Convergent Design sent out this email today:

Dear Valued Dealers and Customers,

After careful consideration, Convergent Design has decided to discontinue the manufacture of its Odyssey 7Q+ and Apollo video recorders (Part numbers include: (CD-Odyssey7Q+, 100-10003-100 and CD-Apollo, 100-100025-100). The standard warranty terms will be honored for all units shipped to date and any units still in the dealer channels waiting to be sold.

All popular software options and software rentals will continue to be sold. Such options as Odyssey Raw Bundle, and the Apollo Option.

SSD sales of 512GB Samsung 860 Pro and 1TB Samsung Pro will continue to be sold.

The discontinuance of the product line is in keeping with our practice of rationalizing low demand products and replacing them with new products with improved design and functionality.

We appreciate and value your partnership. While we regret any inconvenience, this announcement may cause we believe it is in the best interest for everyone.

Please contact your Convergent Design sales representative for a complete list of supported and discontinued accessories or for any other questions.

Sincerely,

Convergent Design

Ironically, the email arrived just as I was setting up a 7Q+ for some low-angle monitoring:

The Odyssey 7Q+ and its Apollo multicamera monitor/recorder variant have been Convergent Design’s hero products for years, so it’s quite a shock to see them discontinued — though that hint about “replacing them with new products with improved design and functionality” is most intriguing.

DP Geoff Boyle lists a light meter and a 7Q+ as his “desert island”, can’t-live-without toolkit in a recent interview. Why is such an essential device suffering from low demand? I don’t have a definitive answer, but I’m guessing that Atomos and their lower-cost monitor/recorders are a large part of it. The Video Devices PIX-E monitor/recorders were squeezed out by Atomos at the low end and the Odyssey at the high end, and now it would appear that the $600 Ninja V and its siblings have put the kibosh on $2200 7Q+ as well.

So if you were thinking about adding an Odyssey 7Q+ to your kit, better not wait much longer. Once the existing stock is depleted, that’s all that will ever be.

The Odyssey 7Q+ in Pictures

The beauty of the 7Q+ is its flexibility. The touchscreen-driven device has an OLED display with waveform and  histogram overlays; zebras, a false-color mode, and loadable LUTs; and highly customizable image zoom and focus assist modes.

It offers raw recording to DNG files, ProRes and DPX captures, and compatibility with the peculiarities and oddball requirements of a wide cohort of cameras…

… even if some of those cameras never quite made it off the show floor!

Disclosure: I’ve had a 7Q+ on loan from Convergent Design for years, and helped Convergent with beta-testing of various features over that time. I worked on design and coding for the PIX-Es, and have a couple of them, too. I use all of ’em to this day. And, sadly, they’re all now collector’s items.

Inexplicably, I have somehow survived this long without a Ninja V, but that state of affairs may not last much longer.

Of course, if I ever get one, expect it to be terminated forthwith, too.