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Sound Devices PIX 260i Product Information


jon_tatooles

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The PIX 260i has collectively made many of us here prematurely gray, especially Paul Isaacs...but it is the answer to that question we hear a lot from customers, "What is next from Sound Devices?"

 

Way back at last year's NAB, we previewed the PIX 260. Between now and last April, the product has evolved quite a bit. Today, we began (slowly) sending out PIX 260i units to resellers worldwide. 

 

Is this a production sound product? It may be...it may not be. That is up to you to determine.

 

It does introduce several technologies that we believe are relevant for both video and audio production, technologies such as:

  • audio over Dante - networked audio has been around since before SD started 15 years ago, and it is now maturing
  • multi-drive recording, the 260i records to four attached drives. This is more important for some video productions, where post-record copy can be brutal with high data rate video, but there may be relevance for audio-only
  • network control - the 260i has an embedded web server where setup menus and machine transport can be controlled. Any browser-enabled device (computer/tablet/phone) that can see it can control it
  • file access over data network - any of the four drives can be accessed for file transfer over a data network as an smb share
  • multi-unit grouping - multiple units can be grouped for synchronous control

That is just scratching the surface of the PIX 260i. For those interested in knowing more, take a look at the product page and the 1.0 user guide here:

 

   http://www.sounddevices.com/products/pix260i/

 

The user guide is very "1.0", but it is complete. It is also doubles as a cure for insomnia.

 

 

 

 

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Thanks for posting Jon, I just assumed it was already out (and I was wondering why I hadn't heard about people using it!). When we talked about it at NAB (that was almost a year ago, yikes!) it looked pretty exciting and definitely looks like a cross over product, video and audio, as things seem to be such a convergence course anyway industrywide. I look forward to seeing one in action soon.

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Hey Jon and team, the pix 260i is very impressive. I can see it being very popular in Commercial HD work flows like I work in. Not sure as a stand alone audio recorder for most shows unless they are high track count reality shows or something like Glee. I guess it would depend on the price point. Congratulations on the new member of the SD family.

CrewC

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Hi Jon and the good people of Sound Devices (SD). I have had the chance to use and operate the 240i for a few days of shoots. One thing I find quite challenging is the inability to delete recorded clips. At the moment there is only the option to erase/re-format the media. Is this something SD intentionally planned to do or have yet to do (work in progress and will be featured in the next update)? Interesting to note is how much power hungry is the recorder. I just bought a PSC Powerstar Mini and a brand new NP1 so I tested it on the 240. The total runtime was around 6 hours. Two Sony NP L-series battery used together yielded more runtime but still it's quite a power guzzler. Looking forward to having this new product in my country. A lot of crews (or rather the producers) seems to be fond of the Pix recorder (in comparison to other alternative such as the Atomos). I do hear a lot of this question 'Why the name Sound Devices (your logo) on a video recorder?' Loving the record run mode (with Arri/Red/Canon flags). Automatic record and stop. The 240 was also quite tough. We were shooting the new Discovery 'Boom De Ya Da' commercial and one of the location involves a very muddy place (track for ATV). I was handling a wireless video antenna when some of the technical crews took it upon themselves (chasing magic hour) to push the magliner from one point to the other. The 240 dropped from the top level of the magliner to the ground. Luckily the ground wasn't rock solid. The 240 is still up and running after that incident and doesn't seem to be having any problems save for a few clean-up wipe. I think it is a video product but with very good audio capabilities (digital/analog or even digital+analog ins), Lemo 5pin TC in/outs (even though there's already TC on the SDI in but not HDMI-can be used to stamp HDMI in) and pro res 422 out, it's a good tool for the video side to simplify the workflow and speed up post production. Regards, Fauzan.

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" file access over data network - any of the four drives can be accessed for file transfer over a data network "

post can download their audio and video files directly

 

Audio transferring etc via ethernet and optical fiber (like a Mediornet from Riedel) it's the future (also check Focusrite RedNet).

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Hi Jon and the good people of Sound Devices (SD). I have had the chance to use and operate the 240i for a few days of shoots. One thing I find quite challenging is the inability to delete recorded clips. At the moment there is only the option to erase/re-format the media. Is this something SD intentionally planned to do or have yet to do.

 

Hi Fauzan - the 260i and 240i both have the ability to delete individual clips. You do this from the Files menu. You also have a false take function using the stop +rew shortcut like on all our recorders.

 

Paul

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Hi Fauzan - the 260i and 240i both have the ability to delete individual clips. You do this from the Files menu. You also have a false take function using the stop +rew shortcut like on all our recorders.

 

Paul

 

Ahh, I must have missed the menu or the rented 240i wasn't updated to the latest firmware.

(I did looked up for this function in the manual by the way). Good to know it's there. Thanks for the tip

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Hi Fauzan - the 260i and 240i both have the ability to delete individual clips. You do this from the Files menu. You also have a false take function using the stop +rew shortcut like on all our recorders.

 

Paul

 

Sorry, also while we're at it - is there no way at all for us to change the video mode such as the white balance?

