News - AJA Video - Serial Digital Video Interface and Conversion (http://www.aja.com/news/index_article.php?id=76)
Las Vegas, NV, NAB Conference Booth SL2513 (April 20, 2009)—AJA Video Systems, a leading manufacturer of professional video interface and conversion solutions, announced today that its Ki Pro portable digital disk recorder has been endorsed by top camera manufacturers including ARRI, Canon and RED.

Ki Pro records files to the Apple ProRes codec directly from camera, allowing filmmakers, broadcasters, video professionals and prosumers to skip the process of re-rendering to an editing codec by giving immediate access to 10-bit full raster edit-ready ProRes files. Ki Pro was introduced today, and will be on display at the AJA Booth (SL2513) during the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention at the Las Vegas Convention Center from April 20-23, 2009.

"We are really excited about the potential of Ki Pro to streamline decision making on-set and in postproduction. Coupled with the Full HD output of the ARRIFLEX D-21 camera, the Ki Pro provides direct transfer to a ready to edit format. Using Ki Pro with an Apple Final Cut Pro workstation on set, the production team can have instantaneous real time playback for take selection,” said Adrian Widera, Key Account TV International, ARRI.

“Ki Pro helps create an end-to-end solution for Canon videographers working in Final Cut Pro by delivering ‘edit-ready’ 10-bit video directly off of Canon professional camcorders,” said Joe Bogacz, technical advisor, professional products, Canon U.S.A. “We are happy to see this solution on display here at NAB 2009.”

“A big part of the RED ONE’s success in the cinema and television markets, is the combination of stunning 4K images along with flexible and logical post production solutions” said Ted Schilowitz of RED Digital Cinema. “The ability to record ProRes directly from the live HD videotap output from a RED ONE on a small portable device, while capturing the 4k REDCODE raw on the camera is a big deal. And I probably don’t even need to mention that because it’s an AJA product, it will no doubt hit the legendary quality and top notch level of support that industry pros have come to count on every day on the job.”

“Ki Pro fills the gap between camera acquisition and post production, giving filmmakers and video professionals instant access to their material,” commented Nick Rashby, President, AJA Video. “It’s extremely gratifying to bring this product to market with the support and enthusiasm of companies such as Apple, ARRI, Canon and RED.”

About Ki Pro Ki Pro provides a new way of connecting production and post with its extensive analog and digital connectivity; virtually any video and audio source can be fed into Ki Pro to record pristine 10-bit ProRes media that is then immediately available to edit within Apple’s Final Cut Studio. Ki Pro will allow users to record hours of pristine ProRes media to a removable storage module with built-in FireWire 800, or to 34mm ExpressCard Flash, for immediate editing and file access. The unit can connect to any digital camera via SDI or HDMI, or any analog camera with multiple input options. Ki Pro is priced at $3995 US MSRP and will be shipping in June of 2009.
AJA Ki Pro at DVcreators.net (http://www.dvcreators.net/aja-ki-pro/)

How is playback done? Thumbnail selection or do you have to select by clip text reference from front display?

How is record triggered from the camera? Can this be done via SDI and HDMI?

How is playback done? Thumbnail selection or do you have to select by clip text reference from front display?

How is record triggered from the camera? Can this be done via SDI and HDMI?

To playback a clip you would select it using the controls and hit play. The playback would be live over all the outputs. With wi-fi you can control the unit from a web browser - even an iPhone.
Currently, the device is not triggered to record by lanc or lens remote. It will be in a future release. The ports are there.
AJA demonstrated the unit live in front of us at the dealer event and it looks to be a home run for those with the budget.
http://www.dvcreators.net/aja-ki-pro/

Just to be clear.

Are you selecting the clip by a clip number from the front LCD or does it go into playback mode and show thumbnails for clip selection on a connected monitor? Like the Sony EX-30

The deck should be setup to go into record from the TC embedded across SDI. ie when you start rec-run on your camera the Ki Pro should see that signal an instigate record on the deck. This works with the CD XDR.

The Ki Pro allows selection of clips to playback via the menu on the front of the unit which is text. The iPhone browser interface I briefly saw is also text, no thumbnails. I'll see if I can get the correct answers for you regarding the triggering of record from the incoming SDI stream.

I just uploaded a video featuring AJA's Jon Thorn, Product Manager. Check it out AJA Ki Pro at DVcreators.net (http://www.dvcreators.net/aja-ki-pro/)

Scott W. - Sorry for the tardy reply, I actually had an issue logging into DVinfo.net from Las Vegas and NAB for some reason... To answer your questions...

You asked: How is playback done?
Response: The Ki Pro has several ways you can perform playback of a clip. First, you can use the simple VTR-like transport keys on the front of the unit to playback the currently cued clip - noted on the LCD along with other useful data. Or you can playback from the web UI via either a wired ethernet connection to the device or via the wireless connection, even using your iPhone to select the clip and playback. You know which clip is which on the device because they have logical names, such as "SC1TK1" or CLIP2TK5" or "SC6BTK5". To select a clip from your recordings, use the select up and select down buttons on the physical UI to select the clips, then simply hit the play key, or use the pulldown menu via the web UI.

You asked: How is the record triggered from the camera?
Response: For the 1.0 release, we will have the record key active as well as timecode arming. There will be many other options by our 2.0 firmware release such as arm recording from lens tap or LANC input. You should note, HDMI does not have any timecode data or other useful ancillary data for us to use as a reference to arm the recording, so it isn't ideal. In a future release of Ki Pro firmware, we will enable the lens tap functionality for products that have neither HD-SDI embedded timecode, LTC timecode or LANC/lens tap options, we will enable the FireWire 400 port on the Ki Pro which is not a DV/HDV compressed input, but rather a way for us to see a timecode signal from some consumer/prosumer cameras. We have this slated for the 2.0 firmware update or at the latest by the 3.0 firmware update.

Hope this information is helpful,
Jon Thorn
Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
California

Hi Jon, thanks for coming aboard. It's always very difficult to process new member accounts during NAB week (they're all done by hand, by me). Thanks for your patience. Sure appreciate your presence here. Best regards,

In appears that Aja has produced a "game changer" with the Ki Pro.

