Step Up Your Monitor Game with Atomos Flame Firmware Updates

Atomos has updated its Flame series firmware, improving color gamut, adding additional HDR support, and more.

While we were out getting drunk off hamburgers, hot dogs, and fireworks, the Australian-based company Atomos released an update to their popular 4K Shogun and Ninja recorders/monitors. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re stacked with features that even impress my cat. (Seriously, he rubs up against my Ninja every time the camera’s out. Is it made from catnip, Atomos? Is it?!)

You can now use the Flame series as an HDR preview monitor  or as a playback device on HDR displays​.​

The latest, dubbed AtomOS7.11, now has HDR support for log video for all current RED Digital Cinema cameras along with JVC’s J-Log gamma curve—that’s good news for JVC LS300 shooters out there. 

One stellar addition to the firmware is its support of Perceptual Quantizer (PQ). Pioneered by Dolby, the SMPTE ST 2084 standard allows for the correct display of HDR. With Atomos adding both a PQ input and output, you can now use the Flame series as an HDR preview monitor or as a playback device on HDR displays. 

Atomos also improved the Atom HDR function with a unique Scene Brightness Range slider where “you can now slide from standard dynamic range or Rec709 through to HDR.” As you slide, stops of dynamic range are introduced to the panel showing the percentage of Rec709 and stops above Rec709.

A new clipping graticule on the waveform makes assessing HDR simpler, as it's dynamically linked to the HDR slider. As you move, a yellow line indicates the increasing dynamic range on the monitor. Atomos also added an Auto HDR feature that sets the scene to the ideal settings on the screen. 

While the majority of the updates pertain to HDR, pixel mapping has been improved for more accurate colors and brightness, enhancing black performance and shadow detail. Slow motion playback has been introduced; you can scrub the video up to five different speeds. Atomos also gave us its popular battery priority mode where you can choose the main source of power— DC or top/bottom battery. (7.11 fixed a bug in 7.1 where the battery indicator sometimes wouldn’t show a battery present.)

You can download the latest firmware from Atomos here.