PATCH BAYS & THE K-BOX

[Ron Thompson]

I don’t have a K2 yet, but the breakout box can usually be mounted behind the patch bay, this way the I/O’s are facing the same direction as your decks and other equipment I/O’s. The box should be short enough to do this, right? (just a guess on my part, but they’re usually fairly short).
And you can still mount equipment in front in the same slot space–amp, EQ, or other short equipment boxes.

I’m always renting decks, so a forward facing BOB is better for me…My “house” cables are bundled up and routed around the cabinet…Not as pretty, but easy to access.

Ron

[Walter Biscardi]

I have my unit mounted with all the connections facing the front of my rack to make it easier to connect / disconnect any cables.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

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

[Bob Zelin]

First, this is not a strange question. Because of the flexibility of the I/O and the K Box, I always encourage everyone to get a video patch bay, because of the mulitiple VTR’s, and mulitiple configurations that you can now use the I/O and K Box.

I ALWAYS put the K Box at the rear of the rack, and bring up all the connectors (along with all the connectors from the AJA I/O) up to a standard
video patch bay. I have been using the Canare 242U-DVJAW, which is the least expensive video patch bay, that can handle HD bandwitch – it’s about $520 at Markertek. Once you do this, you can reassign anyrhing, anywhere, in any combination.

I use inexpensive Middle Atlantic Slim 5 racks, which have rack rail with tapped 10-32 holes on both the front and rear, so it’s easy to mount the K Box. In instances where the customer does not want to have a tall black rack in the room, and only has small wooden rack carts, with no rear rack rails, I use the Middle Atlantic RRF2 rack rail, which is about $6. This is a 2RU pair of rack rail that easily screws into the rear of a 19″ box, so you can rear mount the K Box.

Remember that long after the AJA I/O, and Kona 2 are outdated (this includes anyone elses products too), you will still be able to reuse that video patch bay and that rack. The next gen of products will still follow the 19″ rack standard, and will still use BNC connectors.

Bob Zelin

[Marco Solorio]

Although I could put the K-box at the rear of the rack and hook up to the patchbay that way, I do prefer to have everything front-faced. So with that in mind, I leave a one-space opening beneath the K-box to run the cables back and into the patchbay. And as Bob mentions, getting patchbays, both video and audio is the only way to go, unless you have a digital router which is even better.

Marco Solorio  |  OneRiver Media