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

[Macka]

We are probably biased here in Australia – But we used Decklink systems from the first decklink SP – right up to the new HD systems in a television station in the dept i oversaw – our chief engineers did extensive testing on the image quality and we have had 8x FCP systems running for years now – they rarely get shut down. We only ever had downtime when updating drivers/ Os or FCP – this was very fleeting.

I looked at the ioHD recently and really think both companies offer an excellent product and support – i can only reinforce what those above have said to test the product that is right for you – and to add that for us the most important move was a choice of supplier/reseller whom we purchased the majority of our gear through – as it was they who offered us the most support in the day-to-day operations of our facility.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Glaremedia] ”
Having an AJA card wont make clients pay a higher day rate.”

Not it won’t, nor should it. I use them because they’re reliable and perform a lot of realtime features that give my client a better experience at our shop.

With the low cost of all the hardware today, the only way you can charge more for your services is to have the credentials behind outstanding work.

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

[Chris Poisson]

Maybe I don’t have my terminology straight, I have what’s called surge protectors and they were around 60 bucks I think. Is that what you mean by conditioner?

Have a wonderful day.

[Misha Aranyshev]

The real reason companies use AJA is capture cards make a small fraction of AJA’s product lists which is made up mostly of converters, embedders, distributing amplifiers etc. When you wire up a decent size facility you need a ton of this stuff. If Snell & Wilcox or Tektronix were making capture cards they would be as popular as Kona in this segment.

The history of BMD’s engineering goes all the way back to Digital Voodoo. There was enough engineering there to let Bluefish to hang around until today without engineering anything for like five years.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Chris Poisson] ”
Maybe I don’t have my terminology straight, I have what’s called surge protectors and they were around 60 bucks I think. Is that what you mean by conditioner?”

No, more like this. Surge Protectors just protect you from spikes of power. Power conditioners smooth out all incoming power, including drops, to maintain a consistant, clean power to all equipment.

https://www.furmansound.com/product.php?div=01&id=20AMP_PWR

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

[Paul Provost]

well we’ve been going back and forth about which to buy (kona/bmd) for a new high end full featured finishing suite. the cost of the card is of no consequence. a grand, 2 grand 3 or 4. who cares? the rest of the gear dwarfs that.
we’ve been decklink evangelists for years, but reasons to switch now are:

1. autodesk and avid use kona
why is this important?
we have had client after client look down on us because we don’t have SMOKE or FLAME. and this is mostly for basic conform onlines!
they are convinced that an FCP based system is a toy. but 10bit is 10bit right? well you tell an LA producer or director that.
we are actually talking to autodesk reps right now about putting a system in just to have THE NAME.
well common sense is winning out and a top of the line mac based system with the best hardware/software/monitoring available is making a hell of alot more sense to us (both workflow and $)

so with kona we can at least say we have the same video I/O hardware as the name systems…

other reasons? none
I love the BMD line, but too many people in town see the FCP/BMD systems as budget/low end. true? I don’t know.