[Bob Zelin]

David and Justin –
why are you discussing the I/O. Sterling in his original question NEVER mentioned the I/O – yet you are discussing the I/O, and of course, this is completely incorrect. The I/O is Standard Def only, as you can easily see from simply reviewing the web site at http://www.aja.com.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

yes, you need a PCIe card, and you better get one that does not slow down the buss speed. The Scanner and iSight will not conflict with the Kona LHe, but I urge you to NOT use any firewire 400 drives on this system (even if you
didn’t use the scanner or iSight) – start using SATA – either the SATA drives that will pop into your MacPro, or external SATA products.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

you people are all making me sick. This conversation of 4:4:4 is no different than conversations that I used to have years ago in the linear days when producers would insist that Digi Beta VTR’s were not good enough, and you had to use Sony D1 machines. Well, what do you think happened to all those D1 tapes, huh? Some good that did, preserving all that “truly uncompressed 8 bit SDI material” in D1 format. Stop this nonsense with putting 3/4″ on a 4:4:4 format. Capture it like a normal person, and stop driving yourself crazy. You want a format that will last for the next 100 years – transfer it to 35mm FILM, and you can be sure that someone will be able to transfer that to the new “holigraphic 8k” format.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

if you use DVCProHD, you can “get away” with FW800, but you are better off with a SATA array from Sonnet or Lacie. If you want uncompressed HD (not for this application), you can get the CalDigit S2VR, which will do 10 bit uncompressed HD. If you have lots of money (which no HDV owner does), you can get a 4 Gig fibre channel solution.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

You can set the camera to output HD (1080i, not 480) and output directly into the Kona LHe as an HD signal and capture this DVCProHD 1080i. (do you know how to set your camera, by going into the menu’s). Edit your entire job in HD – it will look great, and not take up much space on your drives if you work in DVCProHD (what drives are you using).

You will be very happy with the pictures.

When you are ready to output, or even simply view the Kona LHe on a TV monitor, you simply go into the Kona Control Panel, select the analog output tab, have it downconvert to 525, and you can output to either a TV, your VHS machine, or a Beta machine (and if you are working with SDI, output to a Digi Beta VTR).

If you start with the camera set to output a 480 signal, and capture this way, you will be unhappy.

You say that your audio is out of sync – if you are monitoring the audio output of the Kona LHe, the audio will not be out of sync. If you are monitoring the output of the MAC G5 for audio, your audio will be TOTALLY out of sync – as it is for every capture card. You should get a little mixer and a set of powered speakers, and monitor the output of the Kona LHe.

bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

it’s not your monitor or cable – all LCD monitors, except the Panasonic BT-LH series of LCD montitors look terrible with STANDARD def. This includes the Apple Cinema display, and the HP 2335.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

The AJA I/O has one composite video output, to record back to your VHS machine. But you need to feed your TV set with a video signal as well. So may I suggest that you purchase a small composite video distribution amplifier, so that you can split the video signal (you can’t use a “Y” cord for this) – so you can have one feed going to your TV set, and one feed going to the video input of your VHS machine.

bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

You write –

I’m trying to understand if the Aja Io is what I need to be able to capture from the VHS and/or DVD decks and feed out from FCP to the TV without having to mess around with cables, FCP settings, and get rid the latency issues. I just want something I can hook up, works, and I don’t have to crawl behind the equipment everytime I need to do something.

REPLY –
The AJA I/O will work very well for your application. It has mulitiple inputs, so you can hookup the VHS to the composite video input, and your DVD player to the S-video input. OR, you can hookup the DVD player to the analog component input of the I/O, and hook up the VHS to the S-Video input of the I/O. Once you load the AJA I/O drivers into your MAC, you will simply choose what input you want from the Capture Presets menu. Once you do this, you can create something called an EASY SETUP, which will instantly select between these two sources. You can call one DVD, and one VHS. In the Audio/Video settings menu, you will select “non controllable device”, and one you have one machine “setup” correctly, you will save this as an EASY SETUP, call it DVD (for example), and never have to deal with all these menus ever again.

Your TV set will connect to the AJA I/O Composite Video Output, so you can observe your VHS, DVD, or output of your edit system, without having to switch cables. If you say “hey – all I want to do is watch the DVD – do I have to launch FCP?” – the answer is no. AJA gives you the AJA Pro I/O control panel – you can select your input (S-Video, Composite, Component) from this control panel, and it will feed out to your TV.

This will be your problems.
1) You have two audio sources, and only one set of audio inputs for the AJA I/O. You will need a way to get either the VHS or DVD audio into the AJA I/O. Because the AJA I/O uses XLR connectors, your best choice is a small inexpensive audio mixer (like a cheap Behringer) to select which device goes into the audio inputs of your AJA I/O.

2) the cable connections on the AJA I/O are all BNC, and the connectors on your DVD, VHS, and TV Set are all RCA. So you will need a BUNCH of BNC-RCA adaptors to get your equipment into the AJA I/O.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

AVID Adrenaline HD is $25,000, not $50,000.

The Multibridge Extreme is $2595, but you still need all the other stuff for your FCP system that you would on an AVID, like a computer, monitors, disk drives, tape machines, audio mixer and speakers, etc.

You can buy the Mojo SDI for AVID Media Composer software Only, and this will take in HDV only, not HD-SDI. If you want to know how you can do uncompressed HD (or DNxHD 220) on an AVID system with HD-SDI, for the same price as the Multibridge Extreme – this is the answer –

YOU CAN’T.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

unlike your subject title, it seems that you want to be able to embed, de embed, convert to analog YRB, and capture from analog YRB. We can discuss converters all day long, and the Miranda you listed works great in that one direction – but for all the money you will spend on assorted Miranda, AJA, and Cobalt Digital converters- why not just bite the bullet and buy the Blackmagic Decklink Extreme, that has all the converters as part of the package. I know that you don’t want to get rid of your perfectly good board, but all these outboard converters cost MONEY, and you could ultimately save money by buying the correct Blackmagic product in the first place – and not only save money, but all the wiring mess that will be created by it.

Bob Zelin