A Closer Look: AJA Kona 3 & Kona 3X

Meet KONA 3 & KONA 3X, the Heavyweight Champion Capture Cards for Uncompressed SD, HD, 2K & Dual Link HD on OS X

Visualize uncompressed video, 8-channel AES and embedded 16-channel audio, up/cross/down HD/SD format conversion, hardware downstream keyer and HD/SD component analog output — all your's on a state-of-the-art 4-lane PCIe card (KONA 3) or PCI-X card (KONA 3X). Intrigued? Like other members of the KONA family, KONA 3 is designed for no-holds-barred design and editing — with support for Apple Final Cut Studio — plus hardware acceleration for the DVCPROHD and HDV codecs, and Dynamic RT Extreme effects in Final Cut Pro 5. It’s a knockout — KONA 3 — the new standard-bearer for quality, flexibility and future-safe architecture in a QuickTime I/O card.

KONA 3 is the ultimate uncompressed capture card for seamless operation with PCI Express (PCIe) Apple G5 Power Macs and Apple Final Cut Pro (the KONA 3X offers the same flexibility for older PCI-X based G5 Power Macs). Supporting any uncompressed SD or HD format, including Dual Link and 2K, KONA 3 captures and plays back uncompressed 10-bit and 8-bit digital video and 24-bit digital audio, providing unparalleled power and workflow efficiency. KONA 3 also includes a variety of 10-bit broadcast-quality features, such as hardware-based up-, down- and crossconversion to and from HD, and adds a live hardware HD/SD keyer for compositing bugs, live clips and other elements over video.

Dual Link

KONA 3 supports Dual Link 4:4:4 HD-SDI, a new technology on the Macintosh platform. Commonly known as Sony HDCAM SR or Thompson Viper Format, KONA 3 Dual Link supports full bandwidth 4:4:4 RGB at 10-bits (12-bit capable) for 1080i, 1080p and 720p formats. KONA 3 can also convert between 4:4:4 and 4:2:2 formats for Single Link HD-SDI output.

2K Workflow

The KONA 3 2K path offers significant cost and labor savings over a tape-based approach to 2K. In a unique development for customers on the Macintosh platform, you can go straight from telecine to disk with 2K media and eliminate the steps of using tape stock and then digitizing those tapes for the nonlinear editor. The added 2K support in KONA 3 v2 will benefit large, full-service facilities as well as boutique facilities entering the 2K “film as digital” landscape.

2K telecine to KONA 3 saves time and steps in the process by directly and simultaneously creating 2K DPX files and 2K QuickTime™ reference movies. Material can be played out at 2K via HSDL (High Speed Data Link), offering further synergy with other 2K products available and already in use.

Additionally, KONA 3 v2 allows 2K files to be viewed on HD 1080 24P-supported video monitors, lowering the price barrier for recording to tape and viewing 2K material. This 1080 HD playout can also be downconverted to SD in real time, giving the 2K DI pipeline a powerful solution for multiformat video playout of 2K material.

By generating 2K DPX files during the digitize phase, different parts of the process (delivery of full-resolution media for shots intended for visual effects, for example) can be done much earlier. Offline editing can be done in Final Cut Pro and, because of the flexibility of Final Cut Pro and QuickTime, even a 2K online is possible.

Broadcast-Quality Conversion

KONA 3 features full 10-bit, broadcast-quality, motion-adaptive SD to HD upconversion, HD to HD crossconversion, HD to SD downconversion and automatic HD/SD 12-bit component analog output. That’s the equivalent of rolling AJA’s stand-alone HD D/A converter, our HD to SD downconverter and our SD to HD upconverter into one convenient, cost-efficient KONA 3 board — at half the price! The quality is identical to AJA’s award-winning stand-alone products, and all functionality is hardware-based, making it available full time, all the time, on digitize or playback. KONA 3 will address users’ needs with support for hardware-based 1080-to-720 or 720-to-1080 crossconversion. This desirable feature further streamlines dailies and deliverables creation at true broadcast-picture quality in real time.

Internal HD/SD Live Hardware Keyer

Available for the first time on any QuickTime capture card is a powerful hardware keyer that can place graphic files with an alpha channel over video input, a selectable matte or the contents of the card’s framebuffer (KONA TV/Final Cut Pro). Even more than that, you can also key video that has an alpha channel over video input or a matte. For example, you can load a QuickTime clip with an alpha-channel — a flying logo perhaps — into KONA TV, then place it over live video coming into the card.

