[Bob Zelin]

your monitor has become unterminated. Someone threw the 75 ohm term switch, or someone plugged in a composite cable looping off the back of the monitor to go to another product, and now that product is not in the system, unterminating your line.

Simply take a BNC cable, go from the looping input of your monitor, into the input of ANY video product (they all terminate in 75 ohms), and your problem will be gone. Once you prove this to yourself, you can either use a 75 ohm terminator, or find the actual problem.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

go to google, enter ABCD 9 pin switcher – in those exact words, and you will see dozens of mail order companies selling 9 pin switchers for your application. A 4 port ABCD 9 pin switcher is a very common product. BUT, I still think you wuold be better off with the 16 port (or 12 port) patch panel.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

you have excellent equipment – now hire a qualified freelance engineer to install your system. This ain’t plug and play – this ain’t a home stereo system.

bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

you can’t see the 24p playback, because you are asking your monitor to have a scan rate of 48Hz, as opposed to 60Hz, and most monitors can’t playback a signal with a 48Hz scan rate (one exception to this is the Sony SDM-P234b 23″ monitor). If you allow for a conversion to a normal video frame rate, you can play it back in most monitors.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Well considering you are a digital brain, as per your name identification, you have chosen the excellent AJA Kona 2, yet if you are purchasing a new system, this is a product that works in the now outdated MAC G5 PCI-X computers. The new Apple G5 PCI Express computers use the AJA Kona 3.
Final Cut Pro is only sold now as Final Cut Studio, and the Apple XServe RAID is a very expensive drive array – can you afford this product ?
You have not discussed what VTR’s you will purchase, how you will display your video signal, what audio monitoring equipment you will use, what sync generator you intend to purchase, etc.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

replies below –

The deck we use most to record to is a JVC BRD 750 D9 deck with a SDI card.

REPLY – The JVC BR-D750 requires a color black signal to go into the Ref Video In jack on the rear of the VTR, so yes, you will need a black gen for this.

We also have a JVC BRD 600U with component and firewire that we occasionally use to make DV tapes for people and an older Panasonic MII deck.

REPLY – the JVC BR-D600U also has a Ref Video input. It has analog component I/O, so you will not be able to get this VTR into your FCP system.
You will need an AJA I/O or I/O LA. Same goes for your MII VTR. You need reference. You must be the only person left in the United states still
using an MII VTR.

We don’t have the Sony HDV deck, we’ve just been digitizing from an FX-1 but it’s not going to cut it for us and we will be getting a HVX-200 when they become more available and have a field disk drive unit available.

REPLY – you will need a way to play out the P2 memory sticks when you get the HVX-200 camera. Buy a black gen – this will be the least of your expenses.

All of our current decks are currently synched to our PC system, and it wouldn’t be hard to keep this the same. –

REPLY – I don’t know what this means. What does your PC system have that allows it to sync all of your equipment. PC’s don’t have reference generators built into them. Do you have a video card in your PC ? What generates house sync, or color black ?

So, I’m inferring from what you said in your first post, that we should keep them synched and run a synch cable to the K3 card. So there is no need for any type of HD synch if there is no HD deck?

REPLY – I have MANY questions for you. You have got a bunch of old gear, many of it analog. Do you have a brand new MAC Quad G5 PCI Express computer to stick your Kona 3 into ? You have not stated your MAC computer, and I assume you know that you need a new MAC PCI Express computer to run your Kona 3. You have not stated what HD VTR you will use, but if you purchase a Panasonic HD VTR, all you need is a standard black gen- the same type of black gen you need RIGHT NOW to lock up your MII, D9, and BR-600U. The same black gen will lock up the HD VTR, and the Kona 3, and I/O box. You do not need a tri level sync gen. SO, what MAC do you have for this application ?

And yeah, I know the LHe would have allowed direct input of the Sony HD Component, but we really wanted to be able to have the upconverting ability in house to evaluate older stock footage and to upconvert some programs we had done before. I figured that if we need to bring in component HD, we can just get a component to HD-SDI converter to handle it.

REPLY – you ain’t gonna be upconverting anything analog without owning an AJA I/O box. I URGE YOU to purchase an AJA I/O with this system, which will go perfectly with your Kona 3, and allow you to upconvert any of these antique VTR’s to HD timeline.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

the answer to your first question is that you have to purchase a third party color black generator, from a company like Horita (like the $289 BSG-50). NO NLE manfuacturere – AJA, Blackmagic, Pinnacle, Aurora, AVID, Leitch, etc.
give you a “reference” out, except for the Blackmagic Multibridge Studio (which is not released yet). So guess what, you are going to be spending some money, or living with the “roll bar” vertical blanking line.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

YES – this will work, and it will certainly help you confirm if you have a true FW problem.

bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

you are not specifying exactly what decks you will be using, so I can’t answer your question. If you are going out to a Sony DVW-A500 digi Beta, or a Sony DSR-1800 DV VTR, yes – you should get a black generator. But if you are just using a HDV VTR, no, you will have no use for a sync gen. If you have the current HDV VTR from Sony, you would be better off with the AJA LHe, which will take in analog HD from the Sony HDV VTR.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Craig –
I have not been following your thread carefully, but there are some SATA drives recently that have had problems, like the 400 Gig Hitachi SATA drives. You should NEVER use only one SATA drive at a time, and always have at least 2 SATA drives stripped together to get reliable playback for 8 and 10 bit uncompressed SD, and DVCPro50. But most important, RUN AJA KONA SYSTEM TEST, and look at the data rates you get back. You should be able to get 80 – 120mb/sec with 2 SATA drives. If you get 6 – 12 mb/sec, you have dud SATA drives, as I had with the 400 gig Hitachi’s.

Bob Zelin