Hey everybody. I went to ShowBiz Expo in Chicago at the end of last year, and there was a booth were there was a setup with the Aja Io module hooked up to a G4. The guy had a demo with music videos running, on 2 displays. He said something about uncompressed "blah blah blah". (I am a neewbe to this language.)

I was wondering if someone could please explain what this module does and how can I use it for my projects.
I have seen the results in the demo, and it does seem like an excellent piece of equipment.


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Canon XL1s
Mac G4
17" Apple Display
Final Cut Pro

I for in.
O for out. Io.

It takes a whole bunch of formats in and out, particularly uncompressed via SDI and component. You should probably check out the product brochure for it on the Aja site, it should list all the ins and outs.

One downside is, sound playing out your Mac (i.e. through the front speaker) and the video coming out through the Io won't be in sync from what I understand.

Article on working uncompressed:
http://www.lafcpug.org/feature_capture_card.html Please note that the article is dated and doesn't seem to talk about the cheap Blackmagic cards that have came out.

Hey thanx 4 ur reply!
1 more question?

What does SDI stand for? My guess is "standard definition interface?"

SDI = serial digital interface
It's a digital connection so everything should be lossless.

SDI is the big brother of firewire. It's supposed to be more robust and offer higher quality.

Has anyone checked out this unit at NAB?
http://www.aja.com/html/products_Io_IoHD.html

And if so, did anyone get the skinny on the price and
delivery date?

Did not get to play with it at NAB in fact i did not even see it in person.. But the pres they did was great. Sorry i cant confirm the price for you but like all great video devices it will cost more then most cams.

AJA lunched AJA io HD which gives us the possibility to capture on the field at Apple ProRes 422 Codec on the new series MAC Book Pro with Final Cut Studio 2.
I tried to see the difference between HD uncompresed and Apple ProRes 422 Codec on the big screen with an HD projector, I can't say that I noticed any. 1 h 1900/1200 uncompressed is 1 TB and Apple ProRes 422 Codec is 170 GB.
AJA inputs are HD/SD SDI and HD/SD components and the output is Firewire800. AJA io HD has a hardware PRORes converter.
I consider it a very good news for JVC users.
Good luck,
Eugen

Yes, it is great news that there is finally an Apple equivalent to Avid's DNx HD codec. With the new AJA HDi/o and FCP, you have yet another reason not to buy into Avid's Media Composer Adrenaline. Now, if Apple could just do something about media management...

We are interested in the AJA Io-HD, but I have a question concerning HDMI inputs. We shoot HDV on a Sony HVR-V1U, and feed it into Final Cut thru a Sony HVR-M25U deck. We want to connect the M25U to the Io-HD thru the HDMI port. I've been told that HDMI does not include time code information. Does that mean that you will not be able to log and batch capture via HDMI? Or will you alway have to "crash" capture when using HDMI?

Hey Tim

I believe you will use the firewire 400 connection from the deck to your computer for time code info

Can the AJA IoHD injest two cameras simultaneously? I know it's got 2 SDI inputs but I understand they're for 4:4:4 capture. I'm trying to save buying 2 machines (for a 2 camera live-mix shoot) if possible...

Anyone else got one yet? Would love to hear any bugs/problems/praise. It's just as good as everyone thought it would be, although I've been talking about it for so long its become a bit of an anti-climax...Still, full HD workflow on my desk ;)

One issue I've come across so far is with powering down - when I turned it off or disconnected the FW800 it caused a kernel panic - advice from AJA is:

We recommend powering up the Io HD before booting the computer.

Power-down the computer before turning off or disconnecting the Io HD.

I am considering this for my H1
but I also am procuring an HV20 to use with a Letus
and I wonder if anyone has captured to prores through the HDMI
on the IO HD with this cam
Is the sound going through the HDMI too?
Thanks
J

I am considering this for my H1
but I also am procuring an HV20 to use with a Letus
and I wonder if anyone has captured to prores through the HDMI
on the IO HD with this cam
Is the sound going through the HDMI too?
Thanks
J
I saw one first hand the other night at our local video meeting along with a Canon rep and a local dealer.
He uses the IOHD for everything, and it looks like a real sweet setup.
You cna capture and output any possible format you want with this box.

