Video Assist Hot Pixels & Future Investment

So far I have been shipped 2 Video Assist monitors and what can I say, really shocking quality control. The first one I had displayed around 5-6 hot pixels when filming a dark scene so returned it to supplier who confirmed the fault and replaced the unit.

Received the new unit today and bloody hell this one is even worse, its like looking up at the stars, seriously shocking, how can they let these go out. They have QC stickers on the screens meaning they should of been checked, it really is shocking.

I have been really looking at Blackmagic camera's over the past few years and have been waiting to invest however none of the offerings really suited me in terms of ergonomics or size. I purchased my first BM cam end of last year the pocket cam as a bit of a stop gap and was hoping it would be eventually be my B Cam to the Ursa Mini 4.6k, I have been really excited and had made up my mind that I would invest in a full Ursa Mini 4.6k with all of the bells and whistles, however now I'm really not to sure. I am losing faith in Blackmagic and their quality control, I really want to love the company because of the way they operate in terms of bringing kit to the masses, using standardised connections and strong codecs etc, however if your ultimately going to be disappointed after you have invested around £7,000 I really need to think about investing my money elsewhere.

Sorry for the rant but really frustrated at the moment, I have used 100's of devices in the past, iPhones, iMacs professional monitors and have never once before had a problem.

I hear ya, I'm feeling the same way.

Here it is in all its glory!!!

IMG_4515.jpg (675.89 KiB) Viewed 1207 times

Oh dear.

I am still tossing up between a VA and the now much cheaper Ninja 2 (will wait until after NAB due to possibility of more price cuts) - really wouldn't want the hassle of having to deal with this.

Oh dear.

I am still tossing up between a VA and the now much cheaper Ninja 2 (will wait until after NAB due to possibility of more price cuts) - really wouldn't want the hassle of having to deal with this.

Hey Matt,

Sent my second unit back and going to chance getting a 3rd one. I have asked the UK distributor to open the box and check it for me before they ship it out.

After speaking to the guy on the phone and telling him my issue the tone of his voice sounded to me like they are having a lot returned, (maybe I'm wrong) but to me the tone of his voice sound a lot like (not another one) lol.

Prob a good idea waiting for NAB.

I got one of the first VAs, had a dark spot issue, BM fixed very quickly, but no hot spots, doubled checked it yesterday, and all is good. You are sending the VA a video signal when you check for hot spots are yiu not From what I understand, you should send a monitor a black burst or ca era video signal with lens cap on to get a "black scan" on the monitor, after checking the video,source on a known good monitor to insure the signal is "clean"

Good luck with number 3