The Definitive Word on Kona 3 vs. IO HD

[Aaron Neitz]

Kona 3 all the way. The IO is great for a portable solution, HD on the road, but the card will give you more options plus the ability to go full uncompressed HD.

[Walter Biscardi]

[CharlieX] “The IO is great for a portable solution, HD on the road, but the card will give you more options plus the ability to go full uncompressed HD.”

actually, Uncompressed HD is the only difference between the two products AND the Io HD gives you Analog I/O which is important to a lot of folks.

For a strictly compressed HD workflow and all flavors of SD, it’s a toss up.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Walter Biscardi]

And actually if you want to hear directly from Nick Rashby about the Io HD and everything else AJA, just go listen to my All Things Apple Podcast on iTunes.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Dave Martin]

Thanks Guys

Actually Walter, I did have a listen and found the cast extremely informative.

The card will still do Pro Res 422 though right? It’ll just take a little more horsepower since the codec isn’t built into the card…I think?

Tim Martin

Martin

-MacBook Pro – 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo – 2 gig Ram

-FCP Studio 5.1.1 – QT 7.1 – OSX 10.4.6 – Firmtek Sata Raid- G-raid dv drive

[Walter Biscardi]

[Martin] “The card will still do Pro Res 422 though right? It’ll just take a little more horsepower since the codec isn’t built into the card…I think?”

Both the Io HD and the Kona support the Apple ProRes 422 Codec. The Kona 3 workstation I was running at NAB had FCP 6 installed with the 422 codec as an option, just like all the other codecs are available now.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Szumlins]

[walter biscardi] “actually, Uncompressed HD is the only difference between the two products AND the Io HD gives you Analog I/O which is important to a lot of folks.”

That is an understatement if I ever heard it. The Kona 3 has support for Dual-link 4:4:4 and 2K footage that the ioHD just can’t do.

The Kona 3 also has the Downstream Keyer functionality not present in the ioHD. Maybe not used by everyone, but the first time you don’t have to rerender your entire piece to do a custom letterbox or put a bug on it, it is worth it.

This in addition to uncompressed HD round out the abilities of what the ioHD can’t do.

The ioHD on the other hand has some nice options that the Kona 3 doesn’t provide, such as LTC, HDMI I/O, and analog I/O as well as digital I/O.

Both solutions have some similarities and differences, picking the one that is right for you depends on your desired workflow and balancing which things are more valuable to you.

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-Mike

[Luke Garza]

So when you guys say that the hd io does not do uncompressed hd what exactly do you mean, i understand that you can capture anything in to pro ress or is that wrong. Now do you mean on the output it wont upconvert or downconvert to whatever formant your trying to finish as like dv cam or dvcpro hd thru any of the ports like a kona 3 or does it only output proRes or do i have this completely all wrong sorry im a rookie at this. Reason i ask is i have a canon h1 and want to capture from hdsdi into hd io into pro res then when finished editing would like to deliver to whatever format that client wants. So lets say wanted dvcpro hd could i then just go out of hd io into dvcpro hd deck thru sdi and work or since it is pro res out would it not. Again sorry im trying to make a decision on what to buy and dont understand it very well. thankyou

[Carsten Orlt]

you are correct. using the ioHD you can master to anything you like.
the difference is that the ioHD only allows for prores422 HD while inside the machine (so to speak) the reason is probably that only the compressed HD signal can travel over firewire 800. firewire 800 is to slow for uncompressed HD.
It is hard to say right now how much the prores422 codec compromises on quality compared to uncompressed HD. Unless we can test the unit, nobody knows..
But the odds that prores422 HD is all you ever need for broadcast (anything higher like film output is most likely not the target for Apple and Aja with this box) are very good.

[Luke Garza]

ok was right on which part, you say master to pro res ok i know it comes in prores but what about out, is it only pro res out, if so does that mean only can moniter with all the outputs or can you go into decks and get dvcprohd and hdcam

[Walter Biscardi]

[cofe] “the difference is that the ioHD only allows for prores422 HD”

Incorrect. All compressed HD formats are supported including DVCPro HD and HDV.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi