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Blackmagic or Kona?
We are about to set up a FCP station on a Mac Pro. Looking for pros and cons for Blackmagic vs. Kona for I/O.
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21 Replies
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I’ve owned both.
Get the Kona.
it might be a little more, but it does more
and the down conversion is much much better.Kona support is also quicker to respond if you have a problem.
thats been my experience.
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Search this forum and you’ll get a ton of information.
For me it’s easy, AJA products only. They do more in realtime, quality is better and their tech support is top notch. We run three Kona 3’s in our shop.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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Both are good products, both have their evangelists.
Compare product specs carefully. Also checkout the MXO2 which
now comes in a rackmount version. https://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mxo2_rack/I’m not a huge fan of the Kona3 as I find I get crackles and/or audio loss on playback from the timeline. This happens on different machines with different cards & different software. Lip sync can be a problem too.
Peter
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[Peter Wiggins] “I’m not a huge fan of the Kona3 as I find I get crackles and/or audio loss on playback from the timeline. This happens on different machines with different cards & different software. Lip sync can be a problem too.
“Haven’t heard the audio issue in well over a year now. Used to be an occasional audio crackle when you started playback, so you would stop playback and re-start, but that’s been gone for a while now.
No clue on the lip sync other than when people have their offset set to anything but 0. Never had any sort of issues with that here.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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They’re both imperfect. Right now for example I can’t output 8-bit video on my Kona 3. I get a bunch of white sparkles. I’m assuming that Quicktime 7.6 broke it (I had to do a fresh install otherwise I wouldn’t have not updated QT).
Also have a Multibridge HD here and the power supply died inexplicably. I have to track down a new one from Taiwan.
Sean
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[Sean ONeil] “They’re both imperfect. Right now for example I can’t output 8-bit video on my Kona 3. I get a bunch of white sparkles. I’m assuming that Quicktime 7.6 broke it (I had to do a fresh install otherwise I wouldn’t have not updated QT). “
Nope. One of my suites is cutting 8bit SD all day long, every day. Just laid off a new Master for PBS today. No sparkles.
I just checked my suite with 8bit, no sparkles.
Have you re-checked your cable connections to ensure nothing happened there? Or what is your Ref In signal?
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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This is what I tell most of our clients when this question comes up.
The blackmagic cards do work, but they are pretty much just I/O and they’ll get you through the project, but unless your system is perfect (and you can keep it perfect) it’s not something you will want to build a permanent workflow around.
The Aja cards are built for quality, you may not get the most realtime functionality, but the hardware and software were designed for a very professional workflow from ingest to delivery.
Lastly (and most expensive )the Matrox Axio was designed for realtime functionality, if you need your project done and done fast this card set has all the realtime effects and transition you’ll want and many you’ll never use. You will be limited to single link and a few other short comings.
All in all, you have a good amount of choices to find the workflow that fits into your budget as well as fits with the equipment you already have. My opinion is (and I build everything) is the AJA cards are the best all around, but it all depends on what your shooting and how your delivering. as well as how much cash you are willing to spend 🙂
Cutter Stevens
Technical Director
DV411 -
I switch to 10-bit and everything works great. Not sure what the problem is.
Sean
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Troubleshooting it now and I’ve pinned down what causes it. Posting this in the AJA forum.
Sean
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[Sean ONeil] “I switch to 10-bit and everything works great. Not sure what the problem is.”
That’s weird. What has AJA Tech Support been able to say about that? I even checked our third Kona 3 system and no sparkles on any of them. We updated everything to latest specs again yesterday as part of the SAN install.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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