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What would I gain with a Kona card added to my current workflow?
I’m trying to decide if I need a Kona card for my Final Cut system. At the momment, everything is shot with a Canon XL H1, captured and edited in HDV, and delivered on SD DVD.
I would like to be able to take advantage of the Canon’s HD-SDI feature in the future, but besides that, what would I gain with a Kona card added to my current workflow?
Greg Mulvey
Designer:Animator
https://www.gregmulvey.com -
16 Replies
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The big advantage is converting your footage out of HDV to work in a more efficient workflow. We’re purchasing a Sony HDV deck right now, but our workflow will be to capture everything as DVCPro HD via the Kona card because that format offers much more realtime in Post than HDV.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Hi Walter,
Can you give me some more details on the DVCPro HD workflow? What real-time does it add to the workflow? When the project is done and ready to go to SD DVD, what would the process be?
Which Kona card would you recommend based on my current setup?
Greg Mulvey
Designer:Animator
https://www.gregmulvey.com -
[Greg Mulvey] “Can you give me some more details on the DVCPro HD workflow? What real-time does it add to the workflow?”
Well the amount of real-time depends on your hard drives, but for instance, my G-RAID FW 800 gets something like three streams of video and just filters such as Color Correction and the 3 Way Color Corrector can play in real-time.
With my Fibre Channel Array, it’s something like 6 streams of video in realtime and just about any filter I throw at the video plays in realtime.
HDV requires a lot of rendering for just about everything because of the format. It’s just a faster, more efficient workflow to get out of HDV on ingest.
As for output to DVD, it’s the same as what you probably do now. Export from FCP, compress the file and author your DVD.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Thanks again for the details. I’m intrigued by this DVCPro HD workflow. How would I capture the footage from the Canon XL H1 into DVCPro HD? Would I capture via the Canon’s HD-SDI and audio via the Canon’s XLR?
How long would an hour long sequence in the DVCPro HD format take to convert to SD or an MPEG2 file?
Right now it takes about 6 hours per 1 hour of video in the HDV format. Although, recently I have been doing this conversion in real-time via the new Matrox MXO.Do you think the Kona LH would be a good choice? It seems as if the Kona 3 might be overkill for me.
Greg Mulvey
Designer:Animator
https://www.gregmulvey.com -
[Greg Mulvey] “I’m intrigued by this DVCPro HD workflow. How would I capture the footage from the Canon XL H1 into DVCPro HD? Would I capture via the Canon’s HD-SDI and audio via the Canon’s XLR?”
Does the Canon embed the audio via HD-SDI? If so, then it’s an easy straight shot to the Kona via HD-SDI. If not, then the LH or LHe (depending on what machine you have) would work so you can bring the audio in via analog.
What we’re going to do is convert the Component output and Analog Audio output of the Sony deck to HD-SDI with embedded audio using AJA’s Component to HD-SDI converter.
For DVD Compression, I think it takes about 1 hour for a 27 minute timeline so I guess about 2 hours or less depending on your machine. Obviously our Quad compresses video faster than our Dual 2.0’s but I know even with the Dual 2.0’s there’s never been a compression render longer than 1 hour for DVCPro HD.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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The Canon doesn’t do audio via HD-SDI, so I would have to go analog.
Thanks for all the info you have been very helpful. Now I just have to decide which Kona card to get!
Greg Mulvey
Designer:Animator
https://www.gregmulvey.com -
Main differences are that the LH series has analog inputs and can perform HD to SD down-convert only. LH works in PCI-X machine, LHe in PCI-e machines.
The Kona 2 (which ONLY works in PCI-X Machines) can perform Up and Down converts from / to SD.
The Kona 3 (which ONLY works in PCI-e Machines) can perform Up, Down and Cross Conversions. That is 720 – 1080 and 1080 – 720.
The 2 and 3 only have Digital Inputs so that will require a converter to get an analog source into these machines. If you’re only concerned about analog audio you could pick up something like the Flying Cow A/D audio converter which converts your analog audio to digital.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[walter biscardi] “With my Fibre Channel Array, it’s something like 6 streams of video in realtime and just about any filter I throw at the video plays in realtime.”
Walter
that sounds about right- with my medea array I see 12 -16 streams of 720p24 DVCPROHD- and I used to get 7 streams of 8bit when I worked in SD.gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Chicago, IL -
What costs would be involved in adding a Fibre Channel Array to my setup? Currently I’m using a 1000GB G-Raid FW 800 drive.
Greg Mulvey
Designer:Animator
https://www.gregmulvey.com -
How much disk space does DVCPro HD take up compared to HDV?
Greg Mulvey
Designer:Animator
https://www.gregmulvey.com
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