Kona 3 -- too much card for this boy?

I'm reminded of the summer I went shopping for my first car; I found an awesome TransAm with furry seat covers, fuzzy dice and a sweet engine. I revved it up and turned to father, grinning. He said, "too much car, kid."

Anywhoo...

I've just taken a monster of a video job, prepping video loops for HD monitors at a client's trade show booth. Material is coming in at all shapes and sizes: DV, HDV, BetaSP, DigiBeta, HDCam, up- or cross-converted to 1080i 60 (I think, trying to lock that down). I've already picked out the RAID I want and the budget is healthy enough for me to finally get a good capture card. The HDCams I might do over at Alpha Dogs but I'm keen to rent a Sony J30 to pull in all the Beta tapes myself. I was about to pull the trigger on a Kona 3 card but I want to make sure I'm making the best choice. I've looked over the whole AJA family and even some of the Blackmagic products, not sure I see any other good choices. While it has the stuff I need (up-conversion, SDI, analog out) it doesn't have everything I'd like (analog video in/analog audio out/HDMI) and to be honest I'm not sure if I'll ever use some of the advanced features (dual-link, 2K).

Too much card, kid?

JK

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SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

Take a look at ioHD and think ProRes.

Material is coming in at all shapes and sizes: DV, HDV, BetaSP, DigiBeta, HDCam, up- or cross-converted to 1080i 60.

You really listed most every type of video format that existed until today, there. Except for the HDCam (?) digital capture and the DigiBeta and BetaSP (which need a capture card to digitize), you have to rent, etc a comparable deck to capture the tapes, the rest is captured over Firewire.

Not sure what camera is the HDCam you are thinking about. The only reason to get an AJA card is possibly the upconvert to 1080i

Which Mac are you going to be using to do this? The Kona 3 reguires a PCI Express Mac.

Anyhow - the other suggestion to use an IOHD may be a good one for your editing needs. If you are using a MacPro - Intel then ProRez is a real help too - that is if you are using Final Cut Studio 2.

If you need to capture uncompressed HD, then the Kona 3 is the card. BUT, it does not capture analog...for that you will need a mini converter, the HD10AVA. Then you are set for ANYTHING.

BUT...if you can deal with capturing as ProREs, then the AJA I/O HD is the option for you. It handles EVERYTHING but uncompressed HD. And it can upconvert SD to 720p and 1080i, and cross convert 720p to 1080i and vise versa. Decklink cards cannot cross convert, and only upconvert to 1080i.


www.shanerosseditor.com

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1. Yeah...shane pretty much covered what I was thinking. A link is always helpful:

[www.aja.com]

2. There's no such thing as "too much car" (I am an ex-79 Trans Am & 80 Turbo Trans Am Pace Car owner)... just not enough driver

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

The Kona3 is pretty damn awesome! The ability to up/down/cross convert is fantastic and works pretty flawlessly. We've been doing the up and cross for the past couple wks on multiple SD/HD sources and it's been great. We are editing in uncompressed 10bit. I think the price between the K3 and ioHD is pretty similar - for me, the IoHD for the same price is a bit limiting but it's portable and ProRes is definitely good for mastering. But you're kinda out of luck if a network/client demands uncompressed, as ours is for this project. You can do ProRes with a K3 but you can't do uncompressed with IoHD. For about the same price - K3 makes more sense to me.

Chi-Ho Lee
Film & Television Editor
Apple Certified Final Cut Pro Instructor

Shane, is there any virtue to getting a Kona 3 even if he doesn't need uncompressed I/O, for the real-time acceleration features Aja touts?

I'm sure the I/O HD also has the RT acceleration for HDV and DVCPRO HD (basically it doesn't the aspect adjustments so that the computer doesn't have to)...and it is cheaper. But really, the I/O HD is da Bomb...as long as you don't need uncompressed or Dual link 4:4:4.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Chi-Ho,

You can't do analog on the Kona3 without a separate converter. Original poster needs analog The IO/HD is great also because you have a mobile studio used with a Macbook Pro & a RAID Array. ProRes HQ is a very solid clean codec.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Thanks guys, really appreciate the responses.

I'm really torn here, starting to lean towards the IoHD now as nice all-in-one solution. It's actually more than the Kona 3, although once you factor in the breakout box (to get analog audio out) it's pretty close. And if you add the HD10AVA, fuggedaboutit!

Totally willing to do ProRes on this one, was going to recommend that to the client. Can't imagine they'll need uncompressed to play back on LCD TVs. And no, I don't think I'll need Dual Link or 2K features, rather hire the experts to help on that.

I want to make sure though that's there's no performance hit from using FW800 vs. PCIe. I also can't seem to find any mention of HDV or DVCProHD hardware acceleration for the Io, but what's the downside of that? What does that really do for me?

JK

_______________________________________
SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

With a Macbook Pro, AJA Tech boyz told me to install a FW800 card to separate that bus stream from the main motherboard FW800 port. The Motherboard is for the IO/HD and the cardbus port is for the RAID.

If you have IO/HD-specific questions, why are you still here? If I was gonna spend $4 grand, I would go to the horse's mouth - call Aja Tech Support and tell them what you want to accomplish and they will tell you if it's right for you (write down your questions first):

Headquarters
AJA Video Systems Inc.
443 Crown Point Circle
Grass Valley, California 95945
1-530-274-2048

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Right...analog....Damn you Joe! Who needs analog these days? JK...

John K, I wouldn't get the HD10AVA. I'd look into the Blackmagic analog to SDI mini converter for $499. Cheaper and does the same thing.

[www.decklink.com]

Joe is right - AJA have awesome tech support. Give them a call...

Chi-Ho Lee
Film & Television Editor
Apple Certified Final Cut Pro Instructor

Yes, they are awesome!

They agreed that the hardware acceleration of HDV and DVCProHD on a Mac Pro was negligible, so that's not a dealbreaker. IoHD it is!

Thanks all for your advice,

JK

_______________________________________
SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!