Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Mars 400s Pro Review

- We're gonna take a Fujifilm camera's video signal,

and then use this device to send the video

and the audio wirelessly up in the air.

Where does it go?

- Flying over our heads in a million pieces.

- Yeah, roll intro!

(upbeat music)

Hi, everyone, welcome to pal2tech.

Today, we are talking about the Mars 400S PRO

video wireless transmission unit.

Hollyland was kind enough to send us a copy

of this 400S PRO to test out and review.

But just like always, this review is completely unbiased.

I'm not being paid by Hollyland to do this review.

Additionally, they were not permitted to see this review

until now, after you've seen it.

The Mars 400S PRO connects right to the top of your camera

using the cold shoe mount, just like this.

And then it connects to your camera via an HDMI,

or the SDI port.

Once connected, it broadcasts out your camera's video signal

to the receiving unit.

This then gets plugged into an external monitor,

computer, or even video switcher,

to allow the viewing of the signal.

(upbeat music)

In the box, you get two units,

the receiver, which has a blue colored cold shoe mount,

and the transmitter,

which has a red colored cold shoe mount.

You also get one DC adapter and an extra antenna.

Both the transmitter and the receiver each weigh 206 grams.

They both allow for an HDMI connector, as well as an SDI.

There are two antennas located at the top of each unit,

and they can be moved around just like the ones

you would find on a standard home router.

Each unit has a 1/4-inch 20 tripod thread on the base,

so that it can be attached

directly to the top of your camera.

(upbeat music)

Because the unit has been orientated

in the horizontal position,

it is a perfect balance for an X-T3,

and a heavy (mumbles) like this.

You can put this on here,

and with the battery and the weight of this,

it kind of counterbalances the weight of the lens,

and feels good.

The unit has very simple controls and large, readable menus.

There's also a dedicated power on

and off button on the back.

Both the transmitter and the receiver units

have built-in fans to keep them cool.

Now, while I found them to be quiet,

and they never presented an audio problem for me

when I was using a mic near it,

you do have the option of simply switching off the fan,

and going completely silent on the unit.

This is great if you do notice that your camera's mic

is picking up the fan noise.

There are three ways to power this unit.

The first is a Sony NP-F mount battery, standard,

goes right on it, just like that.

The second way is to use the included DC wall adapter,

but here's the thing.

You only get one, and last I checked,

there are two units to power.

So if you go that route, you're gonna have to purchase

a separate DC power adapter.

It's about 30 bucks or so.

Or three, you can power it using the USB port on the back.

Most of the time I used a Sony NP-F750 battery,

and I got anywhere between five to six hours

on a single battery charge.

Now, as soon as you turn both units on,

they both search for a clear five gigahertz signal.

The Mars 400S PRO can handle a 1080p signal

up to 60 frames per second.

These units automatically detect

the resolution of your video,

so you don't have to configure anything.

If you change, say, your resolution,

or your frame rate on the back here,

these units will automatically sense that.

You don't have to go and configure them.

(upbeat music)

Being able to view the signal via a smartphone

or a tablet is one of the greatest features of this unit,

because it allows you to basically

take your smartphone device

and use that to monitor your video.

The app has many built-in features that you'd often find

in higher end display monitors, such as zebras,

mono color, false colors, et cetera.

Check this out.

I've got the camera running in HD 1080.

It is using the wireless broadcaster

to both of these devices at the same time.

You know, this could be the producer,

and this could be the executive producers

and they're, you know, they're on set,

walking around, looking at what's going on.

You can even load in a Fujifilm LUT,

and display on your smartphone the F-log signal

coming from your Fujifilm camera, say,

with the eternal LUT applied.

There's even the ability to hit record,

and get a 1080p, 24 frames per second recording

of the live transmission of the camera

that you can then play back later on,

and that also records audio from the camera as well.

(upbeat music)

Hollyland claims that you get .08-second latency.

Now, what is latency?

Well, basically that's the time it takes the signal

to get from your camera, right,

it's coming out of here,

into your receiver and you see it on the monitor,

and it's basically how much in sync

that the two signals are.

Now, latency is very difficult to test,

because performance can be influenced by everything,

from the material in the walls, right,

to the HDMI cables, and so forth.

But what the heck, let's test it right now.

It's 25 feet.

So I guess if I pull this all the way out, right,

so that's 25 feet times four.

That would be 100 times four (mumbles).

So welcome to our field test today.

