AJA Xena HS

[Peter Ferling]

Time to upgrade to Prospect. I'm getting a canon G1 (for the HD_SDI when needed). However, 80% of what I do will be in straight cuts HDV. I understand the advantage of working in 10bit for HDV material. So I have some questions for purchasing decisions:

For 10bit ingest, or to work in 10bit with HDV, do I capture via SDI from the tape into an AJA card, or stick with firewire for HDV and prospect applies 10bit?

With prospect, will the AJA Xena HS provide preview/monitor output for edits in PPro, or do I need the LH card, or I do I need something else? (I'm getting a Sony LMD 23" LCD with an HD-SDI card).

Can I mix old cineform 8 bit projects with 10bit prospect on the timeline?

Whats the proper workflow for both HDV and HD-SDI in prospect?

I have a second workstation, a dual xeon 3Ghz that I may use for edits only, without an AJA card. If I get prospect license for that, how do I preview the media? I have a gateway 22" LCD with component/DVI inputs that I can use as an HD monitor for framing, etc (I'll do colorwork on the other workstation.)

Do I have to upgrade to PPro 2.0/AE7?

Thanks.

[David Newman]

Originally Posted by Peter Ferling

For 10bit ingest, or to work in 10bit with HDV, do I capture via SDI from the tape into an AJA card, or stick with firewire for HDV and prospect applies 10bit?

Either method works, there is no quality advantage to either if you coming from a HDV tape. In the AJA capture the capture MPEG decoder is used to produce YUV output, in the firewire setup we use a software MPEG decoder to get at the YUV data. The 10-bit upconversion occurs in both workflows. The main advantage to Ingest is the hardware scaler in the camera for resize 1440 to 1920 is faster than the software scaling -- so the HDSDI ingest will be the fastest solution. For quality gains only live capture is the big advantage to Ingest (for HDV work) as then you can bypass MPEG compression and 4:2:0 sub-sampling -- HDSDI Ingest is ideal for chromakeying.

With prospect, will the AJA Xena HS provide preview/monitor output for edits in PPro, or do I need the LH card, or I do I need something else? (I'm getting a Sony LMD 23" LCD with an HD-SDI card).

LH is an HS card with the additional analog YPrPb outputs. Neither will connect to directly to an computer LCD display. You can get a HDSDI to DVI adaptor, then use a 23" LCD. We use a Sony PVM-20L5 20" CRT with an HDSDI input card (although this is older style -- then are many more options these days.)

Can I mix old cineform 8 bit projects with 10bit prospect on the timeline?

Yes there is no issue. Older 1440x1080 clips are real-time upres'd to 1920x1080 for preview, but these will require rendering for 10-bit output.

Whats the proper workflow for both HDV and HD-SDI in prospect?

Once into CineForm Intermediate HDV and HDSDI sources are completely interchangable.

I have a second workstation, a dual xeon 3Ghz that I may use for edits only, without an AJA card. If I get prospect license for that, how do I preview the media? I have a gateway 22" LCD with component/DVI inputs that I can use as an HD monitor for framing, etc (I'll do colorwork on the other workstation.)

You can use the desktop or any dual head graphics card.

Do I have to upgrade to PPro 2.0/AE7?

AE6.5 is fine, however Prospect HD does require PPro 2.0 for the deeper pixel processing.

[Peter Ferling]

So HDSDI ingest for HDV on tape will be quicker vs. firewire. Nice.

The Sony LMD will have an HDSDI input card, so I can just run the output of the HS card to that for preview, correct? (Your answer suggested connecting to a DVI input).

For the second pc without the HS card, I have a dual head (DVI) quadro 1000. With an adaptor, I can setup the second LCD monitor as a preview monitor?

I have a 22" gateway that accepts component input. I can get a second widescreen LCD for the PC and use the gateway via component input as a HDTV preview monitor. What graphics card do you suggest I get for that setup? Will cineform then send a preview/HD signal to that?

Thanks for your help. It's late, I need to crash and burn and clear my head.

[David Newman]

Sounds like you will do fine with an HS card if your Sony monitor has an HDSDI input card. You will also likely need an AES-EBU audio to analog convert for synced audio (http://dv411.com/flyingcow.html.)

If you not using an AJA card you are using the overlay, which works just like Aspect HD. We recommend the Matrox Parhelia APVe.

[Peter Ferling]

Hey David, not sure about the matrox, it may issues with lightwave (as I do a lot of animation and they recommend ATI or Nvidia product -will check into it).

What audio sync issues will I encounter (ie. why do I need a flying cow : )

[David Newman]

You will need to run your audio through the AJA card for perfect sync. Basically if you are running desktop video use desktop audio, if you are running HDSDI video use HDSDI audio. For AJA playback we use hardware lock sync between audio and video (no drift is possible), whereas you PC audio is running off a different clock so sync issues occur. We only recommend AJA audio the HDSDI setups. The LH card has analog audio output, which makes this easy, yet HS is AES/EBU only -- that is why I recommended a FlyingCow.

[Peter Ferling]

I see, if I go HS, then get a flying cow, otherwise not needed for LH. That helps. It's a difference of $500 or so. I'll have to weigh in what I get for that going for the LH instead. (More reading to do...)

Thanks David, you've been a big help.

[Peter Ferling]

Looks like it's Xena HS, as the LH is not compatible with PPro 2.0 (HS is part of the adobe open initiative).

[David Newman]

Prospect HD supports this Xena OEM line of AJA cards HS,LH & LHe. The fact that Premiere Pro with Prospect HD only suport the HS, shouldn't be an issue, unless you are not interested in Prospect HD.

[Peter Ferling]

I am interested. I just put prospect on the list for our purchasing department (including an upgrade to PPro2 and AE7). I read the HS compatibility info on the AJA site. All that's left is the hardware that makes this solution work for me.

I also read that component use for the LH is forthcoming, so it's more or less a personal decision between the two cards.

I did a search on capture file sizes, and I've read conflicting numbers. I know the 8bit cineform files are about 40gigs/hr. How much larger will the 10bit file size increase? I gather that depends on quality settings as well.

[David Newman]

10-bit procession may average more like 50Gigs/hr, but there is lots on flexibility in set the compression level/quality (even more options in Prospect HD then Aspect HD.)

[Peter Ferling]

I ordered a Prospect and a Xena HS. Part of my decision was based on the support I'm getting here. So thanks again David.

[David Newman]

Thank you, we look forward to having you as a customer.