First question that comes up is bit rates that are possible with the unit.

Second question is with the storage modules. Are they user serviceable? In other words can you crack them open and swap out drives or do you have to buy new storage modules if you want a larger drive?

Andrew S. - The QuickTime recordings that are produced by Ki Pro are standard Apple ProRes 422 and Apple ProRes 422 (HQ); these are 145Mbps and 220Mbps respectively. AJA offers a free data rate calculator application on our website if you want to see what these values equate to in run times for the respective drive sizes. With the 250GB module that ships with the unit, you've got a lot of time for your recordings.

Can you open up the drive cartridge shell and put a new drive in? Yes, physically possible... but we don't want users to do this and will "strongly discourage" this type of activity. This is not a "I'll just put my own drive in there to save money" solution; we worked long and hard to qualify the drive the unit ships with. Putting something else in there could be a big headache for you, your production, and our tech support team if it doesn't meet the requirements in terms of bandwidth to support write/read speeds of Apple ProRes 422. I hope you believe us when we say that we are not interested in marking up the drives - the 250GB shipping unit that is included can also be purchased for $269 if you need additional cartridges. Close to a dollar per GB is pretty reasonable and standard for our industry.

Hope this information is helpful - feel free to ask other questions,
Jon Thorn
Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
California

KiPro is going to be HUGE! While the price tag may be high for some, if you can get it in your budget, the return on investment will be well worth it. You are going to save so much time - and time is MONEY!

We've been selling the FireStores for years, and customers like them, but one of the biggest complaints / requests we've been getting over the past year is why don't they have a more professional unit that goes straight into ProRes or Avid DNxHD.

With the KiPro you get full ProRes in all it's HD glory. While the unit isn't small, Aja ws showing all kinds of different mounting solutions for it at NAB, and now that the world has seen it, I expect to see some clever folks come out with additional mounting solutions specifically for KiPro.

Gary
Videoguys.com - AJA Ki Pro (http://www.videoguys.com/Item/AJA+Ki+Pro/0325D2F42505D294B4.aspx)

I hope you believe us when we say that we are not interested in marking up the drives - the 250GB shipping unit that is included can also be purchased for $269 if you need additional cartridges. Close to a dollar per GB is pretty reasonable and standard for our industry.



That's not bad because these aren't just drives but they have FW800 support on them and SATA ports to connect to the Ki Pro. A buck a Gig is a fair price IMO.

Much appreciated! Thanks Jon.

After reviewing the specs, can anyone confirm the ability to record uncompressed HD component video out of a camera like the Canon XH A1? For those without SDI but want a high quality 4:2:2 I frame codec, this would be an excellent solution if the Ki Pro can handle it. It would also be less expensive than going the P2 route.


Another great feature if supported would be HD component in and simultaneous outputs through your choice of HDMI, HD component, AND SDI.

Hoy Q. - The AJA Ki Pro supports input from SDI, HDMI and yes, component analog... SD or HD. So if you own the Canon XH-A1 camera (a fine camera I might add), you will be able to use the Ki Pro with it.

As for the second part of your question, all of the outputs are active at the same time like they are on the AJA desktop products; this means that you could be connected to Ki Pro with an analog component signal, but outputting to monitors and other equipment on set with the HDMI output, the SDI output and the analog component output. We tried to make the device as friendly for all types of cameras and monitoring as possible.

Hope this helps answer your questions - sorry I missed this post last night or I might have answered sooner!

Jon Thorn
Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.

what's the workflow, if any, for capture and edit on a PC? seems that AJA has missed half the marketplace on this.

What does the unit weigh? I haven't found any info on the AJA web site yet on specs, etc.

What does the unit weigh? I haven't found any info on the AJA web site yet on specs, etc.

3lbs for the weight.

AJA Ki Pro at DVcreators.net (http://www.dvcreators.net/aja-ki-pro/)

Pricing on the FW800 500GB "spinning disk" module $385. Yeah. That's $385 for 6hours of 4:2:2 1920x1080 ProRes in Standard Quality at 18MB/sec. Try that with P2, SxS or SDHC.

Hoy Q. - The AJA Ki Pro supports input from SDI, HDMI and yes, component analog... SD or HD. So if you own the Canon XH-A1 camera (a fine camera I might add), you will be able to use the Ki Pro with it.



Sold! I was planning to upgrade to P2 because of the better codec. The Canon captures a great image with old reliable 3 CCDs but the HDV codec suffers when there is a lot of motion. The Ki Pro should easily solve that with the component input for the A1. Saved a couple grand on the SDI output option... let alone a new camera.

I am also speculating that the XLR inputs should be able to capture a pristine audio signal comparable to a Sound Devices mixer. (Another $1,300 saved)

Monitoring with component inputs saves the upgrade to a new SDI monitor.

500gb option allows for virtually all day recording (Try that on a firestore or a laptop). I had several jobs where I add cost (separate line item) of the hard drive to the daily rate. They get ready to edit footage immediately at the end of the day. No fuss, no transferring, no shipping, and even if you had to encode/copy it, that is sombody's time and money + they still need a hard drive to store the footage. $400 bucks for 4-6 hours of 4:2:2 10 bit is a steal. Let your client return it to you for the next gig and you locked up another job.


I also heard that the Ki Pro can save to express card memory but only in regular ProRes (Not HQ) due to speed. I am calculating 220 Mbps (HQ) will require a sustained 27.5 MB/s and 145 Mbps can work with 18 MB/s write speeds. Any potential solutions with SxS cards or less expensive alternatives?

Also wondering about battery options. An optional battery pack that can attach directly to the unit would be nice. Allow the use of a pair of Panasonic / Canon / Sony batteries would be great (no need to invest in another set of batteries). Similar solution as the Marshal monitors. It would be bit clunky to rig a AB or V mount to the unit.

