AJA Io -- a good product?

I'm thinking about purchasing an AJA Io for an FCP 5 edit studio. I work at a small company that produces shows for broadcast and we work with a mixture of BetaSp & DV material. It seems like a good, elegant solution for working with different formats destined for broadcast. Any recommendations/comments about the product? Should it be used in conjunction with any other hardware that I should consider buying?

thanks

I use it everyday for Broadcast TV Commercial output to DigiBeta. VERY high quality - it just works great. If you are doing HD, look at the Kona2 card. If not (just BetaSP & DV), then the Aja IO is the perfect solution.

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Yup, ditto that. I've had an AJA for a little over a year now, great piece of equipment and a very good value when you look at all it can do. It's ideal for your workflow.

Should it be used in conjunction with other hardware? Yes. You might think about adding an extra firewire pci card to your computer (cheap, around $70). Reason for that is the AJA will not always operate properly if it has to share the on-board firewire bus with other equipment like decks, cameras and drives. I park my external drives on the additional pci bus, and turn off any equipment connected to the on-board bus during capture or playout with the AJA. Works just fine.

Clay

<<<I park my external drives on the additional pci bus>>>

What he said. No dropped frames, no skipping, reliable captures and playbacks--in uncompressed.

You do need to know that it's possible to freak an I/O out. If a capture crashes for any reason, the I/O can be left in a "magic" state and stop working correctly. Usually, a restart with the power switch restores everything.

You also need to know that the I/O doesn't do external Time Code. The only TC the unit has is the one going down the RS-422 control line.

The I/O FireWire connection is heavily magic. You can't connect a FireWire CamCorder to it and use the I/O to convert it to uncompressed DigiBeta.

All I can think of.

The lights are pretty.

Koz

We had a lot of trouble with our first AJA IO LA box. It would always cause the computer to lock up. After several tech calls, AJA finally decided it was the problem with their product. So they happily sent us another AJA box and it works great. On top of that the tech department are always on top of every problem, and always happy to help. They even call you back, so you do not get ignored. The guys in the tech department also know all about FCP and the inner workings. They're not just hired guys that only know AJA and the workings of it. So they can walk you through your FCP set up to make sure everything is ok there too. Steve Tonti is the tech I talked with a lot, and he is extremely knowledgeable and helpful. He always returned phone calls, and even made phone calls to make sure all was OK. He also stayed in good contact with emailing. I not only recomment AJA for the cool product, but I also suggest them because the tech staff is so professional and nice.

Adam C.
avguy75@yahoo.com , the av are my initials and do not stand for Audio Video . . it's just a cool coincedence

Ditto all of the above - Use the AJA I/O LA - first box was a little funky...they sent a replacement the next day - since then it's worked like a charm...their tech support is about the best anywhere - they answer immediately - email or phone....have a new program that runs the box with out final cut - use for direct dubbing through the box....terrific product - Andy Field

<<<use for direct dubbing through the box>>>

More English please. Did they solve the DV>601 conversion problem?

Koz