the best capture card for HD footage?

I highly recommend the AJA Kona series (the LHe or Kona3 for PCIe machines, or the Kona LH or Kona3X for PCI-X machines).

The feature sets of each are listed on their website http://www.aja.com.


Jeremy

I am partial to AJA and have not used Blackmagic products in quite some time.

You get what you pay for.

I am sure that some Blackmagic products work just fine, I just found AJA to be a little more reliable and responsive. They also have really great technical support should you have issues with setup.


Jeremy

[domani_studios] "Obviously the pricing is extremely different, but would a high end card versus a card like this make a differnce if they both offer 10-bit SDI uncompressed video capture."

That appears to be an SD only card and not an HD capable card.

Jeremy

The Kona LH offers downconvert, but does not offer up convert/cross convert. It also offers analog inputs, while the Kona 3 offers digital only inputs.

The Kona 3 also does 2k.

It depends on the vintage of your G5s, but for G5s with PCI-X, you need the Kona LH or Kona3X. For G5s with PCIe, you need the Kona LHe or the Kona 3.

Jeremy

Yep!!! As Jeremy says... You'll find that most of us on this forum agree.

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY

[FinalOne] "Except for an older analog or SDI uncompressed HD camera/deck you probably won't need a capture card. HDV which is usually what is meant by HD or DVCPRO HD are both capable without a capture card."

that means everyone that works with HDCam content, since no HDCam deck I know of has a FW connection for HD acquisition. It also means that anyone that needs compositing at other than 8 bit color depth would not be able to deliver. Isn't this a really near-sided point of view? There are any number of needs for a card based workflow.


I believe all Leaders in this forum all use Kona Cards for their main stations, even when other solutions are available in their edit suites. There is reason that, avid, discreet and others rely on AJA hardware to make their NLE systems better.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

The thing that's worrisome about all you guys saying AJA ONLY is
you are promoting a one-card-situation. You are actually going to get a
less functional product at more cost down the road, because competition
has been limited by Apple's approach of favoring one over the other.
They killed Aurora by doing this and others as well.
Just remember, progress in product development does not happen without
competition.

When talking down Black Magic, I very seldom see stated
an example of what it is that makes AJA better. The Black Magic HD box allows
not only digital IO but also analog where you need extra boxes and converters
to do that with KONA 3. Plus the cost is much higher for AJA once you do all that.
If people are going to purchase AJA KONA 3 over the Black Magic products,
let's hear some solid reasons why you promote spending more.
The explanation "everybody uses it" sounds like why people use WIndows.

dr

[Danrnw] "They killed Aurora by doing this and others as well."

Apple had nothing to do with that, it was more about another company that undercut everyone else's pricing and they couldn't compete with that. A LOT of the forum leaders on here, including myself, supported Aurora and were waiting for their HD Pro card to come out. They had the best codecs in the business but could not sell for the same low prices as another company.

Cheap HD cards are nice, but look at Avid, Media 100, Autodesk and even Adobe and look at which cards they are using to run their NLEs. Look at high profile events like the Super Bowl, World Series, Nascar and look at which card is being used to cut at those events.

For my own use here, AJA's product support alone is enough to have three of their products in my shop. If anything happens, I can pick up the phone and if I need it, a new product is here in 24 hours. One thing most people don't realize is that someone at AJA inspects every single product before it is shipped. Every single product that leaves the company is personally tested before it leaves the doors. That's why they stand behind everything they sell.

Yes, there's a place for cheap cards out there. I prefer the quality and stability of the AJA products.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
http://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! http://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! http://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

Dan,

I was in your camp, doubting just as you are, then I switched from BM to Kona. Now I'm a believer too... My LH is a great tool.

Warmer, audio, better support, faster driver updates are just a few of the reason that I prefer Kona.

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY

[walter biscardi] "yes, I do recall we had a few, ahem, "discussions" about the two at one time........"

Ah, but doesn't it feel good when you find someone in the world who can actually be persuaded to change an opinion? I am one old dog who's always willing to learn new tricks. Show me a way to do something cheaper, faster, better, or smarter and I'm on it like white on rice.

I'm quite pleased to be a Kona user and a Kona advocate, and damned glad you and Gary took the time to educate me about the Kona products.

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY

To all posters,
Thanks for the input on this topic. Just another example of how the COW is the definitive source for all things creative. Your advice will be followed very closely.

Cheers,
Francisco

Well, the resignation is not a rumor...that is true.



Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

AVID Liquid runs and is marketed to run on the KONA. That's public.
But not the Media Composer. Or are you talking about it running
"in the lab" on AJA stuff?

dr

Hi,

I am a new editor to FCP, but have worked on all Avid systems for years.
Finally I have decide to set up an FCP system and see what all the fuss is about.
I have committed to a 4 moth multi part project on this system.

So I got the latest macpro, and Prostudio 2.
When using it I realised I needed something comparable to a MOJO, or IO hardware.
After talking to my hardware suppliers I was down to two choices, the KONA LHE, or the Blackmagic HDExtreme.

And here I ended up after a google search on comparisons.

