Does Atomos have a habit of bad customer service?

I have asked them a question on Twitter, I have submitted a ticket on their website, I have replied to their automated confirmation of my submitted ticket about the question of my recently-purchased Ninja 5 and nothing for nearly 2 weeks now. You'd think they'd at least have the courtesy to reply. I guess Atomos doesn't care about their paying customers and it shows.

You know who replies and actually has good customer service? Pixel Film. Gotta give them huge props for an issue I recently had with one of their plug-ins.

They do take time to respond. I have had some luck just calling them. What is your question? i’ve been using a ninja flame and blade for a while.

I have a Ninja V and I absolutely love it. However it is limited in one aspect and that's the HDMI out for monitoring on an external monitor. I shoot at either 4K UHD at 24fps or 30fs, not 60. There is an option in the Ninja V do downscale the output to 1080p and that's great, but unfortunately it keeps that at whatever the camera's framerate is and of course the monitor can't see it. No monitor supports 1080 at 30Hz. So I wanted to ask if they could update it so it could output something a monitor can actually see, like 60hz. It could just double the frames or whatever, I don't care if there are a few frames of latency or if it's not silky-smooth, it's only so the talent can see themselves. Otherwise the output option is useless.

Hmm. What are you connecting the Ninja too. I connect my Flame to a Nikon D850 and the HDMI output is set on the camera.

If I understand correctly, you are trying to monitor 4k on the Ninja? Or do you have a separate display connect to the Ninja from that HDMI out? Sorry I'm stumped and or dumb.

You've probably got this already, but here are the specs:

www.atomos.com/ninjav

and here is their phone: 1 503 388 3236

Redifer wrote: Ninja V...love it. However...the HDMI out for monitoring on an external monitor. I shoot at either 4K UHD at 24fps or 30fs, not 60. There is an option in the Ninja V do downscale the output to 1080p and that's great, but unfortunately it keeps that at whatever the camera's framerate is and of course the monitor can't see it. No monitor supports 1080 at 30Hz....

My documentary team has three Ninja Vs -- your're right they're great but the limitation on output frame rate can be frustrating. E.g, we tried to use the SlingStudio for wireless HDMI monitoring but we shoot in 24 fps, the Ninja V only outputs the camera frame rate, and the SlingStudio transmitter only accepts 30 fps, not 24.

However since 3:2 pulldown only works for interlaced not progressive, Atomos couldn't use this for 24p to 30p. They could probably get something to work, also 2x conversion (30p to 60p) is easier but but it likely wasn't a priority.

OTOH I just tried 1080p output from the Ninja V at both 24 fps and 30 fps to my LG C8 OLED TV and it worked fine. I also tried running it through the switcher on my inexpensive Sony Sony STRDN1080 A/V receiver and that worked OK. I thought most modern TVs and TV/monitor hybrids will accept 1080p at 24 and 30 fps, but I haven't tested this. If the monitor wouldn't accept 24p that implies they wouldn't work with Blu-Ray players that send 24p material.

There might be a lot of older monitors out there (esp. venue systems) that only accept a narrower range of input frequencies. If they were only designed for ATSC TV use, they might only accept 720p/59.94 or 1080i/29.97.

I've tried everything I have, including multisync (not the right term but something like that) computer monitors but those allow refreshes faster than 60Hz, not slower. They could easily add 3:2 pulldown to a 1080p 60 stream, doesn't have to be interlaced. Well I guess it depends on the hardware they have inside.

They might as well not even have the HDMI out because it only works if you shoot in 30i or 60p.

But I bet they just choose to ignore and never respond. ¿ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ uᴉ ǝɹ,ʎǝɥʇ ǝɔuᴉs uʍop ǝpᴉsdn ƃuᴉdʎʇ ʎɹʇ plnoɥs I ǝqʎɐW

UPDATE: After you mentioned your OLED, I tried it on my fancy-schmancy LG OLED (same model as yours I think, this is the 65-inch version from 2018). It works! But that monitor is way too large and lives in my living room and not in a studio. My smaller LG studio monitor doesn't work. I wonder how one can tell if they work or not before they are purchased?

I will test this some more, but am on a shoot for the next two days so maybe not until next week.

I tested an inexpensive Acer S271HL 27-inch monitor, and it was not compatible with any setting on the Ninja V output. I walked through all combinations of camera HDMI output settings, frame rate, resolution and Ninja V output settings. Nothing worked. Camera was a Sony A7RIII.

Sending the camera HDMI output to the Acer monitor worked OK.

I then tried similar tests on a SmallHD Focus 5" field monitor. That partially worked but there was a constant flashing sync issue on the SmallHD screen. I had to use a micro-to-regular HDMI adapter for this; maybe that was a factor.

I'm getting some more HDMI 2.0a cables next week so will re-test using those. However it appears the Ninja V HDMI output may not very compatible with some existing monitors.

I tested on an old ViewSonic monitor I found and it works perfectly fine! However they don't sell this model any more so tomorrow evening I will go up to a friend's house where he has a still-on-sale ViewSonic and I'll try that. The only difference is that the one I tested is a TV with a tuner, etc and his is more of a monitor. Not sure if that makes a difference in the grand scheme of things, but if it works I'll pick one up at Best Buy as from what he said they were $200 or less.

OK friend's new ViewSonic monitor doesn't work, but he had a smallish Vizio with a tuner that did. So I guess you need to use a more consumer-oriented monitor.

Still no reply from Atomos. I guess they just hate people who buy their products.

It all depends on the region, for example in one city, tech support is bad and you can never get through to them, and in another, on the contrary, they always help and are kind to you. On the other hand, it can be used by fraudsters to get your data, but for such cases, I personally secured myself a VoIP number from www.mightycall.com/ , because they are more secure, and also if they try to cheat you, you can record the conversation and use it against the cheater.