Kona Downconvert/Custom LUT/2K broken

AJA Video Systems

Kona Downconvert/Custom LUT/2K broken

Posted by Darkly on March 9, 2007 at 11:54 pm

Hi there

I’ve been having some serious difficulty getting the Kona 3 to work with 2K uncompressed, and figure I must be doing something wrong since it’s a fabulous piece of hardware.

I’m working on an 18-minute project that was scanned from 35mm to a 2K (24fps) cineon sequence. I wrapped it in a Quicktime ref with the DPXtoQTtranslator as 23.98 10Bit log 1556x2K RGB. I was able to import it into a 2K 23.98 FCP sequence with no problems.

My A/V settings in Final Cut are all “AJA Kona3: 2048×1556 psf 23.98 10 bit Log RGB”

I have been having the following problems:

1. I cannot view downconverted video on any of my monitors (HD 1080′, 720p, or composite Y/R/B. The “Video Format” pulldown in the Kona Control Panel (Secondary) has everything greyed out except for the native format of 23.98 2K, which naturally my monitors cannot fathom. Is there a limitation in the Kona firmware that disallows 29.97 conversion from 23.98 source? Doesn’t seem to make sense. (However, if I set my FCP A/V settings to output something like 1080i29.97, I can view the downconverted material in HD or SD (albeit squashed into a pulp). It would seem to me that I would really like to keep my material at 2K res since I’m most interested in correcting it in its native format without clipping its gamma and colorspace).

2. Since the 2K media I have on the drive was initially used for laser output of 35mm film negative, I want to bring the material into either HD or SD video color space. It seemed quite reasonable to be able to use the Kona Control Panel Custom LUT feature in the RGB-YUV conversion section in the Codec tab. However, no matter what I do iin this dialog box, the image on my monitor stays the same. Modifying the settings does nothing at all to the output.

I’m not sure if I’m getting something seriously wrong here. I’ve read and reread the manual and whitepapers from cover to cover. Any assistance would be extremely appreciated, as I’m running up against a broadcaster delivery date.

Thanks very much
David

System specs:
Kona 3 with v3.3 software
Mac 2×2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
5GB RAM 667 MHz DDR2
5TB RAID (SATA2) ~350MB/s
Final Cut Pro v5.1.2
Panasonic AJ HD-1400 (DVCPRO-HD) deck

Gary Adcock replied 19 years, 4 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
2 Replies

Darkly
March 13, 2007 at 4:38 am

I received some very comprehensive and detailed answers about this from Jon at Kona tech support. Main problem was, I did not have the 2K crop function set in the Kona Control panel (for 1920×1080), which disallowed a secondary format conversion for my monitor output. When I set this, I was able to see 1080psf 23.98 (and theoretically secondary converted 525i29.97). This was also the reason I was unable to see the effect of the Custom LUT on any of my monitors (Source material for color conversion must be RGB, i.e. the frame buffer in the Kona Control Panel must read as RGB for the Custom LUT window to have an effect).
This may just have been one of the best product support experiences I have ever had.
Gary Adcock
March 14, 2007 at 11:36 am

[darkly] “This may just have been one of the best product support experiences I have ever had.”

Nothing like having the product manager contact you to solve the problem….

glad to hear it.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

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