[Bob Zelin]

Mike –
you need a component video DA, or like walter said – a monitor with looping inputs (like the sony PVM) or a router to send the signals to the 2 component inputs. If you have zero money, go find a component TV DA from somewhere like Parts Express on the web (this is the wrong thing to do, but you can get away with it). If you use Y cables (or BNC T connectors), you will DOUBLE TERMINATE the signal, and you will get have the level, and HALF THE SYNC, and the picture may not lock up to your monitors. Video ain’t audio, you just can’t split it, as monitors without looping inputs (all consumer TV’s) have terminating inputs – you MUST use a distribution amplifier to split this feed.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

you have not said what resolution you are working at – DV25, or 10 bit uncompressed SDI – or something in between ? If you are using 8 and 10 bit SDI uncompressed, or DVCProHD, you will never get reliable results with one single drive. I urge you to use an external SATA host controller card (like the firmtek or Sonnet), and TWO SATA drives that are stripped togeher RAID 0. You will easily get 120mb/sec speeds, which will do 8 and 10 bit SDI uncomrpessed with no dropped frames. One SATA drive will do nothing for you reliably.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

you have diagnosed the problem yourself. TWO Sata drives striped RAID 0 is more than enough to do uncompressed 10 bit SDI capture. However, you are using the MAC Book Pro, and I guess the new Firmtek card for the laptop. You are using AJA Kona System Test, and only getting 80mb/sec on write speed which is NOT ENOUGH SPEED to do uncomressed 10 bit SDI capture. One SATA drive is about 68mb/sec, so you have POOR PERFORMANCE. I can assure you that the OLD Firmtek SATA 1 two port card could easily do 120mb/sec with 2 SATA I drives, so this is ABSOLUTELY a problem with your MAC Book Pro or the new Firmtek card. You MUST contact Firmtek to discuss this.
No one else on this list can help you with this problem, including AJA and Apple (and me). I do not know if this is a limitation of the card, or the buss speed of the MAC Book Pro PCMCIA slot.

I have had a similar recent experience with a new Sonnet X4P and a Sonnet Fusion 500P with 5 SATA II drives in an OLD MAC G5 dual 1.8 computer. This card/array combo in a MAC Quad does 178mb/sec write and 220mb/sec read in the new MAC G5 Quad (using the Sonnet E4P), but to my shock, this fantastic combo will only do about 76mb/sec write speed in the dual 1.8, even though the write speed was about 170mb/sed in the dual 1.8. I thought that I had a bad drive, and I tried one drive at a time, adding one drive at a time RAID 0. I discovered that as I added drives to the RAID 0, the read speed increased, but the write speed stayed below 80mb/sec. Of course, there is NO PROBLEM with this combo on newer dual 2.7 Gig MAC G5 PCI-X, and the new MAC Quad PCI-Express dual 2.5 with the Sonnet E4P.

This is what the term “QUALIFIED” means. If no one tests it, and you are the first one, you get to be the guinea pig.

All of my tests have been done with conventional MAC G5’s, not the Mac Book Pro. And when you hear about a “new card” (like when you do a google search), I don’t want to be the rocket scientist for this. I get my preliminary info from http://www.barefeats.com, or http://www.amug.org – THEN I test the products with AJA stuff.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

these are excellent questions, Kevin. Keep asking.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

no – your internal single SATA drive WILL NOT be able to handle uncompressed 8 bit HD 1080i material. You need a BIG MAMA drive array.

bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

AJA DOES KNOW – but you are asking the wrong people (the generic sales staff – no offense to anyone in sales at AJA) – CALL AJA TECH SUPPORT – or any companies tech support, and they will know.

