Aja Xena LS vs Declink extreme

[Jeron Coolman]

[rwspires] “Getting ready to build a system. Thoughts on this comparison?”

For the types of projects I do, Aja seemed a better choice.

The better you can describe how you plan on using the card; e.g. type of footage you work with, basic workflow needs, delivery formats required, etc., the better information someone can give.

[Reggie Spires]

Capture … In and out .. SD and HD 10 bit

[Reggie Spires]

?

[Jeron Coolman]

Xena

[Reggie Spires]

Sorry I don’t get it

[Jeron Coolman]

[rwspires] “Capture … In and out .. SD and HD 10 bit”

Both solutions capture SD and HD 10-bit basically the same way. It isn’t like one captures better than the other. There isn’t much to be said to compare the capture functionality of the two.

This is an Aja forum, so the advice to buy a Xena should be expected.

If you want to be more specific than 3 incomplete vague sentences, by asking certain questions on functionality or how a specific application supports one or the other or specific workflow questions then maybe that would make it easier for people to give you the information you are looking for.

[Reggie Spires]

Your first sentence was fine .. you know sometimes a person doesn’t know all the things to ask .. anyway thanks for the obviously difficult advice..

[Jeron Coolman]

You are welcome. I’m glad all you card about is SDI 10 bit capturing. That should make your decision very easy.

Good luck with your decision.

I hope the card you choose works well with whatever applications you are going to use it with and with whatever media formats you will be capturing into (uncompressed or compressed). Hopefully you choose the right disk controller and the right hardware to support it if you are capturing into uncompressed hd. Hopefully, if you are capturing into a compressed format, the codec will perform well with whatever software applications you are going to be using that needs to work with that codec.

I hope whatever monitor (broadcast, computer, tv) you plug into the card in whatever manner you choose, (SDI-SDI, HD-SDI, Component, Composite, etc) works just great for your needs as well with all of those applications you will be using with the card.

I also hope whatever source material are editing, be it dv tape, hd tape, hdv, etc., gets ingested properly into whatever format you have chosen to work with.

I hope you are happy with the interaction between the card and whatever deck or camera you choose to connect to it and that you don’t have any problems if it involves deck control via RS422.

[Tim Kolb]

First…the AJA “LS” is a standard-definition card only. The LH and LHe are the HD cards and the 2K/2Ke jump up to 2K resolution.

Also…the Black Magic card has a video compression codec included with the card that some seem to like and others don’t, so it’s uncompressed OR compressed in its workflow.

AJA’s cards without loading any additional software are uncompressed cards. High quality, but higher data rate as well. For uncompressed HD you’ll need some fast harddrives as well, which can easily cost more than the rest of the system combined if you plan on having the ability to load more than an hour or two of footage at a time.

…I’m not sure what the other specifics of your usage would be, so just like Jeron, I don’t really have a direction to go without writing a small book and unfortunately very few of us have time for that…

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Creative Cow Host,
Author/Trainer
http://www.focalpress.com
http://www.classondemand.net

[David Tait]

AJA does not offer any 64bit drivers. Support indicates that they are in early beta. I had to resort to dual booting with XP pro to get the card to work.