3. Anti-tear and HDMI interface physical protection assembly specifications

The Micro-HDMI (Type D) or Mini-HDMI (Type C) interface on a mirrorless camera is extremely fragile:

1. Tragedy of motherboard desoldering and scrapping:

• When the HDMI cable plug is hit by an external force, the lateral lever force will instantly tear off the fragile dozens of microscopic micro-SMD pads inside the camera body's motherboard;

2. Rabbit cage metal cable clamp (Cable Clamp) two-way locking:

• A fully covered metal rabbit cage must be installed, and special metal anti-pull cable clamps must be installed;
• After inserting the plug, use hexagon socket bolts to tightly clamp the metal shell of the plug to the rabbit cage frame. The external pulling force will be completely absorbed by the rabbit cage, protecting the motherboard motherboard like a mountain.

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