[Ken Hon]

Thanks to everyone for the help. We will drop by and see them.

Aloha,

Ken

[Ken Hon]

Aloha Steve,

Forgive me if this is a redundant addition to Walter’s post, but SDI is both a transmission protocol and a data transfer protocol wrapped into one, as opposed to firewire which is just a data transfer protocol. So if the device is really producing a SDI compliant stream then the Digibeta deck can record it with no problem. So field dominance is not an issue as it is translated in the Kona card (or whatever SDI device you are using).

Aloha,

Ken

[Ken Hon]

Thanks Jeremy, I’ll give those things a try. I also keep thinking that it’s some sort of brain lock on our part, but darned if I can find it! It would be nice if it was just beginners stupidity, we’ll see. Thanks again for your replies.

Aloha,

Ken

[Ken Hon]

Thanks for the ideas Jeremy. I spent all Saturday trying to figure this out and without any luck. We used the easy setups to create our HDV project and it worked fine last week. This week nothing playsback. The SATA Raid is nearly empty as the whole system is new (about 10% full). We have checked the scratch settings on the array. We made a very simple 1 clip test project and even deleted all the audio but no change. I’ve turned off the network and we have no other programs running. The system monitor doesn’t show unusal background disk or processor activity. I even unloaded all of the FCP and Kona programs and receipts etc (did a complete uninstall) and reinstalled them all fresh and we still get the same problem. The system will only play about 1-2 seconds of a clip and then we get the dropped frames message.
I am beginning to think that there is some sort of hardware problem somewhere but I can’t identify it. The RAM seems ok. After reinstalling FCP and getting the latest OSX version, the SATA array performance went up to about 250 MB/sec. I am suspicious of the SATA card as the array doesn’t get recognized on the original bootup. You have to warm reboot for the system to see it. Still it tests out ok and we even moved the project to a secondary SATA internal drive and we have the same problem. I had a Dell 2405 connected as a secondary monitor, but disconnected it. I guess the next step is to remove all the cards but the video card and start from scratch. Maybe I should even wipe the disk and reinstall everything?

Any other ideas would be gratefully accepted.

Mahalo,

Ken

[Ken Hon]

Hi David,

We disconnected the network and did get a very slight improvement from about 2 seconds of playback to 4 seconds of playback. We also created a project on a second SATA hard drive that is housed internally (not the main hard drive) and are still experiencing the problem. Thanks for the idea though. I guess this is one way to learn more about Macs….

Aloha,

Ken

[Ken Hon]

We just bought a Kona 3 largely based information Walter and others have posted here. We’re very happy with this card and extremely appreciative of the advice we got from this forum. Which ever card you get, make sure that you get the breakout box (KBox) for it, they are worth their price in gold to get rid of what would be an unmanageable rats nest of cables. Go to the Kona site and click on the small KBox images for both cards and you can see all of the connectors for yourself. Those marked SDI can do either SD or HD depending on software as can the component in/outs.

To bring analog into our setup we do exactly what you are proposing, running component video and analog audio into a deck with SDI and AES/EBU connections which we then run to the KBox for the Kona 3. it works fine. Like Jeremy said the LH does everything but upconvert and is about $1000 less. The main difference is if you need more that 2 channels of AES/EBU, the LH has only 2, the Kona 3 has 8. The LH will bring in 8 channels of embedded audio in the SDI/HDSDI signal if your decks support it.

Personally, I’m not quite satisfied with the upconversion done by the Kona 3. Take this all with a grain of salt as I’m no expert on upconversion and we are still trying to figure out how to upconvert our SD stock footage. Anyway, a different option would be to save the extra $1000 and put it toward a Terranex mini upconverter, which has been discussed on this forum too.

I would also add that the Kona software for running these cards is very, very nice. We came over to the Mac from a PC and were able to figure everything out in about 15-20 minutes playing with the very nice visual interface. There are a number of combinations and a few different places to change things, but it’s very intuitive and you don’t even have to look at the documentation. Really nice job.

[Ken Hon]

Aloha Oliver and Walter,

Thank you both so much for your detailed replies, it’s been very helpful to me. And Oliver, you are correct in that we are converting SD video (mostly D9 and some DV). I actually just finished wiring a new Mac with a Kona 3 into our studio this weekend and was able to do a few test up conversions. The results are an improvement over SD, but are much “softer” than HD footage, so the next step is probably to do a test conversion with a Teranex. Thank you both again.

And Walter, I largely purchased the Kona board based upon reading your posts here. It is really a wonderful piece of equipment and I was particularly impressed at how easy the software is to figure out and use. Really nice! Thank you for your contributions here, they are really helpful.

Aloha,

Ken

[Ken Hon]

Aloha Oliver,

If I can ask, did you find the overall quality of the Kona and the Terranex comparable or was there a big step between them? For example is the difference between the Terranex and the Kona of the same magnitude that you implied exists between these two hardware converters and the software solutions?

I guess the last question I have is do you consider either the Teranex suitable for mixing with real HD footage? The reason I’m asking is that we have a lot of stock footage we would like to convert to HD if possible. We’re going with a Kona 3 (which does seem the same as the Kona 2) and are wondering if this conversion will be adequate or if we should have the conversion done at a post house with the full blown Teranex converter? The final use is for broadcast on Discovery, Nat Geo etc. The reason for the upconvert is that we film volcanoes and a lot of the stuff is unique and we can’t simply recapture it. I’d love your opinion on this.

Mahalo,

Ken

[Ken Hon]

Thanks Ron. Glad I don’t owe you a new monitor!

Aloha,

Ken

[Ken Hon]

Susan,

Just to reinforce the point made by David. If you are trying to be legal do not use the DVD logo or the Dolby logos or anything that looks similar on your cover. They are both controlled and require specific licenses to be used (usually the replicator has a license as David pointed out for the DVD logo). This will keep your nonprofit out of hotwater.

Aloha,

Ken