AJA “Cobble Together” or Black Magic All in One?

[Shane Ross]

Just FYI…none of the current capture cards offer any true HARDWARE ACCELERATION to the editing process. The one that did…wayyyy back in FCP 3 days was the Cinewave…and that was because it captured to a proprietary Cinewave codec….so the hardware could handle a lot of the processing. But now both AJA and Black-Magic capture using the Apple codecs as a base.

Now there is SOME acceleration going on there for some formats…boosting the amount of RT effects to a few more (I believe), but nothing major.

Please, someone correct me if I’m wrong. I know I might be.

Other than that…the Eclipse sounds like the card you need…it has all those options.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Walter Biscardi]

I’ve tested both products in the past and only run AJA in our shop.

As for your requests:
Hardware Acceleration
SDI HD / SD Capture
Uncompressed HD
Analog Capture*
HDMI In / Out*

The only hardware “acceleration” is for DVCPro HD and HDV whereby the Kona offers realtime scaling allowing more real-time filters.

A Kona 3 will do you just fine with an HD10AVA to allow Analog inputs.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[David Roth weiss]

[Mike Lovelady]
“Hardware Acceleration
SDI HD / SD Capture
Uncompressed HD
Analog Capture*
HDMI In / Out*”

Other than the hardware acceleration thing, which Shane mentioned (btw, scaling is also on the fly when using DVCProHD and HDV codecs), the Kona LHe does all except the HDMI thing, which can be handled with the addition of a Kona Hi5 device.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Peter Wiggins]

Why don’t you try a test with both at a reseller?

I’ve used both and I only run Blackmagic in my shop 🙂

Aja & Blackmagic both make good products. However I suppose I’m still bitter about being abandoned by AJA with the Kona1.

Bottom line is do your own research/evaluation and don’t trust forum posts

Peter

[Walter Biscardi]

[Peter Wiggins] “However I suppose I’m still bitter about being abandoned by AJA with the Kona1.”

Yeah, that wasn’t such a good deal at that time. At least the company is still around though, not like my Cin

[Chris Poisson]

Walter,

You tested an Eclipse and you didn’t like it? Why?

Have a wonderful day.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Chris Poisson] “You tested an Eclipse and you didn’t like it? Why?”

I guess I should clarify. I tested BMD cards and AJA Kona cards and found the AJA products far superior to the BMD cards. So we run AJA Konas in our shop.

As the Eclipse is brand new and was not at NAB, no I have not tested it. I don’t have any plans to test it as we don’t have any needs to expand our three HD suites any further at this time.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Michael Lovelady]

Thanks for all the excellent feedback and I think an “In Studio” test is in order! Really appreicate it guys.

Best,
Mike

[Jeremy Garchow]

If you can live with ProRes, perhaps the ioHD will be right for you. It offers hardware encoding of ProRes and provides all those ins and outs you need. The only factor is that it does not do Uncompressed HD.

Jeremy

[Neil Sadwelkar]

I have limited exposure to AJA devices except the iO which I used a lot some years ago. In 3 years I have used BM HDPlus (later exchaged with HDPro), BM SD, and for about a year BM MBridge Extreme.

Our FCP systems (and cards in them) are used for about 14-20 hrs each day (350 dys/yr) in Mumbai, India. High temp, tonnes of work in post. Down-time not tolerated. And they’ve stood up.

Support-wise, AJA and BM are equaly far for us so both don’t count. Not like in the US. No local rep., replacements in 2-6 weeks. So we pretty much support ourselves.

We also have 8 smokes, 2 eQ, 1 iQ, Lustres, telecines. So quality-wise, on seeing the same pictures on different systems, I would say BM uncompressed holds its own against the big boys. And we have many many shows mastered on our FCP-BM systems that have passed QC even in EU and Far East.

So conclusion. BM is recommended. The new Eclipse will do all you want. I’ve only seen it in trade shows, and can eval it if someone gave me a unit. But if its as reliable as the present MBridge then it will rock.

Neil

FCP Editor, Mumbai, India.
Completely PAL.