Is there another way to output timeline through Xena other than the Aja preset?

[Tim Kolb]

How are you bringing the HDV material into your system?

What are you editing this material as (uncompressed HD or SD or…?)

I have been able to “hotwire” the Xena to run when I’m in the Adobe SD SDI preset (I assume it would work similarly in the Adobe HD-SDI preset) where I launch Machina in the background and set it for the primary output I need (SD analog out or HD SDI out…framesize, etc.) and tell Premiere Pro to output to the external device.

Whether or not it would solve the multicam issue or not is another question…I’m afraid I don’t typically work with multicam in my work, so I’m not as aware on all the idiosyncracies that may be present in that feature…

TimK,
Director,
Kolb Productions,

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

[Jeron Coolman]

Tim,

I capture native HDV through the firewire and if Multi-Cam worked, I’d use the Aja HDV preset. It is 1080i footage captured through my Sony M10U deck, so I use the Adobe preset.

Next month, I’m getting an HD-Connect LE, so I’ll try capturing other formats via the SDI connection then.

I’m connecting the HD monitor through the Xena LH’s component video cables, so I’m not sure if the Machina “hot-wiring” trick will work, but it will be the first thing I try tonight when I get in-front of my Premiere Pro machine! Thanks for the tip. My fingers are crossed…

Jeron

[Tim Kolb]

I use the “hot wire” trick with analog component out…you need to set the output up in Machina for that output.

…I have an HD Connect LE and it works well, but keep in mind that once you are feeding it via SDI, it’s not HDV anymore, the files will grow substantially in size.

TimK,
Director,
Kolb Productions,

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

[Jeron Coolman]

I just finished setting up a 1.5 terabyte 4 disk RAID 5 array in anticipation of the larger file sizes 🙂

Have you found the “sweet spot” of balance between quality and performance when it comes to which media file format/codec to use when you ingest HDV through the HD Connect LE and edit with the Xena?

[Jeron Coolman]

Tim,

It worked, thanks. FWIW I discovered you didn’t have to have Machina running in the background. If you run Machina and use it like a “settings dashboard” for the Xena card, you can tweak the settings to what you want, close Machina then open PPro and the card keeps those settings. At any time while editing if you want to change the settings, fire up Machina, make the changes, then close it.

If I create an Adobe HD-SDI project and import my HDV project, I can set the output device to the Xena and play the timeline through the Xena. It doesn’t playback as well as just native HDV using the native Adobe HDV preset (and definitely not as well as the Adobe HDV preset), but it is good enough until Aja implements a feature/fix to the Multi-Cam issue. More importantly the Multi-Cam window works just as well as a native HDV project.

I also discovered that the Machina 1920×1080 29.97p setting played back the best even though my footage is interlaced HDV.

I’ll have to do some more testing to see if I can re-import any changes I make in the Adobe HD-SDI preset into the Aja HDV Preset.

Jeron