I have a couple of questions about AJA cards before I purchase.

1) As AJA are now shipping multi platform drivers for Mac and PC does this make any difference to Cineform drivers at all considering that have re-branded their cards?
(I will be buying a new Kona card for PC)

XENA LHe is now known as KONA LHe
XENA LHi is now known as KONA LHi

2) I need to confirm that both cards work will with Prospect HD and the projected CS5 upgrade paths before I buy.

3) Are these cards also supported in CS3 and Prospect, according to AJA website they are?

4) Does Cineform support the AJA HD to SD down-conversion function and if not, is this expected to be offered in the future?

Thanks for any info, it's very much appreciated!
Rich

The re-branding is really a name change to try to reduce confusion, particularly as Adobe is now cross-platform and buying a Kona card for your Mac and having to load Xena drivers for Mac when the original idea was Kona=Mac/FCP and Xena=PC/PPro/Vegas probably got frustrating for everyone, including AJA tech support I would think...

The cards should all work the same way.

CineForm's functionality with CS5 isn't for me to comment on, but I can say that I think all the third party vendors for Adobe -should- be able to get a better handle on CS5 than they did on CS4. Nearly all third party vendors who interact with the time line in PPro had their hands full with the move to multiple sequences with multiple settings.

I haven't checked the AJA website lately, but as the cards are really continuing on with new badges, I would think that any previous CS3 support would still exist. (Keeping in mind that most companies try to maintain support for only the immediately previous version of the host application, so specific attention to CS3 compatibility may end whenever CS5 is released if AJA's protocol is similar).

I think I've seen David Newman post that CineForm does not support the AJA RT downconvert function.

...I think all that is correct. Hopefully CineForm guys can confirm/deny...

Good insights there Tim, thanks.
Actually I just found from AJA that my Asus P6X58D Premium system board is not supported as it's a Single socket motherboard. This applied to Kona and IO express devices. I have a choice of either swapping out my motherboard or looking for another HD-SDI out solution.