An optional battery pack that can attach directly to the unit would be nice. Allow the use of a pair of Panasonic / Canon / Sony batteries would be great (no need to invest in another set of batteries). Similar solution as the Marshal monitors. It would be bit clunky to rig a AB or V mount to the unit.

So that would be two batteries on the Ki Pro, one on the camera (and maybe one or two more on an onboard monitor, etc etc....) have to admit, THAT sounds clunky to me compared to a single battery for all!

No question, a single battery would be more efficient for the entire rig. Options are always nice. Most of us have a few spare batteries so if we are only running a camera and recorder, throw a couple spares on the AJA and we are good to go - no need to invest in a V mount or AB set up. For those with existing V or AB batteries, recorder + monitor -running 3 taps on one battery would definitely be the way to go.

I too want to do the exact same thing with my xh a1 and now saving for it. Only thing will be to see a shoulder mount kit all rigged up and how much from zacuto or someone else. But yes know i dont have to buy new cameras for a while now and produce better quality at same time. One thing i would like to know is if you can connect the harddrive up to esata to transfer so much quicker then fire800. I know it hooks up firewire800 but it hooks up sata wise to kipro so assuming you could hook it up somehow to double speed transfers. I asked aja reps at nab and one told me yes and another told me no.

James H. - Ki Pro with the 250GB drive module in the unit weighs 3.55 lbs.

Guy C. - Not sure anyone gave me information to pass on about a 500GB drive module... ;-) 250GB spinning drive is $269 US MSRP. 128GB SSD version is $695 US MSRP, and 256GB SSD version is $1,395 US MSRP. I can check on the 500GB front, but don't recall that... not something that I've seen/used yet when demoing the product. Drive capacity always increases though... remember when we were excited about having 9GB of storage? ;-)

Hoy Q. - Yes, the audio inputs will allow you to record 48KHz 24-bit audio. You might still want a mixer, but we do provide audio level control knobs if you feel they are sufficient, then I suppose you could indeed forgo the use of a mixer...

Yes, we can use ExpressCard/34 media in the device and yes, as of now, we are really only recommending trying to record "standard" Apple ProRes 422 and not the "HQ" variant to this media. Currently we are only recommending Delkin 8GB Industrial ExpressCard/34 media. Why? Well, you might note that you need a driver to mount Sony SxS media on your MacBook Pro... same for a Windows machine. As of right now - and this may change - there is not a driver available for us to mount the Sony media in the Ki Pro. We are talking with Sony about this and they have shown an interest, so support for SxS might even be enabled by the time the product ships, but I cannot promise that. Sorry... still up in the air.

Battery options? You've got a lot actually... Ki Pro operates at very low wattage, much less than a 40 watt household light bulb (depending upon what gets turned on in the unit anywhere from roughly 20+ watts to just over 30 watts), and therefore you should be able to run for quite a long time when used with something like an Anton Bauer Dionic 90 battery. Note that a lot of devices we showed at NAB are capable of using an Anton Bauer battery - in fact we were using only one type of battery - the Dionic 90 - for sustained durations with our devices (like our LCD monitor we had, the JVC GY-HM700 we were using, etc.) We ran the Ki Pro several times during the show from the Dionic 90 via a PowerTap to XLR cable from Anton Bauer that is readily available. Theoretically, if your camcorder was low power consumption, you might be able to run it and the Ki Pro from one power source... we will be trying that sort of thing out for sure (you can probably appreciate why, though it was working at NAB, we did not want to just start shipping the product immediately! The QA process is quite lengthy for a device that does so much!) If you get the optional Exoskeleton and use 15mm rods, mounting batteries via something like the Zacuto DoubleMount and v3 plate in combination with an Anton Bauer plate creates a quite elegant power solution. If you don't want to go that route, you can also get a little V-mount to 15mm rod widget from the guys at Element Technica to mount a V-mount battery on... or you can run a brick battery with a straight XLR 4-pin line to the Ki Pro or... or... do you see a pattern forming here guys? ;-)

Charles P. - Wish you had been at NAB... battery mounting is not clunky at all - in fact I think as a "former" camera-person, that it is quite elegant. We will have plenty of hi-res images of various configurations on our website just before we begin shipping... battery use/mounting has not been much of an issue for anyone thus far who has seen it in person.

Luke G. - Sadly, I had a co-worker take images of myself handholding the Ki Pro mounted alongside a Sony HDV camera, but the marketing folks said that the images needed to be professionally done (not taken with an iPhone!) and thus why we haven't shown them yet - professional photos are forthcoming, happily with a better looking model than myself holding the camera! ;-) Here is how the initial handheld configuration has been accomplished: mount your camera to something like the Zacuto universal baseplate product, extend rods out behind the camera, use a shoulder pad (Zacuto provides that as well FYI), then invert the rod endplates of the Ki Pro Exoskeleton and mount the Ki Pro on the same plane as the camera, not below it as you would in tripod mode. This serves two purposes: it transforms these somewhat awkward smaller cameras that you typically hold out away from your body into true shoulder mount cameras, and second you actually end up balancing the weight of these cameras (which tend to fall in the 3 to 6 pound range) with the weight of the Ki Pro.

As for your drive question, yes inside the Ki Pro, the drive is connected via a SATA connection, and - for now - you will be connecting to the host computer via the FireWire 800 connector. Will there be SATA to eSATA connectors and other options coming? Undoubtedly, but we wanted something you could use out of the box. Lots of companies are excited to support this product, so expect plenty of options/accessories so you can configure it however you please.

Jon Thorn
Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
California

Hi John:

I should have been more explicit; I meant that managing multiple batteries is a clunky way to work, when one Dionic 90 would handily power everything (or v-mount equivalent, etc). Having to keep an eye on so many power sources is like spinning plates, and when one is in the midst of a hectic shoot it's easy to drop one. Sometimes that is a mere annoyance, other times it's downright risky (possiblity of losing footage or audio,etc).

Charles P. - Charles, most of the smaller (also read "lower power consumption" cameras) should be able to run off of one Anton Bauer - or other professional battery - as well as be able to provide power to the Ki Pro, The appropriate battery and adapter cables will be required of course and this is something that will be part of our testing procedure. Ki Pro needs just under 10 volts of power to operate properly, (9.6v I believe is our minimum) and it can operate when provided with up to nearly 16 volts.

