M.2 Samsung SM951 Update - HOT or NOT!

High on the Christmas list this year has to be one of the latest Samsung PCIe SSD M.2 Drives!

The SM951 PCIe NVMe is undoubtedly one serious speed demon!  Just look any any test or review to see the bench marks!

This was my system UserBenchmark before and after the installation of the drive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Before:
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/402482

After!!!!!!!!!!!!:
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/468341

BUT in real terms what does that mean for your actual user experience.

Here i give me honest opinions of the 256GB (MZVPV256) version installed in my i7 5820K @4.5GHz  GA-X99-SLI system running Windows 10 for content creation.

Allot of reviews have said it's a product the manufacturers are drip feeding into the market and mostly in OEM builds so they don't want the mass market to get hold of them just yet...  nothing like a bit of stealth marketing to build the hype!

I've used this drive as a boot drive in both Windows 7 and Windows 10, a dedicated scratch disk for Adobe CC Aftereffects, Premiere caching, project disk for Devinci Resolve 12 all coming to the same conclusion.

As a side note.
Windows 7 does not support NVMe without a hotfix applied which on the surface isn't a problem just install it!  however...  if you want  to create a bootable NVMe drive using Windows 7 fresh install this is where the problems arise!, there are ways to do it but its far easier to fresh install on anther AHCI drive, apply the hotfix then clone onto the SM951 NVMe drive.

(Window 7 Hotfix for NVMe support):
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/2990941

Free drive clone tool:
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx


I've made a little video to explain my findings. Hope you find this review useful.

Plusnet Fibre Extra Broadband - OMG who knew!!!

At long last we have been SuperFast broadband enabled.   After much tooing and froing with different ISP's we have finally been successfully connected to PlusNet's Unlimited Fibre Extra service.  What a difference it has made!!

The download speed is great but to be honest it's the upload speed which has had most impact. 

From 0.6Mb/s to 18.26 Mb/s is around 30 times faster upload! and it's a figure my tests seem to confirm.  

Look at it another way for every hour an upload used to take it's now 2 minutes!  literally! 

1Gb video uploads now take no time at all, in fact they are uploaded by the time you finish writing the title and added a description!

Great stuff Plusnet!   long may it continue.

New arrival - M.2 Samsumg SM951 NVMe drive

Look whats just turned up. :)

It's a Samsumg's SM951 NVMe 256Gb drive, a very unassuming sized bit of kit but will it live up to the hype!

The advertised speeds for this drive are pretty damn quick so can't wait to get it installed and tested.

I plan to install it into my Gigabyte GA-X99-SLI board which has an integrated  M.2 x2 slot, unfortunately this only uses PCIe 2.0 x2 lanes and thus 'restricts' the bandwidth to get this a whopping 10Gbs! SATA 3.0 is only 6Gbs so still quite a bit faster than a standard SSD using a SATA connection.

This little drive will easily saturate this 10Gbs connection so i've had to add a PCIe 3.0 x4 adapter to my motherboard, this adapter will open up the bandwidth to a theoretical 32Gbs and give the SM951 all the bandwidth it wants!!!!

My current system is no slouch!

Window 7 based, Water Cooled, X99,  i7 5820K overclocked to 4.4Ghz, 16GB of DDR4 Ram.   The existing drives are;

Samsumg 840EVO 120GB as OS drive
Samsumg 840EVO 120GB as a Scratch drive (Caching drive)
3 x 1TB mechanical drives for working projects and video files
1 x 2 TB mechanical drive for final projects.

Currently i primarily use;

Adobe creative cloud - After effects, Premiere, Photshop and a bit of LightRoom.
Devinci Resolve 12

The goals of the upgrade are to further enhance it's responsiveness performance and also enable me to RAID 0 the SSD's and use them as project drives.  Additional performance will hopefully aid 4K video editing and rendering.

i7 5820K and Canon 5D Mark II RAW video goodness!

