[Bob Zelin]

Hi Borjis –

let me answer your question “which is better”. When you go to the NAB show in Las Vegas, and you see EVERY manufacturer of editing systems – AJA, AVID, Apple, Blackmagic – ALL using the Panasonic TH50 series monitor for their booths – even if there is a better display out there – you become very prejudice towards this model. With that said – money is money, and if you can “get away” with the cheaper display – then it becomes a good buy.

Most hi end houses that I am dealing with are simply buying the Panasonic 26″ BT-LH2600W. If they have a monster display in the room (42″, 50″, etc.) – it’s for a “client monitor”.

Bob Zelin (I miss the Sony PVM-20L5/1 CRT monitor).

[Bob Zelin]

Don –
please tell me the exact make and model # of the sync gen you have. You DO NOT need any special tri level sync gen for this application. Rudy has told you to go into free run to avoid any potential problems with bad cables, or a bad black gen. If you have a modern RS170A analog color black generator (not some old piece of junk), you should be able to GENLOCK your AJA Kona and VTR to the EXACT SAME BLACK SOURCE, and not get the crackle noise. I can assure you that even in a working system, properly wired, when you toggle between free run and Ref Video, and monitor the audio out of the Kona, you will hear the “snap crackle pop” – it happens in every system. Once the Kona locks, the pops go away.

Please let me know exactly what sync gen or black gen you have. (I am going out to dinner now, so I will respond later).

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

yes – it’s time to call AJA.

bob zelin

[Bob Zelin]

yes – download from the AJA site, not the CD that came with your unit.
Once you download, and you don’t hear audio, you may have a bad card – MAYBE.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Winston –
try my tests, as suggested.

We need to prove that the Kona card is working – independently of FCP. This is done with the Kona control panel.

bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

plug your DSR-570 directly into your mixer, to make sure that your cabling is working, and that you can hear audio thru your mixer – bypassing the Kona. If you hear audio from the DSR-570 thru the mixer, into the speakers, but can’t do it thru the Kona (and you have loaded the Kona LHe drivers correctly), and you have ANALOG AUDIO selected on the INPUT tab of the Kona Control panel – you may have a bad Kona card.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

you can use your HDV VTR to decode the 1394 signal to analog Y Pb Pr, so you can monitor on your system.
You need to set your VTR for 1394 input (the iLink port), and you need to have your AVID output to the firewire port. If you can’t lay back from your AVID to your HDV VTR, nothing – no adaptor – is going to work, including the Mojo.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Don –
I have become an expert at Kona 3 popping and crackling. It’s really simple and really simple to create this problem (for those of you reading this with a Kona 3). Simply go into the Kona Control Panel, select the Control Tab, and change the reference from REF VIDEO to FREE RUN. Hear the popping noise ? If you are in Ref Video, yank out your black referenece. Either of these will cause the Kona 3 to start popping and crackling.

This is the bottom line. You must have an good quality black generator locking both your VTR and your Kona 3 Reference input. Both should be on Ref Video. If you are using a Horita BSG-50, you MUST have a 75 ohm BNC terminator on the Kona 3 reference input loop (or it will not work). If the crackling still persists, reboot your computer, and it should go away.

The Kona 3 is VERY sensitive to refernce video, and if it is unhappy, it will start to pop and crackle. I run into this issue ALL the time on different systems. This existed on the Kona 2 as well.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

I just saw the new Westinghouse 42″ LCD display, with DVI, VGA, and analog component input.
This is a 1080p display, and it’s $1300, but my client just bought 9 of these, and they got them from Best Buy for $900 each !!!!!!!!

The world is changing (and there is some guy out there saying “I’m still gonna buy that $35,000 Sony BVM HD CRT monitor”).

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Winston –
forget FCP for now. Simply run the Kona Control Panel ONLY until you have everyting working. In the Kona control panel, select analog audio input. Feed an ANALOG audio source into your Kona LHe (like a Beta VTR, VHS machine, CD player, DV VTR, camera audio output). The signal should simply pass thru the Kona LHe card into your Mixer, where the LED’s will light up, and you will hear sound. If you cannot accomplish this, you have problems, and we can discuss this further.

If you have captured DV video and audio, I can’t discuss this with you. Even if you only have a DV camera, it has analog audio outputs. For now, until this is resolved, feed the analog audio from the camera into the Kona LHe analog audio inputs (get adaptors if you need from RCA to XLR), and tell me if it works.

bob Zelin