[Tim Allison]

We have very early G-RAID 360 GB drives. One guys wants something bigger, and two other drives are about to crap out. It’s time to go shopping. Everything I’ve seen on this forum says the CalDigit S2VR drives are rock solid, so that’s where I’m going to try to go.

Thanks to Shane for your info, too.

[Tim Allison]

Please listen to Shane on this. We use G-Raids at our shop. They can only handle one stream of 10-bit uncompressed SD material, but do you even use that codec? The G-Raids work great on 8-bit uncompressed, and will also work great with DVCProHD.

The best part of all of this is that a 640 gig G-Raid will only cost you around $500. You can get 1 TB for around $700. A G-Raid should also easily handle ProRes-422. You are talking about spending thousands for SCSI or Fibre Channel raids. Why not spend $500 instead?

I am only talking about G-Raids because that is what I am familiar with. But trust me….a good Firewire 800 drive, whether that drive is from G-Tech, LaCie, or whoever, will meet your present needs.

[Tim Allison]

Ouch! 23 hours sounds painful. We’re actually going to be using one of the quad-core Mac Pro boxes, so maybe that machine can carve off some of that “conforming” time.

Anyone have any experience conforming on a Mac Pro instead of a G5?

[Tim Allison]

I re-read your post. First off, it is good news to see that the DVCProHD codec has a 1080/60i flavor. I was under the mis-assumption that anything DVCProHD would always be 720p.

Secondly, we are just now breaking into anything HD. For the past 15 years, we have been shooting and working exclusively with BetaSp. Over the course of that time, we have built up an extensive and valuable video library on Beta tape. We decided on the Kona 3 card mainly because it offered up/down/cross conversion features to help us get through the next (maybe painful) 2-3 years when we might be forced to use Beta footage in some of our HD productions. However, the Kona 3 does NOT have any analog inputs, so we had to buy an AJA HD10AVA converter to hook up the BetaSP deck. In order to use the component outputs of the HVR-M25U deck, we would need to buy another converter, and that’s approximately $800 I don’t want to spend.

And finally, the last consideration…..I’m trying to avoid having to purchase new storage RAIDs for our 3 FCP systems. We presently use G-RAID Firewire drives. They work great for 8-bit uncompressed BetaSP video on our FCP systems, and can even handle a single stream of 10-bit uncompressed. They should be plenty fast enough to edit native HDV video. I know they will NOT be fast enough for uncompressed HD. I just looked around the Internet trying to find the bandwidth for the DVCProHD codec, but I couldn’t find it. However, I’m pretty sure it is not a very demanding codec, at least as far as bandwidth goes.

[Tim Allison]

Wayne,

That is NOT what I wanted to hear. We just bought one of those AJA converters to connect our BetaSP deck to the Kona 3 card. That is an expensive converter. I’m going to take a little bit of a “prove it” attitude and try to edit native HDV before ordering another AJA converter. Hopefully, we won’t find the conforming process anywhere near as “hair pulling” as you have.

[Tim Allison]

…..using the RCA stereo audio outputs feeding the Betacam audio? Anything?

[Tim Allison]

If I understand things correctly, the Blackmagic Intensity card (HDMI) is a PCIe card, and G5’s are not (yet) supported for that card. In order to get the PCIe slot, we will need to up-grade to a new Mac Pro box. This isn’t such a bad deal, because we will eventually do that anyway. But once we upgrade to a Mac Pro, then our Kona LS cards are useless, and we have to get a new in/out card for our SD Betacam. Well, if we get something like a Kona LH, then we won’t need the Blackmagic card anyway.

See….I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

Suggestions?

[Tim Allison]

[Shane Ross] “Just get this: https://www.aja.com/html/products_converters_HD10AVA.html It converts analog signals to HD SDI that in turn will connect to the Kona 3. No reason to have two capture cards. The Kona 3 captures SD and HD.”

This particular converter gets me into FCP with either HD or SD material. That’s great. But what about if we need to go back to Betacam tape? The Kona 3 has component out for the video, but no analog audio out. Do I buy another converter to get the audio back out?

I’ve been pulling my hair out on this for a couple of weeks now, and the ONLY complete solution I’ve found is a full-blown Io hooked through the Kona 3. The problem is….that’s a pretty expensive combo. If I’ve missed something, please point it out.

[Tim Allison]

I don’t understand how the Io LA will work with the Kona 3 card to up-convert my Betacam video. I understand the full-blown Io. Take component into the Io, take SDI out of the Io, then take this SDI into the Kona 3 and up-convert it. Makes sense. Meanwhile, an Io LA will take my component video, and send it straight to the computer via the Firewire cable.

In order for the Kona 3 to up-convert my Betacam footage, doesn’t that footage have to pass through the Kona 3 at some point in time?

[Tim Allison]

We are thinking of getting a Sony HVR-M25U HDV deck, which has an HDMI out connection. Will FCP pass along an HD signal back to this deck via Firewire, and then out to a consumer HD monitor via the HDMI connection?

When we go XDCAM, we are going to be buying a lot of post-production “stuff”, including a Kona 3 card for up/down/cross converting. The Kona LH won’t do this. We are also considering an AJA Io to provide Betacam analog connectivity to the Kona 3, and to continue to give us SD capabilities with the Betacam. And we are looking at the Panasonic BT-LH2600W monitor, mostly because it has both analog component inputs and HD-SDI inputs.

As you can see, these items carry some hefty price tags. Right now, I’m trying to get into one of the lower levels of HDV production on FCP in order to play around a little bit, and learn some things. I’m a little bit cautious of spending money on items like a Kona 3 card, only to discover later that we really need something else. For example, two years ago, we chose to go with Kona LS cards instead of AJA Io boxes. I wish I could turn back the clock and change that decision now, because the Kona LS is about to become obsolete, while the Io boxes would still be useful to us.