So I've been trying Magic Lantern firmware for a while now and love the scopes and additional video functions it brings to the party but have never got on with RAW video as it seems quite cumbersome and glitchy, my PC always struggled as well. That was until recently when i replaced my PC with a i7 5820K X99 based beast with multiple SSD's and 6TB of storage! so i thought i'd give a go again.

I downloaded the latest ML Firmware and set to work in ernest.

OMG i'm so glad i did!

New improvements:

1. Magic Lantern have changed the way the Canon 5D Mk2 records RAW by putting a MLV wrapper around the RAW video, what does this mean? It means the audio is now captured and included with the video. I know this is not that much of a big deal but having scratch audio really helps.

2. The 3x RAW video Zoom!!!! this is great, it means i can now record just the center of the image effectively trebling the focal length of my lenses!!!! this is huge as it makes my goto lens 24-105 L a 24-315mm F4! and with my 1.4x TC a 24-441mm!. You can also extend it further by using the 1280x720 mode which crops even further! but your better off doing this in post.

3. The third thing and something which i never knew about is MASSIVE!!! by using the ML RAW function when using an external field monitor you retain full HD display when recording!!!! NO MORE 480p camera mode required!!!!! this is superb and worth the extra workflow required with RAW video.

So what are the downsides of using RAW video, well its all about storage, 4GB and 8GB cards are useless, a 4 GB card records around 12 minutes of H.264 video and about 1 minute of RAW! so you need 64GB fast cards (x1000), if you only want to record in 720p mode then a 300x card is fast enough. You also need to extract your RAW video from the MLV wrapper which actually isn't that much of a big deal.
The good news is you can do it right from the CF card using MLVBrowseSharp which converts 4 streams at a time making extraction almost as quick as straight copying across!

You can then simply drag the footage into Devinci Resolve 12 and it will sort the sequences and even multiple clips. The controls in Devinci 12 make RAW video correction a dream.  Devinci prefers the RAW DNG files to H.264 and plays back smoother.

The first time you drag the contrast slider across when watching a RAW video and comparing it to a H.264 you'll never go back!   H.264 just looks like mush!


Here's a quick video showing the detail advantage RAW has over H.264.  I've converted the H.264 and RAW 1080p to 4K.

In this test the conversion is straight to 1080p 

The difference is stunning! Up until fairly recently Youtube had been blamed for the video looking poor, it's low bit rate was always blamed, this obviously goes a way to prove that theory wrong as the H.264 codec may well have been the culprit all along. 

Its fair to say i am in love with my Canon 5D Mark 2 again. 

Overlay screen shot. (Click for full size)

Is H.264 in my Canon dead!!! well yes and no! if your after extreme detail and dynamic range then yes if not and just what to record something quick then it has its uses, but it's like shooting RAW stills vs JPG's... once you use RAW you don't go back to JPG!

Top Photography and Film Tip - Save money by Modifying a Softbox into Strip Light

Yongnuo YN-300III Review

LightDow LD 160 LED light panel review

FeelWorld FW 759 Review

Tips and Tricks to improve your DSLR Rig.

The handles are often see as weak or poor on some DSLR rigs but its not always the handles that are at fault!

 If you've got a Cheap dslr rig watch this before you spend a packet on upgrades... you really can't afford too.

 It's not Filmcity specific but more budget rig in general.

Genuinely less than £1 will transform your rig! honest!

Filmcity FC 03, DSLR shoulder rig, 9 months on now with Gini upgrades

A quick update video on my rig configuration, although i have spent extra improving the original Filmcily FC-03 rig the end result is a super rig that far exceeds it's price tag.

Rig cost to date (excluding camera and lenses)...

Around £255
Rig:

• Filmcity FC-03                 -£118
• Shipping                           -£24
• Import TAX                     -£18
• Baseplate                          -£20
• Gini Cage Arms x3           -£52.50
• Aluminum Z Bracket        -£12
• 7" Magic Arm                   -£10.99

Extra's:

• FeelWorld FW759           -£85
• HDZ-81 mic                     -£12

The cage parts from the original rig are now being used to protect my camera in the new super low cost Camera Crane/Jib i have been working on.