I can appreciate not trying to juggle a variety of batteries... I have many memories of this... When I was a first A.C. on film sets, I had to carry one of those handy little voltage readers that went between the battery and the camera that would tell you how much juice the battery had left before the director and the D.P. decided to try rolling that long, elaborate continuous take in an homage to "Touch of Evil" for over 8 minutes straight with the 1000 ft. magazine attached to the camera. :-) "Before we do the take, may I switch the battery out please?"

When I worked in video, I always loathed that the cameras were sometimes using NP style batteries... and the monitor batteries something else... (sigh) At least now, you could elect to run one battery type to power a variety of your gear, and the Dionic 90 seems like a very good choice not only for its weight, form factor and status indicator, but also because I believe it is one of the few "safe for flight" batteries you can elect to use. According to the Anton Bauer manual for the Dionic 90: "Anton/Bauer, Inc. declares that the Dionic 90 lithium ion batterypack contains equivalent lithium content (ELC) in a quantity not exceeding 8 grams. This quantity is in compliance with section ICAO/IATA Special Provision A45 and US 49 CFR (Hazardous Material Regulation).The Dionic 90 battery pack thus is excepted by definition and therefore is suitable for air transport as a non-hazardous article."

Just some things to consider when looking at a battery solution to power Ki Pro and your other products...

And congratulations on "The Perfect Sleep" by the way... that turned out very well !!! The producer of the film provided AJA with the trailer for display in our booth at NAB - people were very impressed with the look and were eager to see the film based on the trailer (I particularly like the Palm Springs images myself!)

Hope this information on the batteries is helpful,
Jon

Jon Thorn
Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
California

And congratulations on "The Perfect Sleep" by the way... that turned out very well !!! The producer of the film provided AJA with the trailer for display in our booth at NAB - people were very impressed with the look and were eager to see the film based on the trailer (I particularly like the Palm Springs images myself!)

I had no idea--and wish I had. The only time I spent in the AJA booth was looking at the GearNex head, and that briefly. So much to see, so little time.

Would have loved to have seen the trailer playing at the show.

p.s. it's viewable in HD at:

theperfectsleep.com/1080/1080.HTML

or rest of site:

theperfectsleep.com

Thankyou so much for all the info Jon, and i cant wait to see a should mount rig like you talked about the zacuto options. I do have another ? though, On the audio xlr inputs is their any limiter on the kipro to prevent peaking or is just set level with knobs and thats it. So i think their are two xrl imputs on kipro so how does each input get recorded with video file on kipro. And does the kipro record video and audio perfect so no audio or video drift. So no worry of having to sync in post. Oh and man this is answer to my prayers thank you guys so much for making this i cant say enough how excited i am about this product.

Jon,
i wanted to repeat Bill Ravens' question. What about those of us editing on pc with CS3, for example?
thanks
Bruce yarock
Yarock Video and Photo (http://www.yarockvideo.com)

Charles P. - Sorry you missed your own project in our booth! That GearNex head was a bit distracting though... that is a fine product and made by some very nice people. Expect that product to be wildly successful.

Luke G. - I so, so wish I could just post my iPhone pictures of the hand held configuration, but alas, I must follow our company rules and only share approved images... sorry!

As for the audio question, no limiter so you will need to use the audio level control knobs to determine peak level... if you need more than this to control the sound, then mixers and other audio devices can easily be placed in the audio signal path for added control. Yes, audio and video should be in sync if they are in sync from the camera or the audio/video source. One exception to this that I know from previous experimenting with other AJA products: the original Canon XL-H1 camcorder had HD-SDI output, but this output did not carry embedded audio in it. If you tried to use the analog outputs from the camera with the HD-SDI feed, they were out of sync by about 2 frames. Please note that this is NOT the case with the new Canon XL-H1s product which has embedded audio in the HD-SDI. Just thought I would mention that if you have two disparate sources (like an analog source and a digital source that come from the same host camera, they could be out of time with each other I'm afraid). So, if you have HD-SDI with embedded audio, you probably would want to record that audio using Ki Pro. If you had embedded HDMI audio, you would probably want to record that audio using Ki Pro. If you had component analog input, you can only elect to get your audio from an analog audio source. Hope this makes sense...

Luke if you are happy with the product, we will be happy with the product. AJA prides itself on trying to deliver products that people want and that improve their work.

Bruce Y. - If you are editing on a PC with Adobe Premiere, you will be able to read the QuickTime Apple ProRes 422 media if you have the Apple ProRes 422 QuickTime Decoder component installed:
http://support.apple.com/downloads/Apple_ProRes_QuickTime_Decoder_1_0_for_Windows

Keeping in mind of course that this is a decoder only: you will not be able to write Apple ProRes 422 QuickTimes on your PC. If you don't like the playback or possible rendering issues that this might cause you, then I would recommend that you simply transcode to another codec of your choosing on Windows for use with Adobe Premiere. And of course, this could change in the future, but this support has as much to do with Windows, Apple and Adobe as it does with anyone else. Sorry.

As usual, hope this is helpful information,
Jon

Jon Thorn
Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
California

One of my primary goals is to get away from the HDV codec. Capturing to a 4:2:2 I frame is a huge improvement. In the Windows environment, we had excellent results with Cineform and one can easily take ProRes and convert it to Cineform which plays very well with Premiere. We bypassed that issue by converting all our systems to Macs.

So If I do use companent input from my xh a1 into kipro would I then also go xlr into kipro instead of xlr into a1 then RCA into kipro. Which way would for sure sound better audio wise and be synced perfectly. If not One of these ways works I guess could use ur analog to Sdi converter but prefer to not add another piece since want to be run an gun.

I am planning to run XLRs straight into the KiPro (should get perfect sync) and avoid an analog to digital SDI converter (another battery powered device). I can also run audio out of the KiPro and send it back (line in) to the A1 for HDV tape backup. The 24bit audio and hopefully cleaner preamps on the KiPro should give the best results in this configuration.

