ATOMOS Ninja V / V+ now Includes Full ASSIMILATE Play Pro License – Limited Time Deal

Monitor Recorder

by Olaf von VossFebruary 1^st, 2022

ATOMOS and ASSIMILATE have just announced that any new purchase of an Atomos Ninja V or Ninja V+ will include a full license of ASSIMILATE Play Pro valued at $299. This offer is valid for all purchases made on or after January 15 and is valid through April 30, 2022.

If you bought your Ninja before the above date, fear not. Currently registered owners of the Ninja V/V+ will receive this license at an exclusive price of $99 (visit my.atomos.com to claim your license).

So you’re wondering what ASSIMILATE Play Pro is all about? Well, since the Ninja V/V+ brought ProRes RAW recording to the masses, it’s only natural that you’d want to just throw the resulting clips into your favorite NLE’s timeline and edit/color grade them, right? Well, wrong. Unfortunately, not all NLEs are (yet) capable of handling ProRes RAW clips. And that’s where ASSIMILATE Play Pro comes in.

ASSIMILATE Play Pro & ATOMOS

This handy software can read, transcode and export ProRes RAW files (plus support for many other codecs and file formats, of course). This way you can record high-quality ProRes RAW files with the Atomos Ninja V or V+ monitor/recorder, then transcode the files to a suitable intermediate codec like ProRes 4444 XQ with ASSIMILATE Play Pro, and then send the resulting files to your favorite NLE.

It’s an extra step, yes. But to maximize the quality of the captured footage, I think it’s worth it – unless you need very fast turnaround times on your projects, but then ProRes RAW might be a bit overkill anyway.

Since ASSIMILATE Play Pro normally costs $299, many indie filmmakers may avoid it if they only want to transcode their ProRes RAW files. But with that price tag gone for a limited time, now may be a good time to jump on the Ninja bandwagon.

Originally, ASSIMILATE Play Pro was developed as a professional quality control and transcoding tool, providing all the necessary tools for inspection of the incoming footage and metadata, as well as a full suite of transcoding/debayer/metadata manipulation tools, including white balance, color space transformation (including ACES), log curves, ISO and much more. And it supports ProRes RAW natively, of course, so there you go.

Look- and metadata management, dual-screen / SDI output and rendering ProRes (both on macOS and Windows), H.264 up to 8k and 12 bit H.265 is on board, as well.

For a brief overview of a ProRes RAW transcoding workflow, check out the video below:

All in all, this seems like a pretty good deal to 1) get ProRes RAW even more into filmmakers’ workstations and 2) give said creatives the ability to use this format in any NLE they want, including DaVinci Resolve, which we all know doesn’t natively support ProRes RAW.

Pricing and availability

The tried and true Atomos Ninja V as well as its bigger brother/sister Ninja V+ are of course readily available, but the above-mentioned offer is only valid until April 30th of this year. So if you are planning to get such a monitor/recorder, now might be the time.

ASSIMILATE Play Pro is available for both Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows (incl. Apple licensed ProRes encoding on Windows).

Link: ASSIMILATE Play Pro / ATOMOS

What do you think? Would you consider recording in ProRes RAW with this handy transcoding option in place? Share your experiences in the comments below!