What’s the verdict…BM or Kona?

[Walter Biscardi]

[weevie833] “

[Tony]

My decision to purchase and work with AJA products was and will always be driven by the overwhelming awesome technical support provided by Rudy and Clark as well as the rest of the staff at AJA.

It is simply amazing the level of personal support and feedback Rudy is able to provide to his clients. Several times I have told John Abt that if only he could develop a human cloning device Rudy would be the first one thru the device.

AJA serves as the ideal model other companies should base customer service on. Companies one hundred time larger cannot even dream of providing the level of support AJA has done for me.

I know I am not alone in this matter as dozens others have stated the same level of customer service for themselves also.

In a nutshell you can’t go wrong with AJA products.

Tony Salgado

[Graeme Nattress]

I think you can find people who’ve had good experiences with both products. I for one are extremely happy with the Decklink HD Pro, it’s drivers, and how it works within FCP. As for tech support – I had to call on BMD when the PSU for the HDLink decided to die on me (the PSU is an off-the-shelf part not made by BMD themselves). They couldn’t have been more helpful in locating not just a new PSU, but just-in-case it was the link itself, a whole new HDLink as well from the local dealer here in Canada for me which they couriered over to me. In a day or two I was up and running again. AFAIK BMD have never charged a customer for an out of warranty repair either.

There’s obviously an intense rivalry between BMD and AJA, But BMD have been instrumental in driving the cost of very high quality capture cards down to a very affordable price. The picture quality on both products is identically good. It’s almost like religion over which company you go with.

Now, if there’s any real complaint it’s marketing. “Qrez” – where is it?? Every banner add on this site mentions it, but where is it? It’s well over a year since it was announced at NAB2004, but it still doesn’t exist. The AJA site doesn’t seem to mention it anymore, but it’s in the very banner add above me as I type.

“DVCproHD Accelleration” and “HDV Accelleration” – what do those phrases mean to you? Does it make you think that the hardware does the decompression to speed things up, faster rendering of video?? Sound fabulous, doesn’t it? Want to know what it really means though – it means that the hardware does the scaling from 960×720 up to 1280×720 or from 1440×1080 up to 1920×1080. Sure that’s nice, but it’s hardly “accelleration”, more of “a little helping hand on playout”.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP

[Adam F]

WOW!! Thank you all so much for your responses. I think I’m sold on the Kona card. Walter, I won’t go as far as to call it “gospel”, but if your recommendation is the AJA, then that’s good enough for me. I have to agree that it is very exciting to see two really good products competing with each other in this industry. That will only guarantee bigger and better things in the future for the end users like us. And to have the decision between the two cards basicly come down to tech support … I mean, what a choice! Thanks again to everyone for all your input. It really made what started as an impossible decision much easier.

Adam Fowler

[Walter Biscardi]

Congrats Adam and just know we’re all here to offer advice if you need it! 🙂

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

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