Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/28735
review By MIKE ROMEY Pipeline Supervisor Zoic Studios www.zoicstudios.com Los Angeles ality in such a bite-size form factor.You get great quality and good value with a unit that integrates nicely into any Final Cut (Apple ProRes) editing pipeline.The unit will appeal to the seasoned veteran and indie market. At Zoic, the Mini’s big brother, Ki Pro, is a standard device on our virtual production pipeline for broadcast (we’ve used it on the ABC show V for the past two seasons). Ki Pro Mini presents many of the advantages of its full-size brethren while offering a subset of functionality in a smaller, lightweight package. AJA’s Ki Pro Mini A JA’s Ki Pro Mini is one of those must- have units in your camera bag. Few products offer such diverse function- duces some extra weight. Due to the nature of some of our productions at Zoic, I had hoped that the unit could also be used to provide timecode to our other devices to reduce the amount of gear needed on stage. Unlike the all-you-can-eat I/O of the full-sized Ki Pro,AJA has taking a Zen like ap- proach to I/O with this unit. Only the neces- sities are provided. UP AND RUNNING Initially when I received the unit our cam- MOUNTING OPTIONS I was very pleased with the size, weight The unit is lightweight, flexible and affordable. and feel of the unit.The Ki Pro Mini is light enough to be mounted on-camera and the body is well engineered and thoughtfully de- signed. Ki Pro Mini can be mounted to AJA’s optional cheese plate and 15mm rail system just about anywhere on or around the rig. With additional cheese plates it’s even possi- ble to sandwich two of them together for stereo or virtual production. In my tests, I experimented mounting it below, behind and even above the camera. I opted to mount it on its side instead of ver- tically, leaving the memory magazines acces- sible from the back of the camera.Then at- tached a cheese plate below the unit to era was out in the field. Impatient as I can be, I opted to start testing by connecting the unit to one of the decks and monitors in our machine room. Connecting the Ki Pro Mini and controlling it was very straightfor- ward.The unit has a few simple buttons, play, fast forward, rewind, record, a status to tell you which memory cards to use, and config- uration settings. It’s easy to pick which input you want to use.You just power it on and arm it. I didn’t test the audio features exten- sively, but the Ki Pro Mini has line levels in and a headset.The unit is pretty slick for an on-set recording device. The Ki Pro Mini is geared for cameras that provide full HD-SDI or HDMI clean feeds. mount to rails and a cheese plate above to mount an Anton battery attachment. Set up and configuration was pretty simple using a few screws and an extra 15mm bridge. If the overall weight of the camera and dressing is of concern, I would opt to mount the Ki Pro Mini to your rig via the screw points at each corner of the unit in lieu of the bracket, which is heavy duty and intro- ACQUISITION Acquisition is equally straightforward. Ki Pro Mini (and Ki Pro) are geared for use with professional and prosumer cameras that provide full HD-SDI or HDMI clean feeds. The unit offers an attractive alternative ac- quisition method for those devices to ac- quire contemporary QuickTime editing for- mats, which greatly speeds up the process of going from production to editorial. I tested it with a Canon 7D, which was not an ideal camera, and special considera- tion should be noted.While Ki Pro and Ki Pro Mini appear to be good candidates for Canon 5D or 7D footage acquisition, the live video feed from these HDSLR units is not clean and sometimes not even full 1920x1080. My hope is that future HDSLRs will address these shortcomings, making this unit indispensible for indie production. Another benefit to the Ki Pro Mini is its ability to jumpstart older cameras and or newer cameras that don’t have native QuickTime ProRes support. STORAGE Just like a computer, special care should be taken when removing the storage maga- zines from Ki Pro Mini.At the heart of the unit is a Linux OS, and the unit uses stan- www.postmagazine.com VITAL STATS PRODUCT: AJA’s Ki Pro Mini WEBSITE: www.aja.com PRICE: $1,995 · integrates easily into ProRes pipeline · lightweight · flexible mounting options dard Compact Flash card magazines to store recorded content.The Ki Pro Mini has two slots for cards, so in the event that one card is filled, the machine is capable of rolling over recording to the second card slot.The size of your SD cards and the quality of ProRes content will determine the amount of recording time you get.The ability to go on stage with a unit like this is great — some- one always has a CF card if you run out of space. Be aware that not all CF cards pro- vide sufficient bandwidth for use with Ki Pro Mini,AJA has an updated list of approved CF cards on their Website: www.aja.com/pdf/ KiProMini_qualifiedCF_cards.pdf. FINAL THOUGHTS For the work I do, I’d like to see the Ki Pro line-up integrate with tools that manage and acquire data and prepare content for visual effects, like The Foundry’s Storm. I am also ea- gerly awaiting future family additions to the Ki Pro line that support 4:4:4 Apple ProRes and or even raw DPX sequence acquisition. Overall, Ki Pro Mini is an incredible tool to have in your arsenal — whether you’re a pro or indie cinematographer. Pair Ki Pro Mini with a MacBook Pro and a Sony FS-4, Panasonic AG-AF101, or Red Epic and you have a very powerful workflow that allows you to acquire 4:2:2 content and go direct to edit faster, better and cheaper. April 2011 • Post 59