Atomos (http://www.atomos.com) has unleashed the Ninja, an US$999 portable touchscreen HD recorder, monitor and playback device that captures video direct to Apple ProRes from any camera with an HDMI output onto removable 2 1⁄2 inch hard disks.
Ninja is designed to eliminate the need for capture cards and wasted time logging and capturing by avoiding the lossy, time consuming capture to edit process. It bypasses the image-degrading compression needed to squeeze HD onto in-camera flash storage like P2, SxS, SDHC etc..
The Ninja includes all accessories — batteries, chargers, disk caddies and a Mac/PC docking station — in one case. Hidden inside its compact design is a hardware implementation of the Apples ProRes codec.
Ninja sports FireWire 800,USB 2 and 3 and e-SATA interfaces built in. Apple ProRes works natively with Final Cut Pro and on any computer with the ProRes codec installed (including suitably configured PCs).
