Why AJA

[Walter Biscardi]

Not really our job to “sell you” on the product. There are hundreds of posts on here about why we use the AJA Kona in our day to day operations.

You can look at AJA’s website for all the sales and marketing materials. For RED and high end workflows, you’ll want the AJA Kona 3. For 1080i or lower resolutions you’ll want the AJA Kona LHi.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

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[Bob Zelin]

Currently I do most of my work with DVCProHD or RED. I can easily capture both with no additional hardware. And, I’ve found that my second apple display is pretty decent for monitoring my video.

REPLY – if you feel that monitoring RED footage on a computer LCD monitor is “good enough”, then you are in a different market than most people that work with RED cameras. But hey, if it’s good enough, then what can I say ? Have you ever seen a monitor that costs more than $4000 ? Can you tell the difference, or does it all look the same to you, and “those guys” are just ripping people off ?

Lately I’ve been wanting to upgrade my audio monitors, but I don’t have a good I/O for this. This has forced me to look at a lot of hardware options. I have my eye on AJA Kona. But why do I really need this if I’m only working with formats that I can capture via firewire?

REPLY – A good generic AJA card is the AJA Kona LHi. If you are planning on doing 2K work with your RED camera, you should get the AJA Kona 3. But I don’t know your market. If a guy was working with DV cameras, and doing weddings or news footage, sure – he would not need any of these cards, and firewire would be “good enough”. But hi end professionals (people who work with RED for example) – well, NOTHING is good enough, and it always has to be better, and better is still not good enough. This is why professional forums exist – to strive for excellence, and to go beyond what we can do now, and what we consider the best. Why shoot in 4K, if no one can see it until a film-out ? This is the same mentality of people that said for years “why should I shoot in HD if it’s just going to wind up on NTSC TV”.

Professional (like people that purchase RED cameras) understand that this is just the beginnning of the investment, and like everything else historically in the audio or video industry, NOTHING is good enough, and you continue to strive for better.

So, do you need an AJA card, do you need a better TV monitor than your computer display, do you need hi quality speakers – that is strickly up to you.

Bob Zelin

[Jeremy Garchow]

Why not?

[Tripp Crosby]

Thanks for the input.

I totally realize that nothing is ever enough, and I want to always have the must up to date system possible. I think I’m just looking for some input from experienced Kona users.Let me simplify my question:

What are the benefits of a Kona card other than being able to capture multiple formats.

[Maurice Jansen]

we need more info

we don’t know if your doing off-line
on-line with seperate colorgrading
full on-line
and what your audience is.

grt
Maurice

People saying they don’t make mistake’s often make nothing at all!

[Walter Biscardi]

[Tripp Crosby] “What are the benefits of a Kona card other than being able to capture multiple formats.”

That is THE biggest benefit right there. Everything in, everything out. You don’t have to worry about your workflow. You determine what format you want to work in and conform everything to that using the Kona.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” now in Post.

Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital.

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[Jim Krause]

For me I appreciate all of the following:

Real-time conversion
SDI in and out
HDMI in & out
RS422 control
and most of al the great Tech support. (They are helping me as I type this!)

Best

– Jim

Jim Krause
tabletop productions https://www.ttop.com
(812) 332-1005

[Tim Kolb]

[Tripp Crosby] “What are the benefits of a Kona card other than being able to capture multiple formats.”

I think if you are delivering video (something for air, or traditional video exposition), you’ll find that monitoring RGB through your display card on an 8 bit LCD display is a different representation than the image on a conventional video display downstream from a Y’CbCr video output. The two images will be significantly different.

…so the I/O is an advantage, but a video signal path to monitor while editing really is a big part of the “O” advantage.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Peter Tours]

Can I jump in here? I recently “upgraded” my system replacing an AJA IO LA with a Blackmagic Decklink Studio 2, as we now shoot – for no apparent reason – DVC PRO HD.

I have suddenly started experience crashes I never had before. Projects go corrupt overnite just sitting there.

Could this possibly be that my system misses an AJA card? (I think that was a politically correct way to pose the question). It’s my second Blackmagic card – the first had component analog challenges.

Thanks for letting me jump in here.

Happy New Year

Peter Tours
TnT Video Services, Inc.
Fort Lauderdale, FL