Walter Biscardi
Forum Replies Created
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In this forum, it’s an easy answer Adam, Kona 2. I tested the Decklink HD Pro and went with the Kona 2 here because it just performed better and the tech support is second to none. Coming from a CineWave background myself, the transition to Kona 2 was pretty seamless.
As Chrispy notes, the K-Box is a must have. Now if you need any Analog I/O with the thing, plan to add the AJA Io LA which will give you the analog inputs. The Kona 2 ONLY has SDI Input along with Component and Composite Video outputs. I keep saying I’m going to add one over here, but I don’t get analog sources anymore, or if I do, they’re BetaSP which plays out via SDI on my J3/902 player.
Good luck!
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Capture them as one file. Capturing as separate files can cause sync issues and drop frame issues. There is no longer a need to capture anything as a separate file.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[Thax] “And I’ve got to vote with the PAN to CENTER method.”
That’s the beauty of Non-Linear. I prefer the sound of two true tracks of audio playing in a stereo pair, as do my clients. You prefer the pan to center with a single track. Both ways work.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[Matte] “I’ve been in the production business for a long time (and I know you have, too) but I’ve never heard of someone saying that pasting a track to both channels “sounds better” than panning-to-center.
A single channel panned to center does need to be increased in LEVEL (by about 3-6dB) to equal “dual mono” level on output… but saying it “sounds better” is a new one.
The quality should be identical (sound the same) either way. No?”
Nope, it sounds better, both in clarity and overall tone to put the same audio on both tracks rather than pan to center. Panning one track to center, especially a voice over or soundbite, almost gives it an out of phase, weak sounding tone. Place the same audio on both tracks, then make it a stereo pair so there’s full audio tone to both tracks and you’ll hear a much better, clearer sound.
Try it some time.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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We have forums for each of the manufacturers and you’ll find much more info about each in the respective forums.
Additional realtime added by any of the cards is minimal, you really need to purchase fast drives to make a huge dent in realtime. Fibrechannel gives you the most realtime right now.
I own the Aurora PipePro and the AJA Kona 2. Aurora has the best codecs in the business and their cards are SD only. Kona 2 has SD and HD on the same card and for all my testing, it’s the best product on the market today. I don’t work with HDV, I only work with DVCPro HD right now and some HDCAM work is on the horizon. SDI, Component and Composite outputs are standard with the K2 for external monitoring. Tech support is second to none.
AJA recently introduced upconvert features built into the board to add to the downconvert features. The K-Box is a must as it sits very nicely in a rack unit and make for easy connection / disconnection of equipment.
Ultimately price is not what sold me on the K2. It was the quality of the product and the quality of their tech support.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[MP Peters] “In other words, do you happen to know if the two tracks really have much separation? We can scrounge for another camera but nobody seems to have one anymore.”
Well, if you’re hearing clean audio on the left channel, then I’m guessing you really do have good separation on the two tracks. Do a quick test capture of Audio / Video and set Audio to Ch 1 only. See if the audio is clean. If so, continue to capture the rest of your footage.
If that doesn’t work correctly, set your audio to Ch 1 Ch 2. Now check your audio tracks and see if Ch 1 appears cleaner than Ch 2 (or vice versa). If so, then just use the clean channel of audio in the timeline.
When you’re done, instead of panning the Ch 1 audio to center so it plays on both channels, I would copy all the audio on Ch 1 and paste it to Ch 2. Now make them a stereo pair. This gives you full quality audio on both channels that sounds better than panning Ch 1 audio to center.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Hey Ramona! Good to hear from you too. Hope you guys had a good NAB this year. Hopefully I’ll get back out to Vegas next year… too many deadlines this year to get out of here.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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The Kona 2 automatically defaults to placing the Mac Desktop onto your external NTSC (or PAL) monitor. This is the general way of running the K2.
Simply go into the Kona Control Panel and change the output to Black or something other than Mac Desktop and your system will revert back to the normal 2 monitors.
Most of us run the K2 with Mac Desktop as a default though. That’s the way AJA recommends running the system and it’s just great for working with Photoshop as you can create your graphics right on the external monitor to check color and such.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Is your playback offset set to 0? Default is 4 frames, so if it’s not been re-set, set it to 0.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[chip] ”
So not only did I have to buy this Decklink HD, but now I have to buy another piece of hardware to see video on my HD monitor?”Did you not research the Decklink HD and see that SDI output was the only output on it? You could have purchased the Kona 2 and used either Component or Composite video outputs which are included. That’s what I use.
[chip] “Is there another way to see HDV on my main monitor, now that it doesn’t go through firewire?”
Through your camera?
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters