Kona 2 Down Convert

[Jeremy Garchow]

What have you tried that doesn’t work? Have you downloaded the kona control panel? Set your downconverts there.

[Bob Zelin]

you ain’t gonna get miracles – the Kona 2 will downconvert, but will not turn a 23.98 project (that you captured in 23.98) into 29.97 NTSC. I don’t know exactly what you are doing, but typically when you work in HD, you use the VTR’s 2:3:3:2 pulldown feature to let the VTR turn the 23.98 project into 59.94. This is now a normal frame rate, which the Kona 2 will EASILY convert to standard analog composite and component 525 29.97, which can be displayed on any cheapo monitor, or dumped out to a Beta VTR or VHS machine.

When you work with a Panasonic Varicam, and shoot in 23.98, and use the Panasonic AJ-HD1200A or AJ-HD1700A to digitize from, the VTR will add in the pulldown, so now you have a normal framerate to work with, but still keep the “film look”. Same applies to Sony – you shoot with the Cinealta at 23.98, and use the J-H3 in 23PD mode, and it adds the pulldown. You now have a normal frame rate, and the Kona 2 will downconvert to your standard VTR’s and TV monitors.

If you actually digitized in 23.98 (which I never recommend to do) – like you used a Sony HDW-M2000/1 which does not offer pulldown, but you still need a downconvert – you can use the AJA HD10MD3, which will take the HD 23.98 output, add the pulldown, and do the downconversion for you. I can’t imagine why anyone in the world would edit in 24p, unless they are finishing for feature film release on FILM.

When you actually edit (and want to dump back) to a VTR in 23.98, even though AJA offers “free run”, you should really be using a tri level sync generator. I ALWAYS tell people to work at standard frame rates, even if they shoot at 23.98, to avoid all this aggrivation. 59.94 uses a nice standard cheapo black gen, and gives you no issues with down conversion.

Bob Zelin

[David Battistella]

I have worked with 23.98 varicam timelines and downconverted them to 525 from 720P HD on the fly(even in a 23.98 Varicam timeline) So I can tell you that the Kona does this. It does not do this for 1080 10 bit uncompressed timelines@23.98. For this you would need an external pulldown converter to display on most HD LCD’s or plasma screens.

Working in 23.98 timelines does offer it’s challenges for sure and the simpler route is to stay with 59.94 frame rates, when possible.

David

[Tony Manolikakis]

I am unclear about this. So when you set the pulldown type in FCP to convert fron 23.98 to 29.97 Kona can NOT take the result and down convert it to NTSC?

Tony Manolikakis
Rev13 Films

[Jeremy Garchow]

Huh? Are you saying that the Kona 2 won’t add pulldown? Challenge.

I have not worked with Sony’s 23.98psf, but have worked with other 24p hd and sd material with Kona 2 and have run simultaneous HD and SD Masters straight out the Kona2, with the K2 adding pulldown all of the time.

Graham, how have you tried downconverting? You need to set up your FCP project for 1080, then download and install the Kona2 control panel. You then have to set up your secondary output, which in your case would be 525 29.97. Send this secondary output through the analog component or any of the two SDI outputs to your SD deck and monitor. Of course, the SD signal your are monitoring will have the pulldown added while watching in full motion.

Jeremy (preparing for the wrath of Bob)

———–
G5 Dual 2Ghz <> 4GB RAM <> FCP 5.02 <> Kona 2
ATTO 42XS <> Huge Systems 4105 Fibre

[Graham]

Thanks for all your responses.
Jeremy, I have 1080 material at 23.98 with no pull down. When I set the Kona control panel for this rate my downconvert options are all grayed out. Are you saying you can get the downconvert to work with this material and add pulldown.

Bob, I often bring in material from my JH-3 and I DO NOT have the machine add the pull down to bring it to a standard frame rate. The reasons for this in my world are strong. I do a lot of heavy composite work with green screens. Working with pull down frames is impossible. When I cut in 24p I have beautiful clean frames to composite with. I have done this work on other systems…AVID DS…and want to get away from this box and do all my work on FCP…for obvious reasons. I was disappointed when it seemed that the KONA 2 card did not down-convert various frame rates with pull down. They advertise that the card will do down-conversion…but don’t point out that they can only down-convert certain formats. This is a major limitation in my world.

[Jerry Witt]

I would be interested in the answer to this question as well. I would like to edit and composite in a 1080 24P (23.88 fps) timeline. I would like to use an efficient codec (like DVCproHD). AND I would like to monitor this on a HD CRT with pulldown added. Can Kona 2 do this? Can Kona LH?