[Cliff Stephenson]

Hey Alessandro,
I find the AJA LHi to be the most stable, dependable card I’ve used for work with Premiere Pro thus far. The Blackmagic was, perhaps, a bit more usable with regard to video playback (I’ll explain that in a second), but the AJA is overall more satisfying. When I say the Blackmagic was perhaps more dependable on video, the thing I recall (but I can’t say with 100% reliability because I pulled the card out of there about a week ago) is that I didn’t lose video signal between panels (meaning source or timeline). With the AJA, I get a brief (1 second) black flash on my HDMI monitor if i move from one clip to another in the project window or from the source window to the timeline and back. It’s almost as if you’re changing resolution (which I’m not), but it’s a quick black flash (sometimes green) that seems like the card is in process of sending out the signal. When you’re in the timeline, it plays seamlessly from clip to clip, even when skipping around.

As for audio, it’s a bit more hit and miss. AJA recommends you don’t output using the AJA audio setting in Premiere, but rather the default audio output (I actually am using the Built-In output from the preferences). It’s definitely hit or miss though as occasionally I’ll start to play a clip and there will be no accompanying audio and I’ll have to quickly pause and restart the clip to hear audio output. I do, however, get complete audio scrubbing when moving frame by frame.

Unfortunately, I can’t say with any guarantee that you’ll like the Kona card more than the Blackmagic, but what I can say is that I’ve been exceeding more impressed with AJA’s dedication to making fixes and providing updates in an expedited manor. I feel like most of the weirdness/quirkiness of Kona is stuff that they’ll iron out quickly now that the rush is on. I had two different driver updates show up from them in the first three days of working with the new card. They were also the first (and still the only) ones to come up with a quick work-around for external monitor output using Final Cut X. I’ve had Premiere Pro since last November and the frame by frame audio scrubbing is something the Blackmagic cards never did with Premiere, so I’m not sure why they’re just getting around to working on it.

So, as for performance, I think the Kona edges out the Blackmagic, but not without some asterisks assigned, but for dependability and peace of mind that potential future problem will be handled quickly and with great priority… I would say don’t waste a day switching over to AJA. I’ll put it another way. Without frame by frame audio scrubbing in Blackmagic, I couldn’t actually do any work with Premiere when I first picked it up last year. Now, with the new AJA card, I’ve actually switched all my big projects over exclusively to Premiere Pro and have total confidence that I can work within that system now.

Hope that helps.
Cliff

[Cliff Stephenson]

Well, I’ve had to move on and picked up an AJA Kona LHi card. AJA’s responsiveness to getting things fixed while everyone is running from FCP7 to Premiere Pro is impressive. It seems like Blackmagic is fighting to keep up and I can’t wait for something as basic as this. I’ve had no issues once I installed the Kona card and now get HDMI out to my external monitor while getting frame by frame audio scrubbing.

[Cliff Stephenson]

Same here, I actually went out and picked up a new MXO2 mini max today to complement my move to Premiere Pro 5.5 and I’m actually worse off than I was yesterday with my Blackmagic card. The Matrox works with Final Cut 7 just fine (so I know it works and is connected correctly), but doesn’t seem to want to take video from Premiere Pro. In fact, when I have Matrox Player selected in the Video Player preferences panel, I can’t even get a clip to play. Nothing appears in the source window or the timeline. The clip appear to be in there, but pressing play does nothing and won’t even open the clip to view in the windows.

That’s the one thing I’ve found I really hate about Premiere Pro is that there’s no clear cut way to do something as simple as set the output for display.

HELP!!!!