[Ramona Howard]

Carl,

Nice to know you actually know what your talking about.

DPX vs QT on the customer end….oh yes we fight that battle too. Many house switch because they really do see the benefit, eventually. Keep up the fight 🙂

Adrienne is a great company, we use their LTC board (wrote our own driver to tie into the AJA board so we always get accuracy) good choice…..

and Bright…..also another good choice, we support that one also.

Best of luck,
Ramona
Rave – Uncompressed made easy

[Ramona Howard]

Carl,

feeling a bit long winded here, sorry…..

Actually FCP does just fine with DPX frames using a little app called Glue Tools.

DPX is not as difficult as you might think or it might seem. Most apps write out a standardized file that is cross compatible (or at least they should, I know we do). It is all in how the data is packed in the header. The biggest point is with DPX, you get bit for bit (both log and lin) of the image, plus all the metadata you need.

I hope you are looking beyond the bells and whistles for a DDR. It is about how solid the product runs with the devices, remember your replacing a tape deck that has a proven track record.

Machine control (RS422) seems so easy……yet has been a tricky thing to get right. Doing this in slave mode is even more tricky….. Just remember not all products work the same way just because they use the same protocol. Most standards are left open for interpretation and thus you get a varying level of accuracy in how it works.

We have been developing Rave for about 8 years. It took so long because it is on Linux and we wrote everything from the ground up, drivers, libraries, machine control, etc…The point is: success can be achieved with the right approach to the problem. We have stepped into many studios and replaced DDRs that have been around for years because of the machine control. Many colorist prefer a Rave vs XXX due to how well it responds. We are native DPX………..

Sorry for the diversion. DPX you will see is becoming the de-facto standard in the film world, I think you will even see this from a few unexpected parties (sorry can’t spill the beans). Other codecs seem to be struggling with getting this bit for bit thing down so I jumped in to hopefully help you look at the problem another way.

Best of luck on you project.

Cheers,
Ramona
Rave – The only DDR that also gives you access to the source code

[Ramona Howard]

Carl,

Let me say jump on the bandwagon and record to DPX. Save yourself some frustration of all the codec nightmares. DPX is supported widely and is the choice in the film-world…..

We have become very experience in this workflow (the other half of our customers are VFX) and I think you are going to find out that the off-the-shelf or free apps are not going to give you everything you need for a Telecine environment. It is fairly demanding.

I can certainly refer you to some professionals in this arena (that are not in your area, so no competition issues) that can enlighten you since your going down this path.

Please feel free to email me off-list.

ramona@spectsoft.com

Cheers,
Ramona
Rave now supports 4K
http://www.spectsoft.com

[Ramona Howard]

Butch,

If you can eliminate the standard external annoyances then:

Since your using Premiere, have you contacted Adobe? maybe they are just not taking full advantage of what the hardware/driver can deliver. We have no problem getting accuracy with various TC sources with the hardware…..but then again we wrote the whole app and it took many years of development to get there and get it right…..

You have contacted AJA, right? If not, do it! (pulling a Bob on you). They usually go above and beyond in everything they do and should be helpful in helping you narrow down the issue. And, your dealing directly with them, not out-sourced help 🙂

Good luck in your quest.

Cheers,
Ramona
http://www.spectsoft.com

[Ramona Howard]

Butch,

We have no problem getting TC thru the boards in any number of ways and all dead-on accurate, though digibeta was a pain in the arse to get correct. I can say that not all digibeta decks are equal, firmware on each deck can contribute to problems along with crappy sync and then of course coding errors.

The problems could also be a result of the OS but I won’t go there as I can’t contribute anything helpful on the Windows side.

I am only familiar with the AJA hardware at the OEM level and we did write our own driver and RS422 code for them (we are on Linux) but I can say the boards perform as they should. I hope that this helps you in narrowing down your issue.

Cheers,
Ramona

[Ramona Howard]

I will add that AE is pretty picky on a DPX. If the info in the header in not perfect you will see this type of frustration. My guess is the conversion process has something to do with it.

Also does your version of AE support the version of DPX (1.0, 2.0) that is being passed to you. If the conversion is only writing a 2.0 and your version of AE only accepts 1.0, then problems you will have (a little Yoda advice there).

Best of luck,
Ramona

[Ramona Howard]

Well it sounds like the problem should not have been narrowed down the the Kona (which is a very good piece of hardware) but to the reseller who obviously doesn’t know what it takes to put the whole package together (everybody has jumped into selling solutions like this). The AJA board is just part of the equation. Computer, controller, disk array, which slot for what, etc….are all just as equally important as to what I/O board is used. It’s even more important to go to someone who knows what they are doing not just the local store at the strip mall…..

Just because it’s the top of the line doesn’t make it less of a need for a pro to understand it all.

Cheers,
Ramona

[Ramona Howard]

Hello my friend 🙂

Juan Carlos,

Come by NAB and take a look at the newest happenings with RaveHD. 3.0 has taken all we have talked about and made it reality. Solid VTR functionality, storage, database support, conversion tools, job scheduling and more….

Look foraward to showing off the new stuff. RaveHD will be at the CML party as well

See you in a few weeks,
Ramona

[Ramona Howard]

Justin,

This sounds more like a software issue as we can capture Varicam 720p59.94 both with or without the flagged frames using the AJA hardware. This is via SDI, so I would give that a try.

Cheers,
Ramona

RaveHD is a Linux based solution using the AJA hardware. SpectSoft has written the Linux driver for the AJA hardware and all libraries that go into RaveHD.

[Ramona Howard]

Francois,

“It seems kona 3’s hardware downconvert (The one feature I would use) is inferior to the export-HD-import-into-FCP-SD timeline method.”

What tests are you doing to show this and what is the source content because the K3 is used daily in a high-end environment with excellent results. There are many things that could be contributing to the poor look of the downconvert your doing. Remember HD and SD are very different and even the codec may be the contributing factor in your poor results.

Cheers,
Ramona