Kona 2/LH and HDCAM Capture/DownConvert/Online Questions…

[Bob Zelin]

I need to purchase either the Kona 2 or LH for the following purposes:

REPLY
buy the Kona 2, which will let you do up conversion – you will be happy.

My main concern right now is that I seem to be getting mixed responses on what type of controller card and drive system to purchase to handle this type of project. Some claim a Firmtek SATA-type solution is fine, and will handle the sustained data rates needed to capture HD footage. Others say I need a fibre-channel type controller, or SCSI, or something faster than SATA. Just trying to get some more information on that issue.

REPLY – the Firmtek SATA host card is my favorite card, but it is NOT FAST ENOUGH to do uncompressed HD. Currently, you need EIGHT DRIVES to do uncompressed HD, and if you want to tie up only one slot, you are stuck with the (excellent) Sonnet Tempo 8 eSATA and 8 SATA drives. The Firmtek will let you do 8 and 10 bit SDI uncompressed, and DVCProHD, BUT NOT UNCOMPRESSED HD. If you use TWO 4 port Firmteks, you can do it, but you better have 2 slots free in your MAC G5.

IF you want uncompressed HD, get a nice Fibre array from HUGE, Medea or the Xserve RAID (ugh !). The HUGE 4210 is great.

Also I wouldn’t mind verifying that the Kona cards I’m looking at will do what I’m expecting them to do as described above?

REPLY – just get the Kona 2, you will be happy.

bob Zelin

[Basem Elsokary]

Thanks for the great information….

Just a couple follow-ups. Please forgive some of the lack of knowledge in this area…

1. So in your opinion, even though several SATA drive array manufacturers will claim fast enough transfer rates to theortically support uncompressed HD, I should just stay away from those?
2. For the downconverts, a normal SATA array should suffice correct? Is the downconversion occuring in the kona 2 card? or in the deck?

thanks again!

[Basem Elsokary]

Also,

If I do the 2 x firmtek solution, can I RAID across all 8 drives even though I’m using two controllers and 2 4 drive enclosures?

[Walter Biscardi]

[belsokar] “1. So in your opinion, even though several SATA drive array manufacturers will claim fast enough transfer rates to theortically support uncompressed HD, I should just stay away from those?”

Fibre Channel is the only way to go for uncompressed HD. I highly recommend the Medea FCR2X as I’m using it all the time for HD work, both DVCPro HD and uncompressed HD.

SATA is not there yet. We’re testing a LaCie 4 drive array right now and it’s working well with 8bit uncompressed SD.

[belsokar] “2. For the downconverts, a normal SATA array should suffice correct? Is the downconversion occuring in the kona 2 card? or in the deck?”

For downconverts to DV / DVCAM, you can use use a FW400 drive if you wanted, though I would probably go with FW800. The Kona 2 is providing the downconvert and you can choose which format you’d like to downconvert to. Such as DV / DVCAM / DV50 / 8bit Uncompressed, etc…..

FYI, in your earlier post you metioned CC’ing using an SD monitor. You can’t CC HD using an SD monitor. You won’t be able to accurately see the full color space of HD using a downconverted signal. Especially in the colors and blacks, an SD monitor just can’t handle the extra color information accurately.

I run the PVM20L5/1 from Sony in one suite and the 14″ model in the other suite. Very accurate HD colors since it is a multi-format monitor.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Director, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Bob Zelin]

Belsokar –
I know where you are at – you want to get uncompressed HD, and you want to spend as little money as possible. Believe me, this is how I got so much SATA experience – no one wants to buy the correct drive array – because it costs so much money.

Walter is right – SATA is just not there yet for uncompressed HD. It works, but it’s not reliable enough. You can certainly do DVCProHD with only 2 drives and the 2 port Firmtek SATA card, as well as 8 and 10 bit uncompressed SDI, but even with 8 drives, you may be disappointed. But to answer your question – YES – you can use 2 Firmtek 4 port cards, and 8 drives in 2 boxes, and stripe them all together RAID 0 to be able to get the bandwidth you need.

There are new products for PCI-e coming out in February 2006 from Sonnet that look very exciting, and they CLAIM to be able to have the bandwidth to do the job as well, but I HAVE NOT SEEN IT YET.

Right now, if you want stability, I would choose a Fibre array from companeis like HUGE or Medea. I like HUGE, Walter likes Medea, some like the Apple XServe RAID (not me). There are others as well. This does not mean that SATA won’t do it, but from my personal experience, I would not rely on SATA for uncompressed HD if this is how you make your living. And believe me, almost 100% of the systems I do have SATA drives on them, so I use SATA all the time.

Just my opinion.

Firmtek is a great company.

Bob Zelin

[Robert Ober]

Assuming the right drive array, with a dual 2.7 G5 could he not edit online?

Curious,
Robert A. Ober