Customers Can Bring in and Play Back 2K Material - an Industry First for Editing and Finishing on the Mac

AJA Video, a leading manufacturer of
professional video interface and conversion solutions, today announced 2K
resolution video support with the v2 upgrade to the recently released KONA
3, the company's top-of-the-line uncompressed HD/SD capture card. In a
major development, KONA 3 will now provide customers editing and finishing
on an Apple Power Mac G5 with the capability to bring in and play back
material at 2K.
Additionally, KONA 3 v2 will address users' needs with support for
hardware-based 1080-to-720 or 720-to-1080 cross conversion. This desirable
feature further streamlines dailies and deliverables creation at true
broadcast picture quality in real time. AJA will highlight these important
new features for the future post-production workflow at NAB 2006 at its
booth SL4913.
The KONA 3 2K path offers significant cost and labor savings over a
tape-based approach to 2K. With this upgrade for customers on the Mac
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," said John Abt, President, AJA Video.
"The combination of the Power Mac G5 and Apple's Final Cut Studio brings
real-time, native HD editing to customers at a breakthrough price," said
Ron Okamoto, Apple's Vice President of Worldwide Developer Relations.
"We're thrilled that AJA has taken advantage of the open resolution and
frame-rate independent architecture of Final Cut Studio to provide viable
real-time 2K solutions on the desktop."
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 in the
market.
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
down-converted to SD in real time, giving the 2K DI pipeline a powerful
solution for multi-format 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.
Further new features of KONA 3 v2 are 16-channel embedded audio, and 96khz
AES audio. 16-channel embedded digital audio allows for full support of all
audio channels on HD tape formats, such as HDCAM SR.
KONA 3 is the ultimate uncompressed capture card for seamless operation
with PCI Express (PCIe) Apple G5 Power Macs and Apple Final Cut Pro.
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 cross-conversion to and
from HD, and adds a live hardware HD/SD keyer for compositing bugs, live
clips, and other elements over video.
Pricing and Availability
KONA 3 is available now, priced at US $2990.00. KONA3's I/O connections are
supported with supplied breakout cables. AJA's K3-Box-a rackmountable IRU
enclosure – is available as an option for US $299.00. v2 software can be
downloaded May 22nd from www.aja.com. All existing owners of KONA 3 can
download v2 at no cost.
www.aja.com