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BMD 4k Extreme or AJA Kona 3G-suggestions?
I am currently using the Aja Kona 3 with Premiere Pro CS6. Aja has decided to stop supporting this card with no future updates. I have a Mac Pro and would like to be able to use Premiere Pro CS7 when it comes out. My dilemma is I have to either update to the Aja Kona 3G card or BMD Decklink 4K extreme. The BMD is half the price of the 3G but I have had no experience with it. Aja has been a great company and their customer service is incredible. If anyone could chime in, that would be great.
Greg Jones
D7,Inc.
Orlando,Fl.
https://www.d7-inc.com -
2 Replies
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Well…it sort of depends on what your ideal setup would be.
If you are considering running Resolve, then that decision is made…
If you want HDMI 4K from the card, the Kona 3G doesn’t have that at this time.
But, as you mentioned, many people have a track record with AJA that they appreciate. I’m sure BlackMagic has loyal and happy customers too.
This might be something you’d want to post on each of those forums and see what you get (sorting through whatever zealotry might arise of course).
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,Adobe Certified Instructor
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The two things that differentiate AJA and BMD are
1 – AJA generally has much more realtime conversions on their cards. Like playing a 24p timeline directly out to 29.97 onto a display. Our BMD Extreme 3D card can’t do this via both outputs, and in most cases can’t do it at all.
2 – AJA tech support after the sale is generally better.
That being said, I’ve been having much better experience of late with BMD’s support dealing with them with Resolve. And as Tim just mentioned, if you want to use Resolve, well there’s only one product for you. That’s why we got the Extreme 3D in the first place because AJA and BMD can’t come to terms to allow AJA to support the product.
The output of the cards themselves are equal as far as I can tell. And in the case of CS6, ONLY the BMD card will allow us to output to tape, the AJA’s have not been able to do this, though I understand a lot of work has been done on this end with Premiere Pro Next.
You have to carefully look at the limitation of the BMD cards of what they can’t do before you purchase because we get so spoiled by the AJA’s literally just converting anything to anything on the fly that we don’t even realize all the work they’re doing in the background.
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