Resources For the Indie Film-maker
Archive for November, 2009
Ikan v5600 in the field
Nov 24th
This is an update to the previous posting and quick review on the Ikan v5600 monitor.
Well I was hoping the monitor would work fine for my 11 hour shoot but the battery adapter issues I had last time had gotten worse. The monitor was barely bright enough to view even in a dark reception room, it was totally unusable anywhere there was any daylight, even in the shade. I was hoping Ikan would have sent me out a replacement battery adapter by now but I’m still waiting even after Kan, CEO of Ikan, said they would send me out a replacement right away. This was over a week ago so I’m now going to try and go through Adorama, which is where I purchased it from, to see if I can send my broken Sony L battery adapter in and get a replacement.
If the battery adapter had worked, the monitor would have serviced my needs as a focusing device just fine. But after this experience with it, I’m totally disappointed in the reliability of the Ikan products and so far from the unanswered email, I’m disappointed in their customer service. God I’m glad I can vent my frustrations on the interwebs 
Update 28/11/09 – Still no reply from Ikan support. Adorama are also dragging their feet on replying to emails. What has the world come to when businesses think customer service is not important?
Update 30/11/09 – Ok Kan (CEO of Ikan) has finally gotten back to me. Apparently they aren’t open on Thursdays and Fridays. Still doesn’t explain the delay in keeping me up to date. He says he will personally make sure I get a replacement battery adapter in the mail. I shall wait and see what happens.
Adorama on the other hand are a good store to buy stuff from, but are really.. crap, average, disappointing when it comes to customer support when things go wrong. A quick search on the net reveals a few other complaints about their customer support. They have no problem sending me spam every couple of days yet take their time when it comes to replying, or not replying to any customer support issues.
Update 1/12/09 – Ikan support came through. My replacement battery adapter arrived today after being posted a week ago on the 23rd of Nov. I feel like an ass for getting worked up about it but it’s frustrating when you buy something that costs a lot of money and can’t use it for it’s intended use. My only advice to companies out there is to keep your customers up to date and reply to their emails in a timely matter, within 48 hrs is acceptable. Kudos to Ikan for standing by and supporting their customer and putting up with my angry ass.
I’m going to put the working Ikan v5600 through it’s paces in another way next week. As a teleprompter monitor mounted above the lens. I just tried it out, hooked up to my laptop via hdmi using free Prompt software and it seems to work beautifully even if the eyeline is slightly above the lens.
Ikan v5600 is here – Short Review
Nov 16th
I ordered the Ikan v5600 Deluxe pack from Adorama a week ago Monday and it is finally in my hands a full 7 days after I ordered it. Adorama was quick to post it and I was hoping for it to come before last weekend so I could use it for a 14 hour wedding day.
But the quoted 3-5 days from UPS turned out to be bullcrap and I’m still nursing a sore neck, arm and shoulders from having to use the onboard lcd on my SGblade/XHA1 rig for the whole day. This rig without an external monitor is really some sort of torture device as using the onboard lcd required me to crane my neck back and support the whole rig on my arms.
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Enough about that, let’s get on to a few things I have noticed about my new Ikan v5600. First of all, it is extremely light. This is a good thing as anything to reduce the weight of the rig is a big plus. Unfortunately the downside is the back of the monitor where I connect the battery adapter feels extremely flimsy and flexes with the slightest bit of pressure. This is a problem as the battery adapter needs quite a bit of force to put the battery in and the amount of flexing scared me off that I am now going to forego the screw mount option and instead attach the battery adapter with velcro. This is so I can quickly detach the battery adapter and mount the battery away from the monitor.
Speaking of batteries, I have already gone through a small Sony NP-f570 battery and it lasted an impressive 1 and a half hours. I’m currently testing a larger NP-f960 battery and will report back to how long it lasts. I will also compare this to the generic Ikan Sony battery that came with the kit that is currently charging.
Image quality wise, the monitor’s dynamic range is quite a bit poorer compared to the XHA1′s lcd. Details I can see in whites on the onboard look blown out on the Ikan. The colour’s on the Ikan also look quite a bit more washed out but I think this is in part due to the monitor being calibrated for NTSC devices.
Viewing angle is approximately about 30 degrees or so from front on until the image becomes unviewable for monitoring purposes. The image on the v5600 doesn’t look sharp but as others have said, it has a “smooth” look about it. It is still very usable for focusing which is what I will be using it for.
I will be shooting another wedding this weekend and will give another short review on how it handles in the field. This time, I’ll be able to balance my rig on my shoulder which will make the day, 1000 times more comfortable on my neck, back, shoulders and arms.
Update: The Sony NP-F960 battery lasted just over 3 hours before the monitor turned off. I just tried the Ikan battery and the battery adapter started emitting a strong odor of burning plastic! That freaked me out I immediately disconnected it and checked whether the battery was overheating (I heard about the dangers of exploding li-on batteries). The battery felt cool to the touch and the smell was definitely coming from the adapter. There didn’t appear to be any smoke so I reattached the Ikan battery to the adapter and despite the strong burning chemical smell coming from it, it still powered the monitor. I’m going to contact Ikan about this and see if this is normal but the smell really is quite overpowering and is giving me a headache.
Update 2: Ikan have already gotten back to me and have told me the battery adapter shouldn’t be doing that. They have offered to send me a replacement battery adapter. So far so good, they seem to be a very responsive and responsible company. Hopefully it gets here before the weekend otherwise I’m going have to risk it with the one I’ve got.
Update 3: Today I did a comparison of the brightness of the monitor on mains power and on battery power. It seems the v5600 is a lot brighter on mains then on battery power. My battery adapter is screwed though. Something in there burnt out and let out a toxic smell. It still powers the monitor up though so I’m thinking whatever component ups the voltage from 7.2v to 12v has burnt out and it is not delivering enough volts to fully power the monitor. I’m still waiting on the replacement battery adapter from Ikan and will see if the brightness is better.