Audio

KONA 3’s extensive audio support makes installation a breeze, working with 8-channel 24-bit 96kHz AES audio via XLR (balanced) connections, and 16-channel embedded 24-bit 48kHz embedded SDI/HD-SDI audio. KONA 3 also features high-quality input sample-rate conversion on AES inputs, which eliminates the need for audio source synchronization.

Connectivity

Looking for unsurpassed cable connectivity? Well, look no further, because when you plug in KONA 3’s breakout cables, they automatically configure. For SDI video, the card features two HD/SD inputs and two outputs for Single or Dual Link, one connection for Genlock input and three for HD/SD analog video out. Also included is a 9-pin D-connector for RS-422 machine control. The SDI inputs and outputs use a separate cable with special mini-BNC connectors on one end and full-sized BNCs on the other for ease of connection and superior reliability.

The K3-Box for KONA 3 simplifies interfacing by offering a 19-inch, 1RU rack-mountable breakout box that attaches to the KONA 3 with just two cables. This option offers all the same inputs and outputs as the standard breakout cable, and can be easily rack-mounted or placed on top of a broadcast monitor or editing desk. Additional functionality includes simultaneous XLR and BNC AES output, 2-channel RCA analog audio monitoring, and looping BNC Genlock reference connectors. If you’re using a digital Betacam deck, HDCAM, DVCPRO HD, D5, D9 or even an HDCAM SR, you’ll have the proper connections.

KONA Desktop

Most users run multiple applications to create their video projects. So, in addition to Final Cut Pro support, the KONA Desktop feature allows broadcast design elements to be viewed with the proper aspect ratio and color depth on a broadcast monitor via the KONA card. KONA Desktop supports Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop, Apple Motion, Apple Shake, Discreet Combustion and more.

KONA 3 Hardware Acceleration

Final Cut Pro users will love our DVCPROHD, HDV and Apple Dynamic RT Extreme hardware acceleration, developed in close cooperation with Apple and available exclusively on high-end KONA cards. KONA 3 hardware takes a portion of the codec processing load off the CPU, allowing more RealTime (RT) effects in Final Cut Pro when outputting. KONA 3 also has hardware support when capturing. This brings amazing RealTime HD production power to the desktop. With KONA 3, any source can be captured using the DVCPROHD codec — giving you online HD quality at remarkably low data rates, allowing the internal PowerMac SATA storage to be used for HD capture, playback and RT effects. Of course, you’ll obtain still better performance and more RT when using a fast SCSI or Fibre array, but this feature allows HD to be used where only SD would have been considered because of budget or time constraints. KONA 3 even supports the DVCPROHD and HDV codecs with up- or downconversion — allowing projects to be downconverted to SD, or even upconverted for DVCPROHD capture.

How Does KONA Accelerate DVCPROHD, HDV & Apple's Dynamic RT?

Because KONA’s precision hardware does part of the work, the G5 has more time available to process RT effects. This means more RT-effects power, and more RT streams. Most broadcast codecs, including DVCPROHD and HDV, use a two-step process. First, the video is scaled to a lower horizontal pixel count, and then the video is compressed. This is done because the slightly scaled video results in a favorable trade-off between resolution and codec efficiency. KONA 3’s hardware not only dramatically speeds up the scaling part of the job, but it’s also done with full 10-bit broadcast quality.

When using the Final Cut Pro HDV codec, the KONA 3 hardware acceleration allows instantaneous real-time playback for both monitoring and recording. Even KONA’s downconverter works in real-time with HDV, allowing SD monitoring, dubs or mastering. This KONA 3 functionality makes HDV a fully professional solution.

The Panasonic DVCPROHD format takes advantage of KONA hardware as well. KONA’s precision hardware allows capture and playback of HD-SDI video to and from the DVCPROHD codec at a quality level virtually indistinguishable from native FireWire, while freeing up valuable RT processing power.

For Final Cut Pro 5’s Dynamic RT feature, KONA’s hardware is used to offload the video scaling as the “playback video quality” dynamically adjusts. This allows more playback power — and because KONA handles it seamlessly, the Dynamic RT you see on the Mac monitor is the same as that shown on your professional broadcast monitor.

All of this adds up to the most reliable, feature-rich and highest-performance card available for OS X and Final Cut Pro. KONA 3 represents the next generation of technology.

K3-Box: breakout box for Kona 3 & Kona 3X

To arrange for a demo of the Kona 3 or Kona 3X today, contact us:

Audio Intervisual Design
1155 N. La Brea Avenue
West Hollywood, CA 90038
(323) 845-1155
sales@aidinc.com
www.aidinc.com

For more information on the entire AJA Video line of products, click here.