[Jeron Coolman]

David,

Check out this thread. It is the one where me and another person are discussing the problems we are having with an HD signal playing on a Dell 24″.

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/162/864905?

I plan on getting an HD-SDI to DVI converter as well in an effort to not use an analog signal to monitor, so I’m interested in how well those work too.

Jeron

[Jeron Coolman]

I have a Dell 24″ that I’ve connected via component outs of the Xena LH and the Premiere Pro HD timeline looks horrible on it. It isn’t a Xena thing, it is a Dell monitor thing, because all HD component signals look bad on it.

The LG 24″ monitor that I’ve connected via component outs of the Xena LH looks great when displaying my HD timeline. I was amazed at how much better the LG looks when viewing an HD signal.

I’ve yet to see a good looking HD signal on the Dell 24″ monitor. The image always looks like the Dell is doing a poor job of trying to “make it look better”; e.g. it looks like the sharpness is turned up too high and the colors don’t look right.

I discussed this in another thread somewhere with another person who is trying to connect to his Dell with, I think, an HDMI -> DVI connector and he reported the same poor picture.

The Dell looks great when I connect the computer to the DVI and set the resolution to 1920×1200 though, so it gets the thumbs up as a computer monitor 🙂

[Jeron Coolman]

I think most editors can relate with your frustrations, Todd 🙂

I haven’t used AXIO, because I swore off Matrox a while ago. (Stories which can fill other threads…)

I’ve had problems with my Xena card, but every time I have had a problem, I’ve been able to get resolution by dealing with Aja’s support. I can’t say that with most of the other hardware and software vendors I deal with.

I highly recommmend contacting their support if you have any other issues with your Aja product(s).

P.S. I think my Xena is the best thing since sliced bread too, but I come from an Avid background where you either spend 10x the price of the Xena, for an equivalent piece of hardware, or you are stuck with a lame, over-priced, firewire-device-that-needs-an-entire-pci-bus, Mojo that only supports SD.

[Jeron Coolman]

I know I’m asking for a lot 🙂

I can’t get a single stream of NEO to playback smooth on any of my computers, so it is out of the question.

[Jeron Coolman]

Did you look into the DVCPro HD tool that Serious Magic created? It used to come with DV Rack HD, but after Adobe bought them it made it difficult to understand what happened to all of their products; e.g. DV Rack HD is now OnLocation, but not sure if it comes with DVCPro HD anymore.

But anyway, it is supposed to convert the footage to AVI so you can edit it in an NLE like PPro.

[Jeron Coolman]

I was in your boat about 5 months ago. I knew I wanted the Xena, but wasn’t sure about ProspectHD. After evaluating Cineform’s products, I determined they didn’t improve my workflow at all.

It did take a few weeks of discussion between Aja and Cineform to clarify the difference between the OEM and Retail version of the cards. One insisted they were exactly the same and the other insisted the OEM version wouldn’t run the Aja software.

I use other software that supports the Xena card than PPro, so being able to the Aja software was important to me.

I’m pretty sure AspectHD doesn’t support the Xena card.

If I were you, I’d download the trial of ProspectHD and go through the steps of your workflow. If you are “sold” on ProspectHD, then you will be using it and you won’t miss the Aja presets and software.

[Jeron Coolman]

I should add and save money 🙂

You can use the retail Xena card with Prospect HD. It just costs alot more.

[Jeron Coolman]

You can use Cineform’s Prospect HD. I recommend you look into buying the OEM Xena Card + Prospect HD bundle from Cineform, if you decide to go that route. If you don’t mind using a “neutered” OEM Xena card that doesn’t support the Aja software; e.g. Machina, then that is definitely the way to go if you want to use Cineform.

[Jeron Coolman]

I have DVRack HD from Serious Magic (bought by Adobe) which has a DVCPro MXF to AVI converter. I’ve never used DVCPro, but you are supposed to be able to use the converter to edit MXF files in PPro.

There is a CS3 video bundle that includes OnLocation which I think is either the new name for DVRack HD or it is the CS3 name for it.

I wonder if this DVCPro converter tool comes with OnLocation?

[Jeron Coolman]

I just did some more extensive testing. I hope a clean rebuild helps your problems project17, because I did it twice to no avail.

I created projects as both Adobe presets and Aja presets. I can only get the Aja presets to “break” like this. I still can’t determine exactly what condition causes it. I tend to be able to “break” it (make Premiere Pro become unresponsive) when using multi-cam more than not.

This is with the RAID controller pulled out of the system. Whether or not the raid controller is in the computer doesn’t seem to change anything, except what is expected from slower disk I/O.

The Adobe presets have never demonstrated this behavior, only the Aja ones which makes me believe this is an issue with the Aja drivers. Next I’ll roll back to 2.0 and try that. Oh yeah FWIW, I reported these issues to Aja when 2.5 was released and they “hinted” that it was a hardware configuration or problem with the raid controller as well.