Kona 3 and Sony DSR-45 VTR

[Bob Zelin]

Shari –
don’t buy the flying cow. This is getting really silly. Markertek will be happy to take back the Kona 3. Get yourself a nice boring AJA I/O box – plug it into your Firewire 400 port on your MAC, and do everything you want to do. It will cost you about $2000, and will work perfectly with your DSR-45. You can also get the Kona LHe, which will do analog component, or SDI, or HD-SDI. But since you have so much analog gear, it’s my opinion that you would be better off just getting rid of the Kona 3 for now, and get the full AJA I/O box. This way, you won’t have to ask your boss for any more money.

BY THE WAY – what type of storage are you using for this ?

Bob Zelin

[Shari225]

Hi Bob,
I know the Decklink Pro was not the card I needed, which is why I upgraded to the Kona 3. The reason I mentioned the Decklink Pro was to give you a background as to why I was caught unawares by the requirements of the Kona 3. I had hooked up the Decklink Pro to a G5 myself. I just didn’t know that there would be a major difference in the interfaces, and was defending my decision to get the Kona 3 to you.

I was wondering – if I bought a Flying Cow interface – would that converter would do the job and allow me to use the Kona 3 with the rest of my equipment?

Shari

[David Smith]

[Bob Zelin] “Once you capture your material (as DV25 using firewire – what a shame),”

Bob,

Just curious…. since the DSR-45 is a DVCam deck which is playing a DV25 signal, why is taking the file in via Firewire a bad thing? I have an LH board in my system, but if the source is DV or DVCam I’m bringing it in via Firewire. Is it that you feel it would be better to be cutting in SD uncompressed so why not bring it in that way in the first place via analog component?

Regards,
David

[Bob Zelin]

for Shari –
The Flying Cow is an audio analog to digital/digital to analog converter. It will NOT convert any video signals for you. The AJA K-Box has a built in audio digital/audio converter. If you were to purchase the Flying Cow, it would be useful only to convert your analog audio to digital audio, and you would still not be able to get your analog component video into the Kona 3 SDI input. The Flying Cow is NOT what you want to get – not unless you purchase an additional Video Analog to Digital converter – and with the AJA HD10AVA on the market to do it all – you would have to be crazy to do this.

For Dave –
FIREWIRE SUCKS. Firewire is not a professional way to work. It’s great for wedding photographers, and news men in Iraq under fire, but in the real world, working with video signals, that can be patched, routed, analyzed, and use NON DV25 Codecs are the way to work. The DSR45 has a WONDERFUL RS422 interface which makes the deck respond like a normal VTR, not like a piece of CRAP like the DSR-11 or HVRM25U. Companies like AJA, Blackmagic, Aurora, Convergent Design, Miranda, AVID and even little guys like Canopus SAVE US from the nightmare known as Firewire. Products like the Sony HVR-1500 are coming out to SAVE US, to keep those HDV users from slitting their wrists being stuck with firewire interfaces. If you feel that working with a firewire interface is as wonderful as working with a Beta UVW-1800 for example, then we are living on two different planets – and apparantly every manufacturer (Sony Professional, Panasonic Professional – even JVC) is living on a different planet too.

Bob Zelin

[Shari225]

Hi David,
I got curious too. Here is what is posted on the Markertek Online store:
Why Choose HD-SDI over IEEE1394 FireWire?
While the HDV cameras and decks always support a IEEE1394 (aka FireWire connection) not all non-linear editing systems can accept the HDV signal through such a connection. If a non-linear editing system can accept the IEEE1394 signal, the footage can be ingested in its native, highly compressed state. While this seems like a simple solution for post-production, it means that the footage stays in the compressed Long GOP MPEG2 structure in which it was recorded and this structure can be incredibly processor intensive for most non-linear computers to negotiate. The first benefit when ingesting HDV material through an analog to HD-SDI conversion versus ingesting via IEEE1394 for post production is that the structure of the signal will be brought in as an I-Frame based structure common to the non-linear editor as opposed to the HDV’s native Long GOP MPEG2 structure, which may prove more difficult to edit.

Additionally, what if the post-production process demands that the HDV acquisition be delivered as a finished product on HD formats such as Panasonic D5, DVCProHD or Sony HDCam? Working with the compressed HDV material would be akin to working with DV natively for SD broadcast; less than ideal. Certain post-production processes would be better performed in a 10 bit (or even 8 bit) 4:2:2 color space than in the 8 bit 4:2:0 color space that is the domain of the compressed HDV format. If the non-linear editing system could ingest via HD-SDI using the AJA HD10AVA converter’s HD-SDI output, then digitizing to an uncompressed codec might be a better choice for tasks like color correction and compositing.

I thought this was quite informative. Bob must be an engineer – you can always tell an engineer, but you can’t tell them much! 🙂
Shari

[Shari225]

Hi Bob,
When I checked as to where I can get the AJA HD10AVA, I found there is a store that also supports what they sell, helps lay out systems, and provides technical support, about 13 miles away from me at Advanced Systems Group in Emeryville. So I’ll give them a call tomorrow, and do what I have to do to get things working again.
Thanks again for your help,
Shari

[David Smith]

[Shari225] “I got curious too. Here is what is posted on the Markertek Online store:
Why Choose HD-SDI over IEEE1394 FireWire?……..”

Yes that makes perfect sense when talking about HDV, but your DSR-45 is not an HDV deck, and it’s DV codec is not a GOP format.

Glad to hear you found a retailer who will help you set up your system. That seems like the best way for you to go and having someone close by will be well worth the extra cost.

Regards,
David