Hi Jon,

Theoretically, since the KI is merely taking a signal from either the SDI or HDMI line of the camera and then recording/upconverting/crossconverting into it's own ProRes Format, doesn't that mean that the KI can record in any frame rate it wants?

Therefore, if I hook up my Canon 5D Mark II to your KI I could then hit the magical 24p frame rate.

Right?

Thanks,
David Fisher
Dallas

Following the same logic, (and assuming it works) you might be able to take the uncompressed 1080p HDMI signal out of a Canon Rebel T1i ($900) and feed it into the KiPro and record at 30p or 24p 4:2:2 as well.

That will be a killer application! - Do we see a Scarlet substitute for less than $5k here?

I am very interested in this device.

One of my questions is more along the lines of 10-bit ProRes 422 iFrame v.s. 8-bit Sony 422 Long-GOP XDCam.

I would be using this device mostly for films, commercials or other productions that need keying, color correcting/look, etc.

I've heard the Sony codec is more efficient in terms of compression, but only gives you 8-bit images.

I'm shooting a Sony EX1, which I believe is 10-bit off the SDI port.

I've also heard iFrame is much easier on the CPU than Long-GOP. My machine handles Long-GOP fine, but if I can get more streams of real time using iFrame, that would be a factor too.

Are there any reviews, comparisons, etc. that anyone could direct me to?

Thanks,

Jim

Hoy Q. - Getting away from HDV compression is a good thing. A few years ago, I wrote a whitepaper that is still available on the AJA website that outlines the benefits of moving away from Long GOP MPEG2 for post production. For acquisition purposes, it is no small feat that some engineers got HD to fit on on a 25Mbps existing Mini-DV cassette tape! (In fact the data rate, amazingly enough, of HDV is actually lower than that of DV25!) You are also correct in your other assumption; it is quite easy to transcode between a high quality codec, such as CineForm, to another high quality codec like Apple ProRes 422. (The same could be said of AVC Intra 100Mbps).

Luke G. - There are several ways to tackle audio recordings. You could indeed send audio into the Ki Pro first, and then on to the camera. Or you could send audio to the camera, then on to Ki Pro. Or you could have a small portable mixer on set with enough outputs to feed both the camera and the Ki Pro simultaneously. I don't think that you will feel the need for an analog to digital converter... component analog HD is underrated due to the buzz factor surrounding digital connection. Monitoring in component analog HD is quite common and in some cases can produce better results than an HDMI output; remember that component analog HD could be routed to a CRT, while HDMI tends to be routed to LCD monitors, most of which (until very recently with a few of the newer models) have been limited to 8-bit. You will be able to wire up component analog video and analog audio to Ki Pro without converters and do your "run and gun" style of shooting.

Hoy Q. - Your plan for recording audio is certainly one option - as noted above in my reply to Luke, you should be able to configure as you see fit.

David F. - Ki Pro will only be able to record in a frame rate that is compatible with the Hz of the signal being sent to it. We do not allow for "Hz jumping". What do I mean by this? Well, we cannot go from 1080i 25 fps (50Hz) to 720p 59.94 fps (59.94Hz) because that is a Hz jump. We could go from say 525i 29.97 fps (59.94Hz) to 720p 59.94 fps (59.94Hz) or to 1080i 29.97 fps (59.94Hz). Ever wonder why some devices list things as "1080i 60" and other products list this as "1080i 29.97"? Both are correct, but one is really listing Hz and the other is listing frames per second.

Ah the Canon 5D MKII... such a fascinating product... I really and truly wish that it had a few more features that made it a true "video" camera, but it is first and foremost a DSLR and secondly a device that can record video. If you do a little searching on this and other websites, you will note that while you can get a signal out of the HDMI spigot, if you are performing a live recording to the device, then the output is scaled down inside of the full raster output. If you don't work this way, you get things like display overlays on the video for many of these DSLRs. So, in essence, this makes the output from the DSLRs not all that useful when combined with an external recorder like Ki Pro. This might change, but for now this is the case. Sorry folks... I too was pretty excited to use a DSLR as my "camera head" and the Ki Pro as my "camera back" but alas, that does not seem possible with the current generation of DSLR with video capabilities and HDMI outputs... now the next generation... we can only hope!

Hoy Q. - I haven't seen the Canon Rebel T1i but can only assume that the HDMI output from that device is like the other DSLRs with HDMI output... again, we wish, like you, that this was otherwise!

James H. - Apple created the Apple ProRes 422 and Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) codecs to address the needs of post production which are not always the same as the needs of production. Post production always wants to work with full raster video at as many bits per channel as possible. Why is this significant? Well, scaling video or reframing video when it is full raster is much less abusive to the image quality than when you work with an already scaled image and perform such tasks. As for the color, I always use the box of crayons analogy: would you rather color your image with a box of 256 shades of a color, or 1024 shades of a color? 8-bit is fine in many situations, but suffers when you attempt tasks like color correction or when you have heavy gradients (a natural one is a sky with a soft sunset). In 8-bit, banding of an image can appear much more quickly than it could in 10-bit. As a rule of thumb, it is also much preferred to perform tasks like keying for compositing with nothing less than a 10-bit image to avoid "fringing" and "jaggies" along the edges.