Frankly I am not convinced that the Kona is just a more expensive peice of kit, that does no more; in fact as dr said:

"The Black Magic HD box allows
not only digital IO but also analog where you need extra boxes and converters
to do that with KONA 3."

so far Black magic sounds better.
I have read that the customer service is better with the Kona, but then I live in New Zealand and customer service is always slow, and so I guess it will be less of an issue.

So now a blow by blow analysis os what I found here:


Shane said:
"The advantage that AJA has is: a) Tech Support is killer, b)They work VERY CLOSELY with Apple, so their products integrate very well."
So the AJA card is solely built for FCP?
If so then I would assume that it would work smoother, although FCP is built to smoothly take other hardware and be resolution independent; that's the main advantage of FCP?

"Decklink was BAD at one point...getting a hold of tech support impossible. They are getting better, but AJA has always been there."
FCP was bad at one point, Avid was bad many times, most companies and software/hardware has had one or more bad times, but most get up and fix those issues.

Gary Adcock said:
I believe all Leaders in this forum all use Kona Cards for their main stations, even when other solutions are available in their edit suites. There is reason that, avid, discreet and others rely on AJA hardware to make their NLE systems better.

Shane said:
"All the leaders just happen to own AJA products, so that is what we have more experience with, so that is the first recommendation out of our mouth. "

Walter ads:
"I think every single NLE except Quantel uses AJA now and it's possible they use it as well. Obviously there's a reason why these companies have all gone to AJA for their capture boards. They're reliable and a proven broadcast quality product."

Gary said:
"But think about what you said about "what makes AJA better" we are talking about the the same hardware from AJA in Avid's 4:4:4 solution and inside of industry leading hardware solutions like Flame, Inferno and Smoke and that hardware is available for FCP.

The bigger questionto me would be: If there is not much difference between the cards why do all of those companies use Aja's (albeit more expensive) hardware and not BMD's"

Maybe they are more flexible to big companies, or make cheap deals and charge more to direct consumers?
Maybe they make better hardware solely for those companies?
Maybe they spend all their real Development money on those systems and then strip it down and make a quick digital only version for FCP?

Personally I am seeing Avid hardware get worse (well anything is better then their meridian hardware I must admit). One of the main reasons I am testing FCP is exactly because I have heard and experienced Avids not working well with HD, and having lots of hardware issues. So In that light I am not so sold on a "well Avid uses them so they must be good"; in that case buy an avid if you want to spend up large and get snobbish over which is most used.

Walter said:
"Look at high profile events like the Super Bowl, World Series, Nascar and look at which card is being used to cut at those events."

It seams to me that there is some kind of snobbery of systems. As if ALL the top editors use a Kona, ALL the best productions use a Kona.
Well in that case we should all go to Avid systems to edit, and inferno to composite as they have done MUCH more and used by many more.
It isn't an issue of who loves who the most, it should be what ACTUAL experience people have.

It sounds like some need to justify the expense, like buying a European car and saying that just because it is "European" and you paid more.
I don't mean to get anyone up in arms, but it's O.K to say "I only have a KONA and am totally happy", it is just ignorant to say "well everyone else has one, so it must be good"; in that case buy a PC, by an Avid, shoot DVCAM or maybe VHS?

So on to the only real comparison:

jeremy said:
I have used both and for me, my Kona2 and Kona3X has been invisible, which is good. If the card becomes visible, there's something wrong.

Well my old Avid XpressPro is a different beast, and tells me so, when it has a MOJO attached. I believe visibility of a card isn't something wrong. How do you define it as being wrong?
Does it slow the system, or demand a new workflow (that is to say a dramatically different workflow?).

David said:
Warmer, audio, better support, faster driver updates are just a few of the reason that I prefer Kona.

Faster driver updates sounds like a good point!
How often do they update?
I know that in the past on systems I have owned they get stuck with a particular OS, and can never be updated at at all or change as the edit ware and hardware don't update.
If Kona keeps up drivers with the latest software and OS updates that sounds really good.
Anyone know of how BM goes with updates?

How is the audio warmer?
Is this a monitor thing? Or is it actually capturing audio better?

I send all my work out to get audio mixed so monitoring doesn't need to be perfect.

Now, are there any BM users out there who haven't been scared off by the "Big Editors" who sound like they look down on those who don't follow them.

Tibor

[Tiborius] "I believe visibility of a card isn't something wrong. How do you define it as being wrong?"

When I say the card is invisible, what I mean is that when I tell it to do something such as down convert, up convert, cross convert, add setup, no setup, XLR audio in BNC audio in, pause on full frame, single field pause, SD to SD letterbox conversion, Beta Component put, SPMTE component out, whatever, the Kona does it no fuss no frills no problems, it's like it's not even there. When I had Blackmagic products, it was like pulling teeth to try and get things to work if you could get it to work at all. I knew the cards where there all the time, because they weren't working like I wanted them to. Also, The AJA control panel makes the card extremely easy to operate as you have a modular visual reference of everything that your card is doing. The Blackmagic control panel is a little less intuitive. Does Blackmagic have upconvert, have they fixed 720p24 down convert? Also as Gary mentioned, AJA does all conversions in hardware and not software like most Blackmagic products.

There, I said it.

Jeremy