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aja i/o hd vs. matrox mxo
Hi everyone,
I owe a matrox mxo and I am quite happy with it. However seems I will have some major docu projects on the way and multiformat tasks to cope with so I am thinking of spending some pesos on the aja i/o hd. However I don’t owe a hd crt monitor, only 2 apple cinema displays that work great with matrox mxo and buyinh a lcd or crt monitor at the moment is not my priority. So here I have a couple of questions in terms of pro’s and con’s in terms of aja io hd vs. matrox mxo>
1. Matrox MXO calibrates your good quality LCD monitor for use as an HD video monitor. It has an DVI output….that connects to apple cinema display in full 1900 X 1200
Can AJA io hd do that? As far as I heard it could possibly be achieved through HDMI output and converting HDMI to DVI and hooking up to a cinema display…is this presumption true or false? What about calibrationg?
2. What kind of monitoring AJA IO HD offers? Connecting composite, component, sdi, hd_sdi? Can I connect any of the high end vtr and print to those directly from my apple macbook pro?
3. I work intensively with hdv material,,,,Does AJA IO HD offer any meaningful hardware acclerations when printing long hdv timelines back to sony hdv vtr via firewire…I don’t want to convert my existing hdv timeline to pro res hq…just want to speed up the printing to tape of existing hdv timelines as they are? Is this possible…
4. Capturing of materials? Can AJA io hd capture in any other format other than pro res…let’s say when capturing from analog beta sp using component outputs…can I capture in 8-bit uncompressed sd?
Thanks for the input
Drazen
Just a wild guess here, Bob, but I don’t think the “3 x 250GB 7200” RPM HDDs he mentioned are all some raided boot drive. Two of them probably *are* for media storage. 🙂
As for “needing” the IO HD, Leon, it seems like a useful tool (check out Tim Wilson’s compilation of posts from many forums about it- do a search of articles, or it’s mentioned today or yesterday in the FCP forum), but there are a few options for FCP and HDV (AJA has more, Blackmagic has some). Although I’ve been reading about recent driver issues with it, the Matrox MXO has been getting a lot of press for HDV FW ingest projects. It connects by FW so it can be used on different machines (like the IO HD), it calibrates your good quality LCD monitor for use as an HD video monitor (the IO HD allows you to monitor too, but I don’t know if has, or will have calibration tools), and has output features (you’ll have to compare with the IO HD to see if it has enough for you- the IO HD definitely wins for output options, but you may not need them all).
Ed -
5 Replies
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[drazen] “1. Matrox MXO calibrates your good quality LCD monitor for use as an HD video monitor. It has an DVI output….that connects to apple cinema display in full 1900 X 1200 Can AJA io hd do that?”
There is no way that any computer monitor can be truly calibrated for an HD signal. AJA does not try and fool you into thinking that any LCD is HD worthy. AJA relies on proven existing professional monitoring standards that are used thruout the industry.
I personally have seen shows shot and graded in this manner constantly get rejected from the networks I work with.
” What kind of monitoring AJA IO HD offers? Connecting composite, component, sdi, hd_sdi? Can I connect any of the high end vtr and print to those directly from my apple macbook pro? “
All of those connections are supported, and not only for playback but also for capture thru any of the ports on the IoHD. IoHD also gives you RS-422 deck control and the ability to capture camera timecode – something not available on any other capture device for FCP.
“Does AJA IO HD offer any meaningful hardware acclerations when printing long hdv timelines back to sony hdv vtr via firewire.”
APPLE does not support 3rd party acceleration on hardware for FCP.“Capturing of materials? Can AJA io hd capture in any other format other than pro res…let’s say when capturing from analog beta sp using component outputs…can I capture in 8-bit uncompressed sd? “
ALL HD capture is in ProRes-
However SD can be anything available to FCP including 8 and 10bit Uncompressed.
gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows -
Gary hi,
Thanks for the valuable answers….one more thing….does aja io hd allow real time downconverting of hd timeline…I have access to an sd crt sony monitor for free, however most of my timelines are in hd….can aja io hd hd-sd realtime monitoring…
Best regards
Drazen
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[drazen] “Thanks for the valuable answers….one more thing….does aja io hd allow real time downconverting of hd timeline…I have access to an sd crt sony monitor for free, however most of my timelines are in hd….can aja io hd hd-sd realtime monitoring… “
YES.
all of the functions are processed in hardware also, so that up conversion, down conversion and even the 720 >< 1080 cross- conversions are done in realtime - no cpu processing, no delay. gary adcock Studio37 HD & Film Consultation Post and Production Workflows -
Gary hi,
It sounds like a hot contender…especially when I think of connecting it to my brand new macbook pro….that just could be the perfect match…mobile monitoring and capturings…oh what a delight..
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Hi Drazen,
I use Aja LHe this way and the quality of downconversion is great. I do audio post, and can monitor HDV or ProRes on full HD lcd monitor(with Aja Hi5 or HDP converters), and simultaneously SD on analog Sony monitor. I alway prefer analog monitor for audio sync check and analog color looks much better to me too.
Before you jump into ioHD I can show you how it looks on LHe, we live in the same city. I also have an ioHD on order, but Aja just moved the delivery date for another 4-6 weeks, on top of 24th September that was announced on IBC.
regards,
Peter
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