User Manual draft - Comments/suggestions/revew requested

[tesla500]

Here's a draft of the Chronos 1.4 user manual. There are some sections that are not written yet, but it would be great to get some of you to review it. Any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

If anyone wants to help writing any of the missing sections, that would also be great, and would get the full manual out faster.

[BiduleOhm]

Hi,

I must say it's very well written, you've done an amazing job

I saw only a few little mistakes:

* Page 13:
- I'm not sure but I think "Shows the bitrate and frame rate calculated from the bits per pixel setting" should be "Shows the bitrate calculated from the frame rate and the bits per pixel settings"
- I guess "h264 profile | Sets the h264 encoding level." should be "h264 profile | Sets the h264 encoding profile."

* Page 15
- I think this "The black cal is persistent across restarts and will be remembered the next time you use the same resolution." is a bit unclear as I don't know if the next time I select a previously used resolution I need to do a black cal anyway (as mentioned a bit higher on the page) or if it's not needed.

* Page 17:
- The mentioned max shutter speed is 2 µs but on page 11 it's 1 µs (and I've seen a member's test video taken with 1 µs too)

NB: FAT32 is limited to 4 GB per file so I wonder what happens if you try to save more than that?

[JamesB]

Pretty good first draft, very easy to follow. Good to know the appropriate power down procedure and the 4 second rule of hard reset.


I still cannot find a way for the camera to shoot lets say 500fps at 1280*720p.  Every time I put the frame rate at 500 or 0.500 00 K or any combination it either reverts back to the 720p preset of 1502fps or spits out a crazy number like 3.20978797 fps and a crazy time. 

What would be ideal is to have a slider or arrows that go up 10fps increments up or down in the setup window and if left pressed would jump in 100fps increments.  Also, the Manual should have a table of examples on how to input the frame rate and time in the proper way as to allow for a quick learning curve.

In any case, I would appreciate guidance in altering frame rates that stick.  And once they do it would be very useful to allow them to be saved for recall later.   I am interested in 240fps 720p, 500fps 720p and 1000fps 720p as a start to learn the proper values.   
Thank you! 

[Taofledermaus]

The camera ships with a CS-C adapter ring installed, as well as a dust cap. Be sure not to accidentally
remove the CS-C adapter when removing the cap.    That's all me right there! 

[nik282000]

Everything is there that I was looking for. On a formatting note you might want to use sections (like a Hanes car manual) so that every time you update the manual you don't have to update every page number in the index just add a new subsection to the relevant chapter.

[Taofledermaus]

Not sure if anyone is aware of this,   but  I have recorded some test shots,   removed the SD card before shutting down the camera,  and the last file is corrupt.   This doesn't happen when the camera is shut down first.   

[Electra]

My guess would be that the camera isn't doing a buffer flush/file-system sync.
Maybe the next version of the firmware should have an 'unount/eject SD card' button or automatic mount/unmount for SD card on save.
Saving a tiny amount of extra footage you can afford to loose might be a quick fix?

But for now, good to know! Keep the SD card in the camera until shut down for now.

[Camoit]

You are straying off topic.
You never pull the card on ANY camera that is powered....
Go buy storage for a RED and you will never do it again. 

So far it looks good.
But not having a camera in hand makes it tough.
I think mine is in production at the moment. Take your time with mine Dave. Because as soon as I get this thing it's going to be used for TV commercials and some TV shows I work on.
I do like the idea of having sections so you only need to change that VS. changing the hole book.

And please add in lots of info on the remote trigger as that is going to be needed first.

[Taofledermaus]

You are straying off topic.
You never pull the card on ANY camera that is powered....
Go buy storage for a RED and you will never do it again. 

Sure,  but  this isn't just "any camera".   

[Camoit]

Suggestion, in bold print on the second page, add in

DO NOT remove SD cards before powering down camera otherwise you will damage the SD card or files. 

[BiduleOhm]

According to the manual there's a "Safely remove" button in the save menu. I don't know if it's here or if it'll be added later, but you should use it if it's here to properly unmount the storage device.