Apple set off another sonic boom by unveiling the Power Mac G5 Quad-the turbo-charged dual-core desktop workstation that uses a pair of 2.5 GHz G5 processors. The new Power Mac, priced at under $3300, delivers speed boosts to applications like Final Cut Pro 5, Adobe After Effects, and NewTek LightWave 3D.

Coinciding with the Apple announcement, AJA Video, (Grass Valley, CA), revved the high-definition engine even further. The company announced KONA LHe, a 10-bit uncompressed video capture card designed to take advantage of the Quad's speedy PCI Express architecture.
Not to be confused with an entry-level card, the KONA LHe offers a full ride to HD without compromise. It includes two-channel AES and eight-channel embedded audio, analog composite/component video in/out, two-channel analog audio in/out, broadcast-quality hardware downconversion, and TBC on analog inputs.
Using Apple's QuickTime format, KONA LHe captures directly to 10-bit files on disk and also supports many legacy eight-bit formats for backward compatibility. The card supports DVCPRO HD and HDV, DV25, DV50, JPEG, and more.
On the audio side, the new card offers native OS X multi-channel audio and 24-bit AES/EBU digital audio at 48kHz. For ease of use, it also includes hardware sample-rate conversion on AES inputs – eliminating source synchronizing requirements.
When using Final Cut Pro 5's HDV codec, KONA LHe's hardware acceleration allows real-time playback for both monitoring and recording. The card's downconverter works in real-time with HDV, allowing SD monitoring, dubs, or mastering. The card allows capture and playback of HD-SDI video to/from the DVCPROHD codec at a quality level virtually indistinguishable from native FireWire.
Priced at $1790 and available now, the card works with Final Cut Pro 5, Motion, After Effects, Combustion and other QuickTime-based software.
For more information, visit www.aja.com