KONA CARD 1 BUGS

Greetings,

If you have the Kona Card (version 1) for HD you should expect some problems. These problems occur when editing in High Definition (in my case, 1080p 23.98PsF). What's more is that if you bought your Kona from Promax (as did I) you should not expect them to be able to help you.

THE PROBLEMS

1. If you want to use a slug, color bars and tone, countdown, or any other element known in FCP as a "video generator" you must export that element as its own self contained QuickTime file, import it back into FCP, and then the timeline will play smoothly.

If you simply create a slug in the viewer, specify its duration, and drop it in the timeline you will have problems. The timeline will not play back. You will get the "dropped frames" warning and playback will cease.

I encountered this problem while trying to lay off a 56 minute HD show to an HDCAM record deck (which costs $1200/day). After days of troubleshooting with Apple and other manufacturers, I finally reached a solution after talking to the techs at AJA video.

They were very casual in explaining to me the above-mentioned bug, and described it as if it was no big deal.

2. If you have an area in your timeline with only audio and no video you will experience the "dropped frames" message and playback will cease.

This too was explained to me by AJA video.

AJA claims that these problems are fixed in the new Kona-2 card.

My opinion is that manufacturers like AJA are releasing gear before it has been thoroughly tested; leaving people like me to discover problems for them.

This must stop, as it is unacceptable.


Sean MacGowan

Hi Sean...

well...I wish I could say AJA were right but
I'm at the end of my first project with FCP-HD
using the KONA 2 card and boy have we had
problems with it...

we get dropped frames all the time and
no one (and I mean NO ONE) in London
seems to know why...

the people we bought the kit from are
floundering in the deep end and have
no idea how it works and the support
they're supposed to be giving is
sorely lacking....

our conform - which was supposed to
last 2 days max - has been a week and
it's still going on...

our level of service from our apple provider
and apple and AJA have been like your
experience as well I'm afraid - nothing
better than a shrug and excuses...

all I can say right now is that being on
the 'cutting edge' our supplier keeps
reminding us, is not what it's
cracked up to be...

regards and hope it gets better
for us both...

shawn

HI reading your email about the aja card.

I can't imagine paying $1,200 a day to use a HDCAM recorder??

are you or someone else nuts? I have access to HDCAM equipment and costs me nothing.....

I mean where I work they have it sitting all over the place, they don't care if I use it.

Why would it cost $1,200 a day?

Greg

Greg wrote:

>
> Why would it cost $1,200 a day?

Probably becuase they cost abot 80-90K to buy.

the workaround...when you have a sequence where there is audio and no video drop a black color matte into your sequence. this will eliminate the dropping frames problem.