I think that various codecs serve a variety of purposes, so I am not, and will not, be interested in "bashing" codecs in a "shootout" with Apple ProRes 422... I'm not sure what that would serve ultimately. What I am willing to do is outline the relative merits of the codecs you are interested in examining. The Sony XDCam compression scheme is, as you note, quite efficient in terms of bandwidth and can come in a variety of bit rates (18Mbps, 25Mbps, 35Mbps, 50Mbps, 100Mbps, etc.) but in typical camera recordings from the EX series, users cannot exceed 35Mbps and the Long GOP MPEG2 scheme is used. Long GOP MPEG2 makes getting data down to lower bit rates an easier task (and usually is used alongside 8-bit color specificity to further help lower the data rate). Long GOP can become troubling for computer processing since recalculation of the building blocks of the image must be performed fairly regularly unless the footage is essentially left untouched. The relationship between obtaining pictures via the I,P,B architecture and editing can result in what people refer to as "sluggish" behavior... or the long wait for the non-linear editor to "conform" or reconstitute the picture. Essentially the non-linear editing system/CPU must perform an evaluation of which frame is to be used/displayed before you can perform an operation on the frame. You can begin to understand why this is an issue for all but the most powerful multi-core processor machines; lots of computations. I-frame does tend to be easier on the CPU because it is essentially just using/displaying one frame after another in forward or reverse... less math to perform, CPU does not have to work as hard, etc. Basic editing in a Long GOP situation is usually not that difficult, but can become more difficult when you begin working with a lot of effects or want to use the footage in an application that expects "whole" frame/I-frame behavior.

Hopefully this explanation makes sense. One goal of the Ki Pro and the use of Apple ProRes 422 is to elevate what are, in many cases, high quality lenses and sensors in modern small form factor camcorders beyond the limitations of the native camera recordings. We recognized that many people considered the 145Mbps and 220Mbps of Apple ProRes 422 and Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) at full raster and 10-bit to be the "sweet spot" in terms of quality and bandwidth.

Essentially, AJA just hopes that it can contribute to the success of your projects whether they are "films", commercials or other productions. I loathe the word "products" even though I'm a "Product Manager" because a product is something for a consumer to purchase in my understanding of those words... I prefer to think that I help make tools for artists. Sorry, a bit "off topic" I suppose, but nothing made me feel better than seeing the completed AJA showreel this year and knowing that we had helped people not only get their work done, but create their own works of art. This is not a bunch of marketing nonsense to me... it's why I'm looking at forums at 8am on a Sunday! ;-)

Let me know if you guys like this "address by name, address multiple comments at once" method I have adopted here in the forum... just seems the best way to manage things for me... my supervisors at work tell me I have to sleep some time! ;-)

As always, hope this latest bit of information is helpful,
Jon

Jon Thorn
Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
California

Great explanation Jon. Many of the codecs have been compromises due to the physical processing power in the camera or space available on storage media. There are plenty of posts all over the internet comparing the pros and cons of each with examples.

Cameras and optics have been evolving and improving (one can debate CMOS vs CCD) and it is great to see products such as the KiPro, Nano Flash and others who can take the native uncompressed signal out of a modern camera and save it in the best possible (professional) format.

I am looking forward to getting one of these devices and shooting a few projects with it.

Thank you so much for all the answers to my ?s and everyone elses. I have never seen my ?s answered so thourally on any forum. I have always heard about ajas great customer support but man it is no lie. I look forward to getting kipro when released and am glad to know if i have any ?s or need assitance that is the type i can look forward too. I see know why everyone on all the forums always says aja aja when it comes to anything you guys have a product (or tool) for. And me personally i like the format you answer in, makes it very easy to read and understand. Oh any chance of posting or releasing those pics you have of kipro on shouldermount kit on your iphone. I know you said you cant but man dying to see it

Jon,

Your single answers with our names works great. That way, I don't have to wade through a bunch of replies that may have been inserted between yours replies.

Also, thanks for the VERY thorough and informative answers.

As you are probably aware, there are devices on the market and coming to market that record SDI/HDMI using XDCam 422 8-bit encoding at 100Mbps to compact flash cards.

That's the quality of footage I comparing to ProRes 422 HQ.

I'm trying to know as much as I can to make a decision based on what will work best for my needs.

I like the idea of 10-Bit color in a compressed format a lot. And, if I can render out a movie much faster using an iFrame CODEC rather than Long-GOP, then that's another plus.

With storage so cheap these days, that's not a big issue either aside from archiving, which is definitely a consideration when shooting with the KI Pro.

Thanks again for the great info.

Jon,

Are those SSD packs based on SLC or MLC drives?
What sort of life expectancy could we expect from them given the intensive write/read work they will be put under. Especially if acting as video split decks on productions.

Jon,
Just double checking that:
1. The Ki Pro can record ProRes HQ in addition to standard ProRes?
2. And if the Ki Pro is recording ProRes HQ, it can only record ProRes HQ to Ki Pro's hard drive module, whether it be the spinning drive or a solid state - is this correct?

(and out of curiousity... it's my understanding that when capturing to ProRes HQ via a computer tethered camera, that this is best done with raid drives because a single 7200rpm sata drive may not handle the data input - thus, I'm assuming that the spinning disk type module is spinning faster than 7200 rpm... Please feel free to school me...)

Thanks,
Lonnie

Is there an MSRP or street price on the cage/exoskeleton yet?

Sorry everyone for the somewhat tardy reply to questions... not my usual style if you might have noted from the normally quick replies to previously to your questions. I was traveling and I just could not manage answering these questions from my iPhone honestly! ;-)

Okay... here we go...

Scott W. - The solid state units use Flash MLC. They are rated to 1 million hours MTBF. Try that with a tape! ;-) Yes, simultaneous IOPS (input/output operations per second) are not something we've promised. Basically you are recording with the device, then you are playing back... yes, it would be pretty cool to do a write/read at the same time from the media.. but I think that may be too much to expect from a single disk... Look to partner companies like Gallery with their Picture Ready software for solutions that offer this capability via a computer with an attached disk array.

Lonnie B. - Yes, the Ki Pro can record Apple ProRes 422 as well as Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) though I suspect many people - myself included - will simply record "standard" Apple ProRes 422 since the quality is so amazingly good for 145Mbps. For now, you can only record to the "drive bay" media - be it spinning mechanism or SSD - if you want to "safely" record Apple ProRes 422 (HQ). This has a lot to do with the media that we can currently mount in the Ki Pro for making the recordings. I'm sure you will see this change with time... lots of progress with ExpressCard/34 media is happening... we chose it as our "other" recording medium for a reason...

