Aja HDP Vs. HD Link for monitoring?

[Bob Zelin]

It makes me sick that there is a thread almost identical to this on the Blackmagic site. I find it hard to believe that AJA or Blackmagic would make rediculous statements (it won’t work with THEIR product). I can only assume your dealer is a moron. And I can only assume that the person on the Blackmagic site is talking to a dealer that is a moron.

The AJA HDP or the Blackmagic HD Link will take ANY HD-SDI signal – from a Blackmagic card, an AJA card, a Sony VTR, a Panasonic VTR, an AVID Adrenaline HD, an AVID Nitris – and turn the HD-SDI signal into a DVI signal. That’s it. They both work, they are both good.

I do not see an ATTO UL5D card on your purchase list. You will need a SCSI card (or fibre card) for your HUGE array, depending on what you are buying.

You will love the Kona 3 – it is a wise decision. Make sure to get the K3-Box, and make sure you already own a black generator, or buy one for your new system.

Bob Zelin

[Tom Matthies]

Thanks Bob.
Actually everything on the list is already in house and has been in use for a while now. This system is replacing an older G4 system that was “retired” and given to the graphics department for authoring DVDs. The new system has been up and running for a couple of months. Just today I did the 5.1 crossgrade and things seem to work fine.
The reason for the post is because of a post on the FCP COW site a while ago addressing this compatibility problem with the Kona 3 and the HDLink. It’s not bad advice from the dealers but a little street knowledge from the field. I had assumed that the HDLink would work with any HDSDI stream, but I may be mistaken hence the post. You know what happens when we assume? I ended up ordering the Aja box today along with the Kona 3. I’m also getting the breakout box for the Kona and a nice 24″ Dell widescreen for a client monitor. Now with a roll of SDI Co-ax and connectors, I should be in good shape.
FWIW, our plant is all tied into a central sync generator. I am wondering about tri-sync right now however…Hmmm.
Thanks,
Tom

[Bob Zelin]

As for your tri level sync gen – I am becomming more adamant about people NOT working in 23.98 AT ALL, and only working in 59.94, and using the 2:3 pulldown that is featured (and defaulted) in countless HD VTR’s. I have not had one person convince me of any reason to work in 23.98 unless you are going to do a theatrical release. With that said, as long as you keep operating at 59.94, you don’t have to purchase a tri level sync gen. Tri Level sync gen’s are expensive, and the most popular one currently is the Evertz 7750 (but this does not mean that it is the best). Other good ones come from Astro Systems, Ensemble Designs, NVision, Leader Instruments, Sigma Electronics (and God help us – TEKTRONICS – who charges more for the tri level sync gen than your entire edit system). HOPEFULLY there will be a new black/tri level gen out soon from an alternate source that is cost effective.

Bob Zelin

[Tom Matthies]

This spot will be edited at 29.97 with pulldown added. I do, however, need to pull a few scenes for my graphics guys who are rotoscoping a scene. They will prefer those shots in the 24p format they were originally shot in. That will be the only 24fps scenes in the produstion. Those completed rotoscoped scenes will then be brought in with pulldown added back in to match the rest of the footage in the final edit. Hopefully all pretty straight forward.
Although, when you think about it, shooting on HDCam at 24p, capturing the footage, sending it to graphics, rotoscoping and compositing with 3D animation, outputting back to HD animorphic, adding in pulldown and editing into an HD animorphic timeline was not exactly routine a couple of years ago! To bad it will end up as a letterboxed, SD spot for distribution. Oh well, that’s progress! I guess…
Tom

[Kevin Hedin]

I’m surprized at you Bob, there are so many reasons to work at 23.98 that’s it’s very compelling for me to do so. Here are a few of the reasons.

1. 20% Less Storage Capacity for the same footage.
2. 20% Reduction in edit system bandwidth required (more realtime layers)
3. Ability to create true native 24p DVD’s (lower bitrates = more space)
4. Easier compositing, rotoscoping, etc.
5. Better looking web clips generated at lower bitrates.
6. Looks better on a computer monitor (no interlacing)
7. etc., etc., etc.

Your edit system should be able to spit out 3:2 pulldown on the fly to your Decks, so I’m not sure why you are not a fan of 24p. I’m not sure what a Tri-level sync is, as I don’t seem to need one in my studio, so maybe I’m missing something here.

[Joe Murray]

As Bob said, you only need tri-level sync if you a delivering a theatrical release, which would need to be output to a deck at 23.98. If you’re outputting with realtime pulldown added, then you’re converting back to 59.94 and therefore should not need the tri-level sync. Same thing with authoring a DVD; you’re not trying to time the output of your system to a deck that needs sync, you’re just encoding to a different file format and authoring/burning your DVD. So yes, it makes sense to be able to work in 23.98 for all the reasons you give, but you don’t necessarily need the sync while capturing because you can sync your capture card to incoming video rather than an external source.

Hope this makes sense. Hope it’s all accurate as well. It works for me.