Re: House Sync

In Florida, almost everyone uses standard black (29.97), even for working in HD (which is typically 59.94, which works fine with standard NTSC black). Now that the AJA GEN10 is available for a mere $390, that offers both NTSC black (or PAL black) and tri level sync, it is inexpensive to have both signals available with almost no expense.

Historically, I have simply run the NTSC black to a video DA (like an inexpensive Kramer composite video DA) to distribute black to all the AVID, AJA or VTR Ref Video inputs, but most recently, products that may require tri level sync, I have for the first time brought these SPECIFIC PRODUCTS (like the AJA Kona 3, or the Sony HDCam or the Panasonic AJ-HD1400) Ref Video inputs up to a manual patch bay (Canare 242U-DVJAW), so I can have NTSC black normalled to them, but if the need arises for 23.98 tri level sync, I simply patch it in. The tri level sync signal (out of the AJA GEN10) simply goes into a generic analog composite video DA.

Even in the stone age (3 years ago), when Evertz was the only game in town for tri level sync, the Evertz 7750 "package" was with an inexpensive Evertz analog video DA, that could distribute the tri level sync signal.

So after this long boring rant, yes - patch bays are the simpliest cheapest way to switch between tri level and standard external reference to your critical edit controller and HD VTRS.

bob Zelin