 

One AD gave me an earful on how the picture on the Pix wasn't the same as on the Epic's monitor. Same deal again, checked every menu there is and browse through the manual very thoroughly and can't find it so I had to tell them to do the color correction/grading in post.

 

Edit: The color on the Epic was a bit more yellowish tint while on the Pix it was more blue-ish.

I think it's just a simple white balance setting.

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I'm hopeful that it will have (in the future) all the speed offerings of the 7 series machines...48.048 is still used.  If not pulling up the sample rate, then perhaps an SRC on the file save out along with the metadata stamp.  When shooting film, we routinely record in this manner to allow for the pull down in transfer.  

 

I know... film?  What's that...  But, seriously..it's still in use.  

 

PWP

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Sorry, also while we're at it - is there no way at all for us to change the video mode such as the white balance?

 

One AD gave me an earful on how the picture on the Pix wasn't the same as on the Epic's monitor. Same deal again, checked every menu there is and browse through the manual very thoroughly and can't find it so I had to tell them to do the color correction/grading in post.

 

Edit: The color on the Epic was a bit more yellowish tint while on the Pix it was more blue-ish.

I think it's just a simple white balance setting.

 

Fauzan,

 

The PIX does have some controls for the LCD image.  Press/hold the LCD button and press the encoder.  This will bring up a pop-up menu where you can adjust the LCD Chroma, backlight, etc.

 

Adjustments made to the LCD have no bearing on the files recorded on the PIX.  White Balance is adjusted on the camera, not the recorder.

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Hi Jon!

Thanks for starting this thread!

Gotham Sound is very excited to receive our demo unit today.

If you're in NYC come in and get your hands on it. 

Peter and I are thinking of getting our hands on the Focusrite RedNet 3 for interface. 

 

 

Thanks,

Christina Z Wittich

Sales Guru

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Fauzan,

 

The PIX does have some controls for the LCD image.  Press/hold the LCD button and press the encoder.  This will bring up a pop-up menu where you can adjust the LCD Chroma, backlight, etc.

 

Adjustments made to the LCD have no bearing on the files recorded on the PIX.  White Balance is adjusted on the camera, not the recorder.

 

Hi Matt, the thought of long-press came up to mind. We tried that only to be greeted with a blank-screen.

I'll work with the 240i again on the 19th,20-21st. I will take a picture of it for reference.

 

Good day

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Hi Matt, the thought of long-press came up to mind. We tried that only to be greeted with a blank-screen.

I'll work with the 240i again on the 19th,20-21st. I will take a picture of it for reference.

 

Good day

 

Yes, pressing and holding the LCD button shuts off the screen entirely.  You need to press the LCD button and the Control Knob at the same time to open the LCD adjustment pop-up.

 

Check out page 11 of the 3.0 manual:

 

 

To make adjustments to the LCD backlight, butt on backlight, image

brightness, image contrast, or image chroma, hold down the LCD

butt on then press the Control Knob. The LCD Control Panel will appear.

Turn the Control Knob to adjust the slider for the highlighted

(yellow) parameter and push the Control Knob to select between the

parameters.

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Yes, pressing and holding the LCD button shuts off the screen entirely.  You need to press the LCD button and the Control Knob at the same time to open the LCD adjustment pop-up.

 

Check out page 11 of the 3.0 manual:

 

Good stuff. Thanks for the prompt reply!

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I've been playing with our demo unit for the last couple of days, and I have to say the "Audio Only" recording mode is my favorite feature. The routing of audio inputs to tracks is clear and intuitive and it looks like it will pair well  01vi with a dante card. This has all the potential to become a powerhouse sound recording system. 

 

Our demo will be up and running for anyone who wants stop in and take a look.

 

 

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I've been playing with our demo unit for the last couple of days, and I have to say the "Audio Only" recording mode is my favorite feature. The routing of audio inputs to tracks is clear and intuitive and it looks like it will pair well  01vi with a dante card. This has all the potential to become a powerhouse sound recording system. 

 

Our demo will be up and running for anyone who wants stop in and take a look.

in audio only mode, will the unit still display incoming video? i didnt spot anything obvious in the manual - though i have had a beer before looking at it.

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in audio only mode, will the unit still display incoming video? i didnt spot anything obvious in the manual - though i have had a beer before looking at it.

 

As pointed out, yes it will display incoming video at the same time as recording Broadcast WAV files, so an ideal one box solution to recording audio and video monitoring. You can also route the SDI or HDMI audio embedded in the incoming video stream into the BWAV recording. Not only that you can use the box as a 32ch interface to Protools, Logic etc all whilst recording to 4 drives simultaneously and controlled remotely via a browser over Ethernet or WiFi (just connect ethernet port to wifi access point). There are a lot possibilities.

 

Paul

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I have been planning on building a cart around the PIX260 since it was announced.

 

They way I see it, eventually the DIT position and the production mixer position will at some point merge.  Recording video and audio, together, on the same device eliminates timecode and sync issue.  I think this is the first step toward that merge. 

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