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Wanted: AJA Kona Drivers for Avid Media Composer
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COW Personals:Me: I’m a nice guy, I like long walks along the beach, and I desperately seek AJA Kona drivers for my Avid Media Composer. I know you’re out there, blue eyes. Call me… together me can make beautiful magic together.
Okay, all joking aside, I’m going nuts here with Media Composer. Not because it isn’t working properly (quite the contrary), but because I can’t use it with my AJA Kona 3 hardware. With the recent lobotomy known as FCPX, we’ve completely changed gears at my facility. We are no longer supporting the purchasing of any further Apple creative software. At present, all of their pro apps are EOL’ed, which I’ve outlined here on my blog:
https://www.onerivermedia.com/blog/?p=322
Recently, I tweeted a request to Avid, regarding my yearning for AJA Kona hardware integration with Media Composer. To my surprise, they replied back with positive news, the first I had seen publicly from Avid. I was so excited about it, I blogged about that too:
https://www.onerivermedia.com/blog/?p=346
The very next day, Gary Greenfield, the CEO of Avid posted this:
This is surely not the Avid I knew 15, 10 or even just 5 years ago. It looks to me they’re opening up and seizing the moment to reach out to those that are in my position. Wow, they’re listening to the users out there? Nice!
I’ve been an AJA Kona user since the very beginning with the Kona SD, which I still have, albeit tucked away on the shelf (and have written articles on, including right here on the COW). In fact, I was a founding forum leader of this very AJA forum (as well as a COW FCP forum leader for a number of years).
I will not resort to using a little Matrox box for i/o (great unit for those that can use it, but not for me) or an Avid Mojo, or even an AJA Io Express (awesome box, but not a proper fit for what I need here). I will not invest $17k in an Avid Nitris system when all the i/o I need is right here with my AJA Kona 3 cards (or rather, my KBox break out boxes). I love AJA hardware, and will continue to use it.
Seems as though Avid is speaking up (or trying to), but I haven’t heard anything from AJA. I know they have to play things safe, as large as a company as they are, but it would be nice to hear some news from them like Avid has done. In this great change (apocalypse?) of NLE usage, it would seem like an opportune time to do so.
If AJA hardware wont work with Media Composer, I may have to use Adobe Premiere. Premiere as come a LONG way, with some amazing features. But I have to say, since I’ve been transitioning over to Media Composer, my mind has been blown. B-L-O-W-N. The functionality and customization of Media Composer is everything I always wanted FCP to be. In my 15+ years of NLE usage, I never had the chance to own Avid because the pro hardware integration was too costly for my business model. Would love to see that finally change with AJA Kona hardware integration.
AJA, now is your time to shine! Will you take long walks with me on the beach?!! I’ll pay for dinner! And breakfast! 😉
Marco Solorio | CreativeCow Host | OneRiver Media | ORM Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Media Batch
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18 Replies
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Hi Marco,
As you know, we work with multiple industry partners. In the case of Avid, we’ve been long standing partners; our AJA KONA technology has shipped with Avid DS systems for many years and we were thrilled to introduce support for Avid Media Composer v5.5 with our Io Express interface earlier this year. The popularity of Media Composer and Io Express has exceeded our expectations, and we are looking forward to expanded collaboration with Avid in the near future.
Thanks,
Nick Rashby
President
AJA Video Systems -
Thanks Nick!
Let us know what kind of bribes you will require in order to expedite the process. Chocolate. Ice Cream. Gift cards to Applebees. Whatever you need….. 🙂
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
This is great news, Nick! Thanks for sharing. The Io Express is an amazing little box, but alas, cannot supply the kind of i/o we have with our Kona hardware. But I know it will work amazingly well for many others.
I wasn’t sure or not if it was public knowledge that Avid hardware is basically AJA hardware. It makes sense that Avid uses AJA hardware for their i/o hardware… nothing but the best. The integration of Kona only makes the best of sense to me. Hopefully that is what you mean by, “looking forward to expanded collaboration with Avid in the near future.”
Thanks for the reply, Nick. Much appreciated. =)
(And don’t get any wise ideas… we’re not going to the beach, dude)
Marco Solorio | CreativeCow Host | OneRiver Media | ORM Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Media Batch
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[Marco Solorio] “(And don’t get any wise ideas… we’re not going to the beach, dude)”
No you’re not. You’re taking me……
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
Nick,
Thank you for speaking out.
gary adcock
Studio37Post and Production Workflow Consultant
Production and Post Stereographer
Chicago, ILhttps://blogs.creativecow.net/24640
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LOL!!! Wouldn’t want it any other way! :-p
Marco Solorio | CreativeCow Host | OneRiver Media | ORM Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Media Batch
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Hi Nick,
having recently installed an AJA I/O Express with Media Composer 5.5.2, I was very unhappy (as usual with AVID) about having a
$200 per incident support phone call to AVID. Which of course, I did not pay. I was not going to inconvenience my friends at AJA to do something that should not be done (support for AVID problems), and so I received my FREE answer from the AVID forum on Creative Cow.AVID’s # 1 problem (ongoing problem) is that they will NOT answer any questions unless you pay them, even for new systems, even if it their problem.
I specifically refer to the following –
https://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=410971Until AVID is willing to answer simple support questions like this, without charging $200 for it, Adobe Premier will dominate the market (unless we see some miracle from Apple with FCP X).
Bob Zelin
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Bob, in contrast I spent about an hour with a crack Adobe tech troubleshooter trying to isolate some playback issues with Premiere Pro 5.5 and Kona 3.
He linked to my computer and watched my screen as we both went step by step thru a process to try and isolate the problem. He was knowledgeable, patient and FREE. All I could think about the experience afterward was…”Id never get this kind of service from Apple OR Avid.”Tom Daigon
Avid DS / FCP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com -
[Tom Daigon] “He linked to my computer and watched my screen as we both went step by step thru a process to try and isolate the problem. He was knowledgeable, patient and FREE.”
Actually I’ve heard this from multiple people about Adobe using their Connect function to simply screen share to both isolate problems and learn from the editors how they work. Very cool and very responsive.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
Tom
please post telephone number to call for this level of tech support.
Rupert Watson
ROOT6 Ltd
44 7787 554801
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