What you will find in general (in the world) is that many companies don’t even know their own products with all variations. Here is why – I work with A LOT OF SATA PRODUCTS, and a lot of MAC computers – old and new. A company will develop a NEW product, and test it on a NEW MAC G5 (like a Quad), but NEVER test it on an OLD computer. So you and me run into OLD computers (like a dual 1.8 Gig G5), and find that the results being advertised are NOT accurate when it comes to the old computers. I guess companies can’t test everything – this is why for years AVID has said “Certified products only” – it did not mean that other products did not work, it meant that they only tested certain products, and if something else did not work – they did not want to hear about it.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

I sure do. Its called LAZINESS. I bet you are looking at the B+H Photo website. The AJA D10A is $849, and the AJA D10AD is $789.
AND the AJA HD10A is $1549, when the list price of the new AJA HD10AVA is $990. Do you know why – it’s because AJA has changed their prices, and they have been too LAZY to be bothered to change the website. This applies to plenty of other products, and plenty of other mail order companies that sell products on line. They can’t be bothered with updating their pricing on line, and it drives people like you and me crazy. I deal with all kinds of parts suppliers that send me catalogs, and they have the prices in the damn catalogs, and I call to order and get much higher prices when I call to place the order. I yell, and say “what the hell is going on here -I just got your catalog, and it’s half the price you are telling me” – and they say “this is what it says on my computer – please hold, and I will check for you” – and sure enough – no one updated the computer – or in your case – the website pricing.

In the Markertek catalog (where I buy from all the time), the AJA D10AD is $729, and the D10A is not even listed. But I can’t find either of these products on the Markertek website.

Welcome to the business world.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Mark –
by coincidence, I got to use a Canon XL-H1 for the first time today, but unfortunately on an AVID Adrenaline HD, not a FCP system with Blackmagic cards. The Canon XL-H1 DOES play out it’s video from it’s VTR thru the HD-SDI jack on the side of the camera (and the audio plays out of the RCA analog audio outputs. Because the AVID Adrenaline currently does not handle embedded SDI audio (the new release will) – I could not test the embedded audio feature out of the camera’s HD-SDI output.

The Blackmagic card will ABSOLUTELY accept an embedded audio stream from any HD VTR that feeds it embedded audio (like Sony HD Cam VTR’s and Panasonic DVCProHD VTR’s). I simply don’t know if the Canon XL-H1 will spit out embedded audio from it’s HD-SDI output.

Time code is read by Blackmagic cards via the RS422 control port – and all professional VTR’s (like Sony JH-3, Panasonic AJ-HD1200A) send TC thru the RS422 serial control port.

If you want to use RS422 control on the Canon XL-H1, there is a LANC connector on this camera, and you can use an Addenda RS-4/L to convert the LANC to RS422 – it’s $148.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

no. Do you have a BVW-40? Throw it in the garbage.

bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Mark –
perhaps I don’t understand your question, but WHAT THE HELL are you talking about ? Blackmagic products, including their lowest cost $295 Decklink cards handle embedded audio with the SDI video. All the HD-SDI cards handle embedded digital audio. HD Cameras have HD-SDI or analog HD outputs on them. You can take the HD-SDI output of a Canon XL-H1 (for example) and stick it into a Blackmagic HD-SDI input – but it’s A CAMERA, not a microphone – same applies to a Sony HD Cam, or Panasonic Varicam (if you have analog HD Y Pb Pr outputs, and want to use the HD-SDI input, you can go into an analog to HD SDI converter like the HD10A). To my knowlege, if you record audio on the Canon XL-H1, and play this tape back within the camera, the signal DOES NOT come out of the HD-SDI BNC on the side of the camera (but I could be wrong about this) I have NEVER EVER heard anyone discuss a licensing fee for embedded audio.

Canons application for HD-SDI out is for studio output, so you can (for example) setup a 3 camera studio configuration, genlock all cameras together, and send the HD-SDI signals from each camera into a HD switcher (like a For-A Hanabi, or similar switcher). In this situation, you would use microphones on your talent – not the mic via the camera.

Embedding audio is not an expensive process anymore, and there are many audio embedders on the market, but ALL HD VTR’s will play HD tapes back with embedded audio anyway. I do not believe that the Canon will play back ANYTHING from it’s internal HDV VTR thru the HD-SDI jack – video or otherwise.

Bob Zelin