We have this long, deserted road behind us here,

and my assistant is going to take an X-T3 camera

with a 400S PRO mounted to it as far as he can get

from this receiving unit,

and we're gonna see at what point the signal gets lost.

Are you ready, sir?

- Yup.

- Okay, let's do this.

Off he goes!

So 600, about 500 feet away now.

(Chris laughs) He's zooming in on me.

Water

Heads - You're crazy.

Across the sky - I like you.

- [Man] But you're crazy.

Hands across the water

Water

Heads across the sky

- I don't know if you can see it.

I'm transmitting on channel six,

and what's so great about this unit is

when you turn both of them on, they look for each other.

They link up immediately with a minimum of hassle.

It's wonderful, really nice.

Now this is rated for 400 feet,

but it just froze at about 600 feet.

You see that right there?

Still, I am really impressed.

Now, for our next test, let's try it through a wall.

I'm going to bring the camera

with the transmitter on top of it,

take the camera into the next room with the parrot.

- Hi, there.

- So now I'm going to plug an external monitor

into the receiving unit using a standard HDMI cable.

Turn that on.

This goes into here, and notice I've done nothing

with the menu settings in this at all.

All I did was turn these two units on, that's it.

It's so simple to use.

Check it out.

- It's me.

- I love my job. (Chris laughs)

I got to go turn the parrot off.

(upbeat music)

Another great use for this would be to pull focus

at a distance from the camera.

So for example, let's say your Fujifilm camera

is mounted to a rig, right?

And normally you're using this to focus.

Well, you can come up with some kind

of a wireless focused solution, right?

So you'll have a focus thing,

and you'll have it with this over here,

and you could pull focus,

but not have to be right next to the camera rig.

You could also use this on a gimbal

to allow a monitor to be used without cords,

and that can even be detached

and used by someone else remotely.

Okay, I've got this camera aimed at the computer screen

to OBS streaming software.

What I'm gonna do now is connect my ATEM Mini, right,

to the receiving unit of the Mars 400S PRO.

Boom, just like that, oh, have a look,

whoa, have a look at this!

I am now livestreaming.

I'm livestreaming straight from the camera

and I can take this away.

I can walk around the studio.

Hi, guys, how you doing?

I could do whatever I want, right?

I mean, this is awesome.

And finally, you can just plug it directly

into your computer via USB-C to RJ45 cable

and livestream directly from the unit.

I chose not to test that out for this video,

as that's more of a special use case.

(light music)

So there are a few issues I wanna talk to you about

with the Mars 400S PRO, namely three of them.

The first, the unit comes with one AC power cord

included in the box.

It would have been nice to have one for both

the transmitter and the receiver.

I think adding a few extra bucks to the cost

would be well worth it to be able to have power

to both of these units,

without having to worry about ordering batteries,

or to somehow get a USB solution together.

The second thing is the video signal.

It would be nice for the unit to offer the ability to switch

between 2.5 gigahertz and five gigahertz signal,

because in some shooting situations where, let's say,

you're going right through a wall,

you might want the 2.5 gigahertz signal.

Number three, and I actually think this is

the most serious one, Hollyland, I hope you're listening,

being able to record directly on the device

whatever the camera's seeing, right,

anybody with a device can just tap record,

and get the captured video and the captured audio

from the scene, while that's really cool,

I think that also opens up a messy can of worms

from a security perspective.

There should be a way to allow the operator

of the transmitting unit to be able to disable, right,

all of the other receiving units

from being able to record directly to their devices.

At the very least, if you are going to be using this

for client videos, please make sure that you change

your Wi-Fi password from the default

one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,

to something much more secure.

(upbeat music)

All told, I think this is an absolutely wonderful unit.

It's got great build quality,

and I love the fact that you just turn it on and it works.

Keep in mind that if you're shooting

with your Fujifilm camera, you're going to need

to set your record out to FHD.

Otherwise, it won't acquire the signal.

I'm gonna give the Mars 400S PRO an A.

I had originally given this product an A minus.

However, because it has the same awesome design

as something that Batman would wear right on his belt,

yeah, it got bumped up to an A.

Well, I hope this video has been helpful to you.

If it has, be sure to give it the like and subscribe,

and I will see you in another video again very soon.

Take care.

And I still have perfect signal, completely uninterrupted.

(light music)

Water

Heads across the sky

- Cameron!

Come back!

Hands across the water

Water

Heads across the sky