AJA ioHD or Motu V4HD?

[Andy Mees]

The IoHD would be my personal choice …. quite apart from the pedigree of AJA’s video hardware and support and the long list of features the box offers, its superior in hardware ProRes codec support would be the main selling point for me. The V4HD seems to be a nice I/O box with great audio capabilities (not surprising coming from MOTU) and its the only box to my knowledge that is platform agnostic, but its in hardware codec support is for DVCProHD, a nice compressed HD codec but not one thats on a par with ProRes. That said, if you do a lot of audio work, or have any potential need to use the box to interface with a PC, then MOTU box would likely be your better choice.
Note, as both units are firewire based, neither support an Uncompressed HD workflow.

[Shane Ross]

I concur. The MOTU box is tied to the DVCPRO HD codec. 8-bit, and at 1080 the resolution is 1280×1080. The I/O HD has a built in PRORES encoder, and that is full raster 10bit…so 1920×1080.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Jeremy Garchow]

Another vote for the ioHD here.

Jeremy

[Andy Mees]

at 1080 the resolution is 1280×1080

only for NTSC Shane, in PAL DVCPRO HD is 1440×1080 … still not full raster tho and I think thats you point, no?

[Will Griffith]

After months of worry free operation our IO-HD had a few issues two weeks ago.
AJA immediately overnighted a replacement before our project was due.

AJA support was great, as it was when we had an IO, Kona, and Kona LH.

I can’t praise them enough and the way they stand by their products.

[Mark Spano]

Wrong – the V4HD runs full raster over FW800 and can support ProRes and ProResHQ. There are some caveats with this hardware, but I’ve been using it for quite some time and have been mostly pleased. A very nice up and downconvert that can operate in standalone as well.

[Shane Ross]

ProRes supported? If so than it relies on the computer processors to encode to that, like the MXO2. But from my understanding it has an on board DVCPRO HD encoder.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Mark Spano]

Yes – supported, but encoded using CPU. Full raster monitoring over HDMI and DVI as well as HD-SDI, and analog component. It’s a shame this piece of gear hasn’t been peer reviewed much in comparison to the Matrox and AJA counterparts, as I think for some it might just fit the bill.

[Shane Ross]

Tough to review a product when the company isn’t keen on sending out review units. I have asked twice to review the Motu (first the V3HD, then the V4HD) and both times I was referred to places where I could buy one.

If they want peer reviews, they need to let people test them out and…REVIEW them.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Mark Spano]

Shane, we are in complete agreement on that front. I even met the MOTU guys at the AES show when it was in NYC a few years ago and they had the V3HD but it was not hooked up and no one knew how to use it! The most I could do was turn it on and jog through the parameters of what it said it could do. Going by specs and our needs as a facility (support for audio post), we went with it. I use it as a front end for Pro Tools (via lightpipe) as well as FCP for basic editing and prep for broadcast delivery. It is useful, but I would hesitate to give a full thumbs up to other workflows simply because I haven’t experienced its functionality and usefulness beyond my means. One good thing was that we had the V3HD and when MOTU announced the V4HD they offered us a swap without having to cough anything up. Aside from that, they’ve been slow to address the few complaints I’ve had and there’s no forum or even a real FAQ on any issues others have had. For a long time I thought I was the only one who had one!