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KONA Overview


Solid performance and useful features. Unparalleled reliability. Built for video professionals by video professionals.


The very finest capture cards for SD, HD, Dual Link HD and 2K on Mac OSX AJA KONA cards were the first capture cards available for Final Cut Pro on Mac OS X - and that innovation and quality continues today. A powerful Apple computer, along with Apple’s Final Cut Studio and an AJA KONA card, bring you the highest level of quality and functionality for non-linear editing, motion graphics creation, and more.


It’s in the hardware…


KONA cards feature superior hardware-based conversions that can include up-conversion, cross-conversion and down-conversion along with maximum connectivity and creative flexibility. Work in SD, HD-even 2K-there is no limit to what the KONA family of hardware capture cards offer.


...and it’s in the software


The KONA family of capture cards feature useful software applications at no additional charge. AJA QuickTime drivers are optimized for the leading QuickTime applications, and the intuitive to use AJA Control Panel application simplifies control of the advanced hardware capabilities. Additional software applications, like the AJA Data Rate Calculator and the AJA System Test, provide useful information on storage capacity and disk performance needs.


KONA Family


KONA 3 and KONA LHi Hardware Scalar Acceleration


Final Cut Pro users will love our DVCPRO HD, HDV and Apple Dynamic RT Extreme hardware scalar acceleration, developed in close cooperation with Apple and available exclusively on high-end KONA cards. KONA hardware takes a portion of the codec processing load off the CPU, allowing more RealTime effects in Final Cut Pro when outputting.


With KONA, any HD-SDI source (or SD-SDI up-converted source) can be captured using the DVCPRO HD codec-giving you HD quality at remarkably low data rates, allowing even the internal Mac 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 disk array, but this feature allows HD to be used where only SD would have been considered due to drive bandwidth or budget constraints.


How does KONA 3 and KONA LHi accelerate DVCPRO HD, HDV and Apple’s Dynamic RT?


Because KONA’s precision hardware does part of the work, the Mac has more time available to process RT effects. This means more RT-effects power, and more RT streams. Most broadcast codecs, including DVCPRO HD 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 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 hardware acceleration allows instantaneous realtime playback for both monitoring and recording. Even KONA’s down-converter works in realtime with HDV, allowing SD monitoring, dubs, or mastering. This KONA functionality allows HDV to be used with professional equipment.

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

For Final Cut Pro’s Dynamic RT feature, KONA 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 output from the KONA card.

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Posted on Jul 24, 2009 - 09:42 AM

ATTO: Technologies for data-intensive video environments

Media Distributors proudly represents all things ATTO.

Offering an unparalleled range of storage infrastructure and connectivity solutions, from host adapters and bridges to storage controllers and software, these products are designed to efficiently and cost-effectively help you manage, store and deliver their data. Leveraging new storage architectures and transport protocols these products deliver blazing-fast performance, one click installation and smooth data streaming.

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Posted on May 04, 2009 - 02:38 PM