Aja Io with HD needed… solution sugestion: Io LHe

[Dan Silber]

Rich, you got my point completely. Your reply motivated me to go into more detail… thanks.

Aja would have a killer product on their hands if they offer a product like the one I am proposing – or at least something similar.

I have a feeling that full-blown edit suites will be declining in number, in a similar way to sound recording studios in the mid-90s, when everyone and their dog set up a digital recording studio at home because technological advances made it possible.
Musicians didn’t need a 48-Track mixing console in professional studios to record their songs anymore, they were now able to record & rough mix at home. They would go into a proper studio maybe for the final mastering session.

My feeling is that this is happening in the field of video editing, animation, and compositing at the moment as well. On independent projects such as documentaries, music videos, features, etc, it makes sense to work as much as you can outside an edit suite, simply for cost effectiveness.
Do I want to be able to edit HD at home? Yes. Do I want to be able to do an HD grade or a final sound mix at home? No. I leave that to the experts in the big facilities.

So anyway, that’s where I am coming from. The editing scene is changing due to cheap HD acquisition technology, and there is no product out there yet that takes advantage of that… but wait:

Just spent way too much of my afternoon on this, but here’s how I picture the Aja Io HD:
https://img453.imageshack.us/img453/756/ajaiohdbycreativecowardgo9.jpg

More notes:

In terms of “if there’s a market out there”:
I would bet my Apple stocks that there’s a enormous demand for an “Io HD” device… Imagine being able to input / output any SD/HD format*, HD to SD downconversion, DVCProHD hardware acceleration, DV hardware acceleration, Dynamic RT Extreme hardware acceleration, etc – in a box as portable as the Io LA or LD!
(* up to DVCPro HD on MacBook Pro)

You can also use the proposed “Io HD” for better integration of tapeless workflows. Or capture HDCAM using the DVCProHD codec on a laptop, edit, and if needed batch capture on a MacPro uncompressed system.

This box would also mean stiff competition for the output only MXO if priced at $1499,99 or so. (ca. $600 more than the current Io LD or LA).

Buying a “Io HD” seems like an absolutely future-proof investment, as far as I can tell.

Thanks for your comments so far.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Creative Coward] “Do I want to be able to edit HD at home? Yes. Do I want to be able to do an HD grade or a final sound mix at home? No. I leave that to the experts in the big facilities.”

You don’t need a big facility to finish projects, either in sound or video. We’re a very small shop, three edit suites, and we regularly finish HD Broadcast and independent projects here.

I work with musicians and sound engineers who have small and even home based studios where albums are produced and shows / movies completely mixed.

Editing HD at home is easy with an AJA Kona Board and a CalDigit SATA array. You don’t even need an HD monitor if you’re just cutting for timing since the Kona downconverts the signal for you to SD.

As Bob and others have noted, there is not enough bandwith on the Express Card slot to support both HD Uncompressed video and a SATA array, heck you can only have one device connected. You can edit DVCPro HD and HDV all day long on your laptop and with the new Panasonic 1400 deck, you can even view your playback in realtime via Firewire in DVCPro HD. That gives you your HD edit workstation at home off a laptop.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

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

[Walter Biscardi]

[Rich Rubasch] “Hmmmm….still not convinced you’ve thought this through. Only Bob suggested Uncompressed HD. The original poster said HDV and HD. I am going to assume that an entirely DVCPro HD workflow would suffice.”

Then why do you need a card? Just playback through a Panasonic 1400 (DVCPro HD) or you’ll need something like that Maxtrox to play out HDV I belive.

[Rich Rubasch] “Only Bob suggested Uncompressed HD. The original poster said HDV and HD. I am going to assume that an entirely DVCPro HD workflow would suffice.”

[Rich Rubasch] “Still seems possible and it could work as an SD or HD compressed portable solution.”

Ok, which is it? Are you also suggesting Uncompressed HD now or are you still saying Bob is suggesting uncompressed HD?