Normally, I would encourage people to use an array to capture any type of media. Then I would go a step further and recommend that they use a protected RAID solution, like RAID 5 for example... but lugging around a device with a RAID 5 array in it - which in turn presents issues when you want to swap recording media out - simply was not what we had in mind for this product. Can you record Apple ProRes 422 or Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) to a single SATA drive? You sure can with the proper drive mechanism and the SATA connection to the host. Here is a simple test that you can run... take the internal SATA boot drive on a modern Mac Pro computer and run our freeware AJA System Test application, selecting the disk as the Volume, the Video Frame Size as 1920x1080 10-bit, the File Size as 2.0GB and check the "Disable file system cache" and then hit the blue "Start" button in the left hand side of the UI... watch as the Write and Read transactions happen... you will notice pretty consistent behavior... when this finishes, look at the resulting graph that is produced. You should see numbers that far exceed the roughly 30MB/sec that are required for the maximum Apple encoding. Note: Could you see an issue if you run such a test on your harddrive? Sure... if you've got drive issues due to packing the targeted drive really full with your iTunes collection, every photo you've ever taken or some other "seek time" related trouble like a bad disk sector!) And yes, we are talking about 7200 RPM mechanisms if we are talking about spinning media and the Ki Pro recorder.

Andrew S. - MSRP on the Ki Pro Exoskeleton is $595 USD. If you would like to use the optional Rod Endplates so you can use standard 15mm rods and associated accessories, these are in a kit (both endplates) for $245 USD. "15mm rods sold separately by others".

Also to Hoy, Luke and James... thanks for your kind words... everyone at AJA is very busy right now and we are working quite hard, so we are sorry if it takes us a day or two to reply to you right now. I tried to make up for this by posting a bit this past Sunday since I knew Monday through today, Wednesday, might be particularly difficult considering my travel schedule.

Thanks again for all the comments and questions.

Jon Thorn
Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
California

First off it's a wonderfull product at a great price point so congratulations.

Now for Windows users it seems nice and easy for me to convert into Cineform and go from there so I'm happy but I am presuming that the Storage module and the Expresscard are as easily accessed as if it was a Mac ? ie: I plug them in and can access the clips ? no need to transfer them from a Mac first or anything like that ?

Ian S. - Yes, you can certainly elect to transcode the Apple ProRes 422 QuickTime files that Ki Pro produces to CineForm files if you so desire. Disclaimer: AJA is friendly not only with Apple, but also CineForm so I don't want this to be interrupted as a sales pitch, but if you are interested in 3D, there is some interesting collaboration between Apple's Final Cut Pro, CineForm and AJA that was on display at NAB 2009 - sorry to digress but thought it might be of technical interest to this group!

Back to the topic at hand...

You may already know that Apple ProRes 422 QuickTime files can be read on a PC via the Apple ProRes Decoder for Windows:
Apple - Downloads - Application Updates - Apple ProRes QuickTime Decoder 1.0 for Windows (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/application_updates/appleproresquicktimedecoder10forwindows.html)

So this means that you can open and review your Apple ProRes 422 QuickTime files via QuickTime Player on Windows. Note that this is a decoder and not an encoder/decoder, so, as you might have been implying Ian, you typically would want to transcode to the codec that is native or optimal for your editing environment. This should, in most cases, be pretty transparent in terms of quality achieved because you are starting out with a full scale piece of video at 10-bit, 4:2:2 quality via the Apple ProRes 422 codec.

Mounting Mac volumes on a PC is something that is also covered by softwares like Mediafour's Mac Drive.

Hope this additional information is useful... and thanks for your kind words about the product Ian... comments like this mean a lot to product managers after working in secret on products for up to two years at a time!

Jon Thorn
Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
California

Hi Jon,

Thanks for contributing in such great detail here on the forum!

I have some questions and perhaps some feature requests.

I am considering using the Aja Ki for the multi-cam shoot at our church.
Currently we have 5 custom made Mac servers to record in SD. They were supplied by GVS. We have them housed in a machine room and remote control them with a MacBook using remote desktop.

Ideally I'd like to house the Kis in the same place because that's where the cables are.
Most of the time we will want to start and stop all of the recorders at the same time. If they can be started on the same frame then it will be very easy to line the cameras up on the timeline if the time code gets lost.

-My request is that in the web based remote controller you be will able to "arm" each Ki for recording and then click one button to start them.

-My second request is redundancy. It would be nice if you were able to write to both the hard drive AND the express card at the same time. The Sound Devices 788T does this for 8 channels of audio.

-It would also be nice if the FW800 port on the back could be used to attach a hard drive for additional redundancy as the Sound Devices 788T does. In fact the 788T can simultaneously record to all three locations- internal HDD, external HDD, and CF card.

Redundancy is very important because so many people don't trust tapeless recording. Redundancy is great in the studio as well as on location.

-Genlock? I don't see that, I hope that isn't missing!

Overall I think you guys have really allowed reasonably budgeted productions to elevate to a very high level in quality with this product!

In my opinion this product isn't merely a home run, you knocked it out of the park!

~Jay

Jay M. - You have some really interesting questions that I see being asked more and more. I'll do my best to clarify some things regarding the product capabilities and the product definition.

We will be experimenting with multiple Ki Pro units and a "multi-arm recording" scenario soon in our testing. As it stands, you will likely be able to do what you are now doing with the MacBook and the Apple Remote Desktop. You could conceivably assign the Ki Pro units similar IP addresses and connect them all to a router along with the MacBook. In this way, they should all be visible to the MacBook over the network meaning that you could access them via the web GUI and the controls that offers, which includes arm recording. Again, I haven't done this yet, but this is part of why we didn't bring the product to market right after we announced it; we want to be sure we know what you specifically can or cannot do with the product and while sometimes you can believe that something, like the scenario I am suggesting, will work, you can't say with certainty until you test.

You do bring up the good point that if you have timecode running to all of the devices and you arm the recording based on timecode, this should be sufficient for producing synchronized recordings, but I think you are either referring to your suggested arm recording method because of possible timecode issues with the source devices or as simply "an insurance policy" for the timecode arm recording method.

