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First and foremost, an user manual of Atomos Samurai Blade should contain:
- informations concerning technical data of Atomos Samurai Blade
- name of the manufacturer and a year of construction of the Atomos Samurai Blade item
- rules of operation, control and maintenance of the Atomos Samurai Blade item
- safety signs and mark certificates which confirm compatibility with appropriate standards
Why don't we read the manuals?
Usually it results from the lack of time and certainty about functionalities of purchased items. Unfortunately, networking and start-up of Atomos Samurai Blade alone are not enough. An instruction contains a number of clues concerning respective functionalities, safety rules, maintenance methods (what means should be used), eventual defects of Atomos Samurai Blade, and methods of problem resolution. Eventually, when one still can't find the answer to his problems, he will be directed to the Atomos service. Lately animated manuals and instructional videos are quite popular among customers. These kinds of user manuals are effective; they assure that a customer will familiarize himself with the whole material, and won't skip complicated, technical information of Atomos Samurai Blade.
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It is mostly in the manuals where we will find the details concerning construction and possibility of the Atomos Samurai Blade item, and its use of respective accessory, as well as information concerning all the functions and facilities.
After a successful purchase of an item one should find a moment and get to know with every part of an instruction. Currently the manuals are carefully prearranged and translated, so they could be fully understood by its users. The manuals will serve as an informational aid.
Table of contents for the manual
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EDITION 1: JUNE 2013 Have you register ed your Samurai Blade yet? Upgrade to 3 year warranty now . Atomos Samurai Blade User Manual W ebsite: www .atomos.com | Sales: sales@atomos.com | Support: support@atomos.com[...]
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W arranty & Conditions ............................................................................. 1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 2 1. What’ s included .................................................................................. 3 2. What you also need ...[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 1 Notice Copyright © 2013 A TOMOS Global Pty Ltd (‘referr ed 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 repr oduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, incl[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 2 Thank you for choosing the Atomos Samurai Blade: your 10-bit HD-SDI Recorder/Monitor/Player . It’ s the most compact portable recor der available, with extremely long battery life, a high-resolution screen, waveform monitor and vectorscope. Samurai Blade pr eserves the pristine uncompres[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 3 W e try to pr ovide 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 HD-SDI cables and tripod screw [...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 4 Spinning Disk Drives (HDD) These are the raw storage medium for Samurai Blade. Y ou can use either traditional “spinning” disks, or the new solid state ones. Choose 2 ½ ” spinning drives if your Samurai Blade is going to be attached to a tripod or if it is not going to be subject to[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 5 2. What you also need HD-SDI cables (not included) HD-SDI cables are r obust physically and electrically: you should rarely have problems with signal transmission unless your cables ar e either damaged or too long. Please remember that HD-SDI cables use locking connectors and will not simp[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 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. Ther e are no connections to make because pushing the caddy i[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 7 Battery The Samurai Blade is a battery powered device, and has a special feature to ensur e that you never have to interrupt a recording to change a battery . W e will come to this shortly . Like all batteries, you will need to take care of them. Make sur e that you don’t short circuit t[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 8 T urning ON power to the Samurai Blade The start button is located on the right hand side of the unit (as you look at the screen). Momentarily pr ess the circular button on the right side of the Samurai Blade as you look at the screen to power up the unit. After a couple of seconds you wil[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 9 Master Caddy Slot On the left hand side of the unit (as you face the screen) is a slot for Samurai Blade Master Disk Caddies. T o insert a caddy , gently push until it clicks into position. Formatting disks - see page 12 Screw Mounts The Samurai Blade features standar d tripod ¼” screw [...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 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 Timecode and Record T rigger V ectorscope or W aveform Continuous Power Battery Indicator Time Remaining Recording Quality Recording Format Vid[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 11 Home Screen and Menu Functions Rec (Record) This is the icon you touch to begin a recor ding. T ouch it again to stop a recor ding. While recording the Rec icon changes to a Stop icon. Once your recor ding has started you have the option to touch the Mon icon to view the signal you are r [...