Not enough bandwith for both the video signal and the data throughput with uncompressed. You’ll need to attach a very fast SATA or Fibre channel Array, which you would need the Express slot for. You would also need that same slot for the video I/O.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

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

[Arnie Schlissel]

[Shane Ross] “But still, I think it is a nifty idea. Reduce the size of the equipment you have to lug around. “

This is close to my idea. What I want is to be able to use scopes & monitor on location. Leave the actual capture to whatever tapeless system makes the most sense for your production, but be able to watch exposure, focus & vignetting on set from a laptop.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Arniepix] “This is close to my idea. What I want is to be able to use scopes & monitor on location. Leave the actual capture to whatever tapeless system makes the most sense for your production, but be able to watch exposure, focus & vignetting on set from a laptop.”

That would be most cool and definitely beneficial, though if you have something like the Panasonic 1700W on location with you, you get the scopes through that monitor.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

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

[Rich Rubasch]

I didn’t look at your mock up right away, but that is exactly it. If Matrox can sell the MXO then I don’t see why this product wouldn’t exceed the IO sales. With tdshe small footprint you couln’t fit drives in there, but on second glance, a small 4 drive external box running off the two SATA ports would suffice quite nicely.

C’mon Walter…..you don’t think this product would have legs in today’s market? It would be groundbreaking and probably get all the buzz at NAB. The IO could run uncompressed, even the Mojo can, but that uncompressed isn’t running in and out of the firewire cable. Only the commands to tell the card what to send to the drives, and back to the card and to the outputs.

And it still leaves your Firewire 800 available for a second drive if needed.

I really like this product. Walter, in my experience, firewire as your main IO including machine control is not ideal. and it gives you little choice in codec choice, up/down convert etc. Only a true card gives you that. And with true RS422 control the system would behave much like a desktop system, but fit in a couple bags.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Walter Biscardi]

[Rich Rubasch] “C’mon Walter…..you don’t think this product would have legs in today’s market? I”

I didn’t say it wouldn’t have legs, I said it’s most likely not possible using the Express slot in a laptop as you would require a high speed SATA array to also be connected to the same slot.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

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

[Walter Biscardi]

[Rich Rubasch] “I don’t see why you couldn’t do all this through the Express slot on the Macbook. It is only sending the commands out to the box that would contain the Kona card and the SATA controller. Heck, it could even have a 3-drive raid built in….very cool. So it’s an I/O, a processor and drives with a controller. The Express card isn’t sending all that data back and forth, it is only telling the box what to do.”

Reading this further, you’re making it sound like the external box would do all the processing and work with some sort of “magic express slot card.”

Any way you shape it, the video MUST get to and from the internal CPU. How else would FCP know the video is there to apply transitions, filters, etc… You can’t work with the software (i.e. FCP) if the video can’t get in/out of the system.

So no, the Express Slot card would not be “simply telling the box what to do,” the Express Slot card has to send the video in and out of the MacBook Pro AND maintain over 200MB/s data transfer speed (300+ is better) for uncompressed HD.

So while something to edit Uncompressed HD within a laptop would certainly be cool, it’s not something that really sounds like it is possible with today’s technology.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

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

[Dan Silber]

Let’s summarize, shall we? Do we all agree on the following (not that we have to, but after a lively discussion, I’d just like to know) :

The product I am proposing here, the AJA Io HD:

https://img453.imageshack.us/img453/756/ajaiohdbycreativecowardgo9.jpg

– Is an external box connected to either a MacBook Pro or G5/Mac Pro connected via a PCIe cable to either a ExpressCard/34 or PCI card (Maybe a simple SATA II interface makes more sense, actually!).
– It could capture/playback any SD/HD resolution on a G5/MacPro system, and “only” up to DVCProHD on a MacBook Pro.
– It could offer the features of the Kona LHe card, such as 10-bit hardware HD to SD downconversion, DVCProHD hardware acceleration, HDV hardware acceleration and Dynamic RT Extreme hardware acceleration.
– Price range $1400 – $1800 USD

Currently, there is no product for a MacBook Pro that would come anywhere near the features or portability of the proposed “AJA Io HD” box.