Redundancy is something that we cannot accomplish yet on a single unit. Performing the i/o operations associated with multiple 220Mbps video streams is not an easy task... Bear in mind that audio is far, far less bandwidth intensive. Your 8 channels of audio being simultaneously written using your audio recorder, according to my quick calculations, is probably roughly 2x 1.15MB/sec. Compare this to the bandwidth of dual Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) recordings which could reach 2x 30.93MB/sec and you can ascertain the heart of the issue. There is a lot to consider when you look at this. In simplest terms, the audio recorder is really recording, in some sense, 16 channels of audio, while the Ki Pro would be asked to record dual streams of video (and audio). Not saying that redundant recording is totally out of the question, but not sure that it is likely to happen with Ki Pro... sorry, just trying to paint a realistic picture.

How to handle redundancy and "safety" recordings then? My suggestion would be that after you make your initial recordings - your digital version of an "original camera negative (OCN)" - that you begin making dupes immediately. One cost effective method of duping data would be to copy or clone the contents of your Ki Pro Storage Module to another disk, and preferably the disk(s) you copy to provide mirroring or parity of data (RAID 1 or RAID 5, etc.). Now your data is in at least one other location. You can't be too paranoid about data, much in the same way we could never be too paranoid about housing and handling film negative for so, so many years. The big advantage in the digital age is that this duplication is far, far more trivial than the steps to "dupe negative."

Genlock is not it's own BNC connector on Ki Pro. Why? The device was not conceived of as a VTR replacement specifically, but rather as a camera recorder with some limited VTR-like functionality. Ki Pro can sync to input video via SDI or HDMI, "Y" in of the Y, Pb, Pr component input, or can be put into what we refer to on our products as "freerun." Syncing to incoming video is very common; most modern VTRs for example offer the choice to "sync to input video" and Ki Pro follows this methodology. Again, you would typically sync your camera, which in turn feeds Ki Pro. Used as a VTR, you could have a one-device-to-one-Ki Pro relationship, much the way you can have one VTR to one non-linear editing workstation and not involve house reference.

I'm glad you like the product... we appreciate the positive feedback you and others are providing. Comments like yours are how we arrived at the design of the Ki Pro product and your feedback/feature requests help us define future products. Dialogue is the most useful interaction manufacturers (particularly product managers!) can have with end users. We want to make tools that you find helpful.

Jon Thorn
Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
California

Jay,

Great product as everyone has said.

My only concern is that it seems as if the form factor is very limiting for those of us you shoot a lot of handheld with the full size cameras. You are basically forced to use a tripod.

I think that a smaller version that mounts to the back of the camera like the Firestore FS-4 would be a lot more useful.

Thanks

Matt G. - While I know that we've only shown images of the Ki Pro mounted below cameras and then mounted to a tripod, I've personally done a handheld configuration that was quite comfortable. It's noted in this thread that I would show this configuration, but I am precluded from doing that before our professional photography of said configuration is completed. Sorry - my iPhone photos didn't make the cut with the marketing department!

The Ki Pro is quite lightweight and while I understand the desire to have a smaller unit, like a FireStore, I hope you can appreciate that we needed the physical space to make the connectors and the storage fit into the unit. Also keep in mind that the FireStore units only take a feed from the camera via a single compressed digital output, recording in the same format you are recording on the camera in terms of compression and they don't "officially" support the user changing out the recording media housed inside the device. Not trying to diminish the quality of their products - in fact I spoke to them briefly at NAB to say "no ill will" because I think that we have two quite different products and I could imagine using both devices for recordings - a Ki Pro and a FireStore - at the same time to cover multiple types of tapeless recording that you might want. AJA and Focus Enhancements "stay out of each others way" when it comes to connecting to the cameras because AJA takes the baseband uncompressed output from the camera while Focus Enhancements takes the compressed data output spigot.

Sorry, got a bit distracted from your original question, but thought it would be of interest!

Hopefully, we can get those handheld configuration images out to the world sooner than later!

Jon Thorn
Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
California

Great thanks.

Genlock is not it's own BNC connector on Ki Pro. Why? The device was not conceived of as a VTR replacement specifically, but rather as a camera recorder with some limited VTR-like functionality. Ki Pro can sync to input video via SDI or HDMI, "Y" in of the Y, Pb, Pr component input, or can be put into what we refer to on our products as "freerun." Syncing to incoming video is very common; most modern VTRs for example offer the choice to "sync to input video" and Ki Pro follows this methodology. Again, you would typically sync your camera, which in turn feeds Ki Pro. Used as a VTR, you could have a one-device-to-one-Ki Pro relationship, much the way you can have one VTR to one non-linear editing workstation and not involve house reference.

Jon Thorn
Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
California

Thanks for the very detailed reply.

Just to make sure I'm clear as to what Genlock is and where in my system I actually need it...

In our system everything genlocked, the cameras, audio recorder, switcher, and VTRs.

My understanding is that genlock controls the speed of the recorder as well as keeping all the frames in sync so when you switch a camera the picture doesn't blink.

Speed is critical to be in sync so all the recordings line up properly on the timeline.

In our studio the cameras get genlock and SDI goes to a distribution amp. From the distribution amp SDI goes to the VTR (a Mac server with a Kona card) which is also Genlocked, and the other output of the DA goes to the switcher.

The program out of the switcher goes to another distribution amp which goes to another VTR that is Genlocked.

My question: Do the recorders need to be Genlocked?
If so, can the "Y" be used as an input for sync?

All of your older products have Genlock, did people think it was a waste of space?

On the topic of redundancy, copying to a backup disk is very impractical. It takes hours to accomplish. Yes it's easier and faster than tape, but still painfully slow.

I don't fully understand the engineering requirements to send one 30 MBps stream to two or more places. I would assume it is related to the controller, not the media.

If the FW800 port on the back could be used for storage media, then I could use something like the Sans digital raid 1 enclosure.

But if you could figure out a way to write to both the HDD and the express card then many people would benefit. I think many tapeless productions rely on redundancy.

Maybe the solution would be to buy two Kis if you can build them fast enough ;)

~Jay