[Bob Zelin]

There is no such thing as an AVID drive. AVID does not make drives -they make a box.

AVID used to use Seagate SCSI drives, and now use Hitachi/IBM SCSI drives.
They work just fine, and you can just get anybodys drive enclosure to run these drives in. Make sure you turn off drive filtering in settings/media creation, or settings/general.

HOW DARE YOU ASK an AVID question on this AJA forum.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Please remember that the old MAC G4’s with a standard UL3D and the AJA Kona HD card could do uncompressed HD, and you could do short bursts of HD, but for reliable performance, you needed 8 SCSI drives. At the time, only U160 drives were available, and the UL4D was not even supported with the original AJA Kona HD.

But of course Fred is correct – THROW OUT THAT OLD GARBAGE and buy a nice UL4D and a HUGE U320RX if you are doing serious big money uncompressed HD jobs. And if you can’t afford a big drive array like this, and still want to do HD, work with the DVCProHD codec, and you can use the drives your currently have, or even a nice cheapo Firewire 800 drive. But if you are doing a REAL uncompressed HD project, and the client is demanding that you work in uncompressed HD 1080i – THEN CHARGE THEM SOME DAMN MONEY, because if I find out that you are giving away uncompressed HD editing for zero money, we will hunt you down and kill you.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Isaac –
in this case, don’t listen to anyone on this list, including Steve at AJA.
BUY A COLOR BLACK GENERATOR like a cheap Horita BSG-26N, or go on ebay, and get a used color black generator from ANY COMPANY. I have seen excellent old Grass Valley SCB100N sync generators go for under $100 recently on ebay.

Take the color black signal, and plug it into your Reference In on the AJA I/O, and the Ref Video Input on the Beta 1800, and you will have NO MORE PROBLEMS. Don’t try a short cut – do it right – be a professional.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Kevin does not have this problem, and if you Time Code is ok (I’d check it again, as suggested in previous post), I’d ask Kevin if he changed anything.
That is pretty strange. David Nixon is also using the HD-130 with no problems.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Paul –
keep your pants on ! Make money – upgrading to FCP5 is not going to increase your revenue stream. AJA will release when they are confident that there are NO BUGS in the release. Look at the competitors products that have been released, only to be recalled because of problems. I am as anxious as you are, but I don’t want to deal with bugs, and I am sure that you don’t either.

bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

not to answer Jay’s question, and just to cause trouble –
I find it pathetic that this guy had the insanely expensive XServe RAID – I don’t care if he only has ONE drive in the system – he should be able to do
8 bit uncompressed. Without knowing the details, I don’t think that Apple will sell a system without a minimum of 4 drives, and with 4 drives striped together, this system should FLY with composite SD video. Whats pathetic is that he is suffering with the XServe RAID, while half this list has $300 Firewire 800 drives, and working in 8 bit uncompressed with no problems.

I truly feel for Jay – I feel your pain.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

the Kona 2 will NOT cross convert. It will upconvert SDI to HD (1080i or 720p, depending on the project you are in), and it will DOWNCONVERT HD (1080i or 720p) to SDI or analog component. This works great. To do the upconversion, you need to flash your Kona 2 firmware, and download the new Kona 2 control panel. But DO NOT BE CONFUSED. It won’t cross convert
720p to 1080i, or vice versa.

bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Ya know Greg, would it kill you to call me?

Try this – with power ON (I said with POWER ON) go behind the G5, and unplug
the big black cable going from the K box to the back of the Kona 2. You will see the green LED on the K box go out. Now, with POWER STILL ON, plug it back in, and screw it in using the thumbscrews. Now, check your audio. Does it work? Bet it does.

If it happens again after this, CALL ME, and I will tell you how to proceed.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

I have not seen the Sony MFM – I have only used the Cinema 23″ and the Sony
SDM-P234b, of which the Sony is superior. But obviously, the Dell, at $1200
has everyone quite curious, and I certainly am interested in seeing the Sony MFM. Now, from John’s report, I will certainly order a Dell 24″

Between the insanely cheap monitors becoming available for HD, and the ongoing DAILY advances with SATA technology, the “last horizon” for the expensive edit room will remain with the VTR selection.

I can only hope that AJA goes the next mile, and comes out with the “cheapo”
Tri Level Sync generator. $1100 would be a nice price.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

This is accurate information. The AJA I/O, which does not do HD, will give you simultaneous SDI, composite, component and S-Video outputs. However the Kona 2 – even with the K Box – will only give you analog component, or SDI out (and of course HD SDI out). The advice of looping thru your Beta VTR to get the composite out is good advice.

There is great demand for users who only have SD applications to buy the Kona 2 HD card, instead of the AJA I/O or Kona LS, even though these products would serve their needs better. Everyone is so paranoid of “preparing for the future” – but as most of you know, things will be different by next year, and every year after that – so no matter what you buy now – EVEN IF IT HAD EVERYTHING YOU NEED NOW – you will STILL have to spend more money next year. Why – because – this is the way our industry works.

Bob Zelin