In terms of doability and feasibility:
[walter biscardi]“As Bob and others have noted, there is not enough bandwith on the Express Card slot to support both HD Uncompressed video and a SATA array (…)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but this should be possible:

On the MacBook Pro:
The single lane PCIe ExpressCard slot on the MacBook Pro supports up to 2.5 Gbps, that’s 312.5 MB/s. Uncompressed SD runs at 24 MB/s, DVCProHD at no more than 14 MB/s. Either way, the video steams would only be using less than 10% of the available bandwith!
This means that the SATA ports on the “Io HD” would still be able to deliver sufficient bandwith for a SATA RAID that could outperform any RAID plugged into FireWire 800 port (800Mbps = 100MB/s).

On a G5/Mac Pro:
Use as a external capture / playback device for any SD/HD format.
(The Specs and requirements should be identical to the Kona LHe)

In terms of price:
[walter biscardi]You can edit DVCPro HD and HDV all day long on your laptop and with the new Panasonic 1400 deck, you can even view your playback in realtime via Firewire in DVCPro HD. That gives you your HD edit workstation at home off a laptop.”
I’m talking about a $1400 – $1800 AJA Io HD box. If you’re referring to the Panasonic AJHD-1400 deck (MSRP $25,000), that’s not really an alternative in terms of cost.

If all the points above are correct, AJA should seriously be looking into this post. The Io HD could be a future-safe product and a great investment for editors and production houses… for years to come.

Thanks for the discussion, but please let me know if I missed anything!

Daniel

[Dan Silber]

Let’s summarize, shall we? Do we all agree on the following (not that we have to, but after a lively discussion, I’d just like to know) :

The product I am proposing here, the AJA Io HD:

https://img453.imageshack.us/img453/756/ajaiohdbycreativecowardgo9.jpg

– Is an external box connected to either a MacBook Pro or G5/Mac Pro connected via a PCIe cable to either a ExpressCard/34 or PCI card (Maybe a simple SATA II interface makes more sense, actually!).
– It could capture/playback any SD/HD resolution on a G5/MacPro system, and “only” up to DVCProHD on a MacBook Pro.
– It could offer the features of the Kona LHe card, such as 10-bit hardware HD to SD downconversion, DVCProHD hardware acceleration, HDV hardware acceleration and Dynamic RT Extreme hardware acceleration.
– Price range $1400 – $1800 USD

Currently, there is no product for a MacBook Pro that would come anywhere near the features or portability of the proposed “AJA Io HD” box.

In terms of doability and feasibility:
[walter biscardi]“As Bob and others have noted, there is not enough bandwith on the Express Card slot to support both HD Uncompressed video and a SATA array (…)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but this should be possible:

On the MacBook Pro:
The single lane PCIe ExpressCard slot on the MacBook Pro supports up to 2.5 Gbps, that’s 312.5 MB/s. Uncompressed SD runs at 24 MB/s, DVCProHD at no more than 14 MB/s. Either way, the video steams would only be using less than 10% of the available bandwith!
This means that the SATA ports on the “Io HD” would still be able to deliver sufficient bandwith for a SATA RAID that could outperform any RAID plugged into FireWire 800 port (800Mbps = 100MB/s).

On a G5/Mac Pro:
Use as a external capture / playback device for any SD/HD format.
(The Specs and requirements should be identical to the Kona LHe)

In terms of price:
[walter biscardi]You can edit DVCPro HD and HDV all day long on your laptop and with the new Panasonic 1400 deck, you can even view your playback in realtime via Firewire in DVCPro HD. That gives you your HD edit workstation at home off a laptop.”
I’m talking about a $1400 – $1800 AJA Io HD box. If you’re referring to the Panasonic AJHD-1400 deck (MSRP $25,000), that’s not really an alternative in terms of cost.

If all the points above are correct, AJA should seriously be looking into this post. The Io HD could be a future-safe product and a great investment for editors and production houses… for years to come.

Thanks for the discussion, but please let me know if I missed anything!

Daniel