AJA IO LA vs. BLACKMAGIC DECKLINK EXTREME

[Walter Biscardi]

Do a search on this forum for your answers and go back at least a year. This topic has been discussed hundreds if not thousands of times.

Personally, I only recommend AJA. I run two Kona 2 suites here and have one Io LA which can be connected to whichever suite needs analog inputs. Also you can connect it to a laptop and work in uncompressed SD. With the whole world going digital, I would recommend the Io LA since it’s an external box and does not tie up a slot in the G5.

[PDPost] “The disadvantages are that it doesn’t have anything digital and it is an extra source to power on and off.”

Get the full Io for the digital I/O.

One more thing to power up is a disadvantage? I have 15 things in each suite that need to be powered up each morning, not really sure why one more thing would be a bother.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Director, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now editing “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Michael Alberts]

Why not look at the Aurora Pipe Studio. http://www.auroravideosys.com It’s got all the connectors you mentioned: composite I/O, S-Video I/O, component I/O, SDI I/O and 4 channels of AES/EBU or 2 channels balanced XLR. It also has a feature that no other card has, the Interceptor. This allows any QT file on you computer (any codec including Sorenson, PhotoJPEG, H.264 etc) to play out to the NTSC monitor, just by playing the QT file.
We’ve got two edit rooms with the Pipe Studio and one with the Kona2. It’s a great mix. Also, the Pipe Studio is on sale right now. I’m not sure why people don’t consider the Aurora products when looking at capture cards. It’s the best standard definition product out there as far as I’m concerned.

Michael Alberts
Ambidextrous Productions, Inc.

[David Battistella]

Michael makes a very good point here. I own Kona 2 and two Aurora rooms and they have all been very good products. If you are looking for an SD only solution the new price on the Aurora Video cards with breakout box is unbeatable for the amount of connectivity you get and all of the outputs are “hot” which give you many many options.

They also have a very good support department. Unfortunately they do not have an HD product yet.

David

Merry Christmas

[Pat Defilippo]

Thanks Michael and David!

I’ve spent the last couple of hours, since reading Michael’s post this morning, combing the Aurora website. I read both of your reviews on Creative Cow as well. It looks pretty good and the new price is nice as well. It’s about $300 more than either the AJA IO LA or Blackmagic Decklink Extreme, but here’s the questions I just sent to Aurora’s support e-mail address:

—–
1) Does the PipeStudio card work with the new Q5 Quad PCIe (this is what I intend to buy)?

2) Do you have a version that does not have a breakout box but instead have just breakout cables? I only have one deck (the UVW-1800 Beta-SP) and no patch bay, so I’d ideally like to patch right in from the card without having extra cables to deal with from the breakout box.

3) I am leaning toward the Swift Data 200 internal Sata II storage solution that requires a Sata card in one of the PCIe slots. Can your card plug in to any of the three PCIe slots? If so, it doesn’t sound like there would be a potential card position conflict.

At this point, I am leaning toward the Blackmagic PCIe card. Both it and the AJA IO LA are priced similarly at $900 – $950. Do you sell PipeStudio with cables only (no breakout box) for a similar price?
—–

Thanks again for telling me about PipeStudio and thanks in advance if you post answers to the above!

Happy Holidays,
-Pat

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[Tony]

If powering up one extra item is an issue then put all the gear onto one power strip which has an on/off switch and power up all the gear via the one power strip.

If you have alot of gear you many have to use multiple power strips but plug them into the main unit just be sure to make sure not to overload the amp capacity of the individual power strips. Most ac strips can handle up to 15 amps= 1500 watts but you need to allow for some overhead for surges.

Tony Salgado

[Dan Riley]

Pat,
I have the Pipe Studio too, like David. It’s a great product.
As far as your questions go,
1), no Aurora does not have a PCI express version as yet.
Maybe we’ll hear something at Macworld.
2), the breakout box is rack mountable. If you don’t
have a rack, just set it in back of your Mac. It’s nicer than
just having a bunch of cables coming out of the card because
everything is labeled and you can change connections easily.
I don’t think Aurora sells Pipe Studio without it.
3) it’s not a PCI express card so, no.

As far as the price goes, you really need to put the Pipe Studio
up against the full IO from AJA, at $2000 or more.
All the connections are live on output.
Additionally, with the Pipe Studio, there is no delay for
control or video output like AJA’s firewire connection.
With the Pipe Studio, you set your FCP offset at “0”.

Unfortunately, if you are buying the new Quad G5, the Aurora solution
is not available to you because of the PCI express situation.

Dan