And yes you can capture HDMI to PRORES o the fly and HDMI carries both video and audio, similar to SDI, but SDI has a higher bandwidth than HDMI does.
BTW you can also capture via Firewire to PRORES on the fly in FCP, if your system and drives are fast enough.

Also BTW, you also have a similar box by MOTU the V3HD available to use in the same manner. I have heard real good things on this box as well. The main difference with this compared to the IOHD (besides being about $1,00 cheaper) is that the IOHD captures in PRORES and the V3HD captures and converts to the DVCPRO HD codec.

Also, the V3HD is larger and not as portable as the IOHD and it has an HDMI OUT port, no HDMI IN.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/517868-REG/MOTU_4025_V3HD_FireWire_Video_Interface.html

IAnd yes you can capture HDMI to PRORES o the fly and HDMI carries both video and audio, similar to SDI, but SDI has a higher bandwidth than HDMI does.
Note that the HD SDI output on the Canon XLH1 dosn't carry the audio signal!

Note that the HD SDI output on the Canon XLH1 dosn't carry the audio signal!

True, but I believe you can record to tape and get the audio that way (as well as back up)
Yes?

BTW you can also capture via Firewire to PRORES on the fly in FCP, if your system and drives are fast enough.


Interesting, but the firewire cant carry an uncompressed signal, so it needs some compression (like HDV) coming from the camera first...
?

True, but I believe you can record to tape and get the audio that way (as well as back up)
Yes?
Yes you can if audio quality don't matter! You get Mpeg-1, 16 bit (48KHz)

So Sound Recording to another deck is the only/best option then...?
Thanks

Interesting, but the firewire cant carry an uncompressed signal, so it needs some compression (like HDV) coming from the camera first...
?
It depends on how you want to feed footage from the HV20 to your computer.

If you are doing a live feed via HDMI, then you can record uncompressed 4:2:2 to your Mac system.

If you are planning on going from pre recorded tape from the HV20, then it shouldn't make that much of a visable difference to go from HDV tape to converted PRORES via HDMI or FW. Because you are already compressing the signal to HDV when you record to tape in the first place.

Since the footage is already compressed on tape you aren't gaining anything going to PRORES, except to get out of a long GOP HDV codec to edit and go to tape with.

I am helping a client out who has a Power Mac G5 with an SDI-only I/O Blackmagic DeckLink HD card, and he needs to capture some Betacam SP footage. But without an analog I/O port(s), he can't do it.

We hooked up a laptop and an io HD to the Betacam SP deck and then we put an SDI cable running from the SDI-out port on the io HD into the DeckLink HD card. I am able to capture video and sound from the laptop's Final Cut Pro timeline or viewer.

But when he try to open the log and capture on both the systems, we get video on the laptop but we're getting flashing video (video, then black, video, then black, etc.) on the Power Mac with the DeckLink HD card. Is there anyway we can get the video coming from the Betacam deck, going through the io HD (and controlled by the laptop), out through the io HD's SDI port and into the DeckLink's io HD port?

All our settings are correct, because whatever's on the laptop's timeline or viewer, I can see, hear and capture it within the Power Mac, but not if it's coming from the Betacam deck.

We downloaded the io HD software to the Power Mac, but the AJA unit wouldn't work with the Power Mac running both Blackmagic Design and AJA software.

Also, we reversed things and were able to play video out of the Power Mac/DeckLink HD card and into the io HD, which then dubbed to Betacam tape (the laptop was controlling the io HD).

Obviously, one solution would be to capture the video onto a firewire drive with the laptop and io HD, but then we have to copy the files onto the Power Mac's secondary internal drive. We're trying to avoid that.

Then again, maybe it can't be done, capturing the footage while it goes through the io HD and into the DeckLink HD card. I've been called crazy before. (wink)

Thanks,

Heath

Hey guys,
this may be operator error and I need a little help. I shot a music video with the Canon XL H1 via HD-SDI all to a G-SATA 1TB drive via the AJA I/O HD, and we did a down-convert on the fly from 1080i to 720p. We had the artist sing perform to the track via the sound system at the club, as well as the stereo system that we had on set. Now that we're in post i seem to have a solution for getting the audio from the CD to match with the video. It must be a frame rate conversion, but I don't know. Please help on how I can make it work. Thank you.