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 12 File Naming Allows you to select the scene and shot number that will be recor ded 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 lar ger font an[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 13 Battery Indicator Shows whether you’ve got one or two batteries connected. If ther e 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 wher e you can closely monitor the status of the Batteri[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 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 12 digital channels (via SDI input) and 2 analogue audio channels (via the Stereo Line in). Each channel has a small r ectangle assigned to it; whe[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 15 Connect to input As soon as you connect a supported input to the Samurai Blade’ s HD- SDI 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 le[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 16 SmartControl SmartControl is a versatile set of functions used to contr ol the starting and stopping of recor ding by automatic or exter nal means. This section outlines the differ ent methods to start and stop recording. Samurai Blade Start and Stop recor d control can be triggered by th[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 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 fr om a video input signal. This feature has several bene?[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 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 [...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 19 Monitor Assist Overview Monitor Assist Focus Assist Zebra Pattern False Colour Blue Only Exposure Using the Samurai Blade as a field monitor and viewfinder With its 5” high-resolution color 1280x720pixel screen, the Samurai Blade makes a great eld monitor . So good, in fact, that y[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 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. Y ou can apply all filters to your monitor at the sam[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 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 [...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 22 SmartLog SmartLog gives you the ability to tag your clips during recor ding (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[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 23 Y our final stage is to Export the XML flag: • 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 recor ding time and amount of ?[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 24 Organising material on the disk Samurai Blade uses a unitname, scene, shot and take naming convention: BLADE_S001_S001_T001 This was recor ded on a Samurai Blade unit called BLADE , the scene selected was 1, the shot selected was 1 and it was take 1. Below is an example of your playback b[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 25 Atomos Anti-Shock T echnology Spinning disks are very r eliable in a controlled environment wher e movement and vibration are minimal and within the capabilities of the devices. They are ideal for low-cost r ecording, but will suffer r educed performance if they are jolted or r eceive a s[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 26 9. Timecode Using Timecode T ouching the timecode display on the home screen, just abouve the three main coloured contr ols, will take you to the Timecode setup screen (this is also accessible by touching Menu and then Timecode) Occupying the lower -centre part of the scr een is the timec[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 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 or[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 28 Using the Playback and Playout features The Samurai Blade has a powerful playback function that allows you to playback pristine Apple ProRes or (optionally) DNxHD r ecordings in real-time with controls to navigate quickly to any part of a clip, the ability to play recor ded content faster[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 29 11. Playback & Playout cont. Once a file 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[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 30 Loop Mode The Samurai Blade has the ability to play back a single clip in loop mode via the HD-SDI output. This can performed with captured clips at full broadcast quality or the nal edited clips fr om your hard drive. T o do this: • Go into Playback mode • Pick the clip you want t[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 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 Samurai Blade and insert it into the Docking Station. After a shor[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 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 files from your Samurai Blade disk. Importing Samurai Blade footage into Final Cut Pro Y ou can[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 33 SmartLog with FCP X Prior to importing the XML files into FCP X, ensure that: • Y ou have exported XML whilst the drive is in your Samurai 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[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 34 13. Using Samurai Blade with external power supplies 14. Using Samurai Blade with Atomos Connect Converters AC Adaptor (included) This connects on the battery slot on the back of the Samurai Blade. Please ensure it is connected to slot 1. The end of the adaptor will connect to a mains plu[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 35 15. Softwar e updates Updating AtomOS (Firmware) From time to time we will issue softwar e updates for your Samurai Blade. T o update the rmware (that’ s the software that runs inside your Samurai Blade), there is a simple pr ocedure you have to follow . • Go to www .atomos.com/sam[...]
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Atomos Samurai Blade – User Manual Edition 1: June 2013 36 Construction note: Y our Samurai Blade is designed to operate in ambient temperatures up to 40°C/105°F . It featur es a fanless design which dissipates inter nal heat through the aluminium chassis. If you wish to extend the temperature of operation in high temperatur e conditions, you c[...]