Video to follow on that one :)

Enter the new kid on the block! FeelWorld FW759 Field Monitor

I've been using an old 7" low resolution monitor primarily for framing for a while now, i usually use a optical view finder but have found the larger external monitor really helpful, with that in mind I felt now is the time to upgrade.

My original monitors resolution was just 480 x 234 Pixels but the real killer was the low contrast ratio at just 100:1 so basically i needed to set the camera up on the LCD on the back of the camera before switching across to the field monitor which is a bit of a pain.

I looked into using my Android tablet and using dSLR Controller to act as a monitor but found the lag was just too great for me.
Pulling focus on a moving subject i found near on impossible as i over/under correcting all the time.  This may have been due to the cable or spec of the tablet but either way it just wasn't working for me.  The other issue was mounting, as they aren't threaded you need to rely on some kind of clamp which just was a bit weak.

Looking around there are a whole host of cheap'ish monitors on the market so choosing one wasn't easy!

It seems everyone has different opinions so it really comes down to which one has the spec i wanted and which looked nicest.

Enter the new kid on the block!!!  Well almost, its been ordered so stay tuned for a full video review soon!

Feelworld FW759 Seven Inches Slim Design Ultra HD IPS 1280x800 Field Monitor HDMI Input for BMPCC

DescriptionThis FW759 HD Minitor utilizes advanced IPS screen, with up to 7inches monitor allows you
to get the vivid and clear visual experience. Specific Slim Design 17mm wide view angle IPS 1280x800
Ultra HD Monitor for Steadycam,DSLR Rig,Camcorder Kit,Handheld Stabilizer,Video Camera Crane ,seizing
much more clear world. The high resolution LCD,1:1 pixel mapping and 800:1 contrast ratio provides users with
the most accurate picture of FEELWORLD monitors. Professional Peaking Focus Assist Application for full HD
Vedio Camera in taking photos and Making Movies.

Features: * Wide view angle IPS panel,Ultra HD1280x800 resolution
 * The enhanced 400cd/m2 backlight and 800:1 color contrast ratio
 * Slim design 17mm Portable Light compatible for Steadycam,DSLR Rig,Camcorder Kit,Handheld Stabilizer,Video Camera Crane
 * Peaking Focus Assist
 * Camera 5D II Mode
 * Check Field:(Red,Green,Blue,Mono)
 * Image Flip(U/D,L/R)
 * ScreenMarker (80%,85%,90%,93%,96%,2.35:1)
 * Centre Marker
 * 4:3&16:9 image adjustable
 * Pixel-to-Pixel
 * Image Freeze
Specification:
Model  FW759
Resolution  1280x800
Dot pitch 0.11775(H) x 0.11775(V)
Aspect ratio 16:10
Brightness 400cd/m²
Contrast 800:1
Backlight LED
Response time 25ms
Viewing Angle 89°/89°(L/R) 89°/89°(U/D)

GINI BODY ARM CLAMPS

After using my rig for a while in its new configuration I've decided to upgrade it again, this time by getting some CNC GINI BODY ARM CLAMPS.


I initially bought one like this hoping i could use it in place of the support arm.  As it was shaped i hoped it would attach and let my camera slide in and out without having to remove my lens or undo the support.

Unfortunately that wasn't the case as the i would not attach!
Unfortunately again the seller did not accept returns so i couldn't send it back so i was a little unsure of what to do next.

I then purchased two of these below.  The plan now is to remove and replace the entire Filmcity Cage unit with the Gini parts.

"The Body Arms main functionality is to protect your DSLR while creating a support system for 15mm rails. Body Arms are CNC machined from high grade aluminum and anodized in black for durability." said the advert...

Although this has increased the cost of my rig i do think it will enhance it considerably.

Video to follow.

A quick video to show what i have done to my Filmcity FC03 shoulder rig.

More by accident than design i have stumbled across a method to increase the strength of the cheap ebay shoulder rig FC03.

Continuous lighting or Strobes

Filmcity FC-03 Shoulder Rig Update

A quick run down on my now 4 month old Filmcity DSLR shoulder rig which i have upgraded/improved.