Digital Video - February 2008 - (Page 17) was set in the AJA control panel to output from SDI 1 in 8-bit 1080i. I then captured that output in FCP 6 with Capture Now, recording to an eight-drive RAID capable of handling HD data rates. It all sounds almost too good to believe, and there is one ever-so-slight catch. Yes, I was passing uncompressed HD through the SDI port while passing ProRes to the HDMI monitor. But this 8bit had passed through ProRes, so there is another compression going on. Could one see the difference? I could not. But one should definitely not think that Io HD is a substitute for AJA’s other HD capture cards, particularly Kona 3. Io HD does not handle Dual Link 4:4:4, nor does it have LUTs, so this would not be the device for 2K editing. The cinema side of editing still clearly belongs to Kona 3. Io HD does not provide the realtime effects acceleration that the Kona LH and Kona 3 cards provide. And, with the version 1.0 software available during my test, it could output only to a converted SD frame size in Apple Color. That certainly was a disappointment and a drawback I hope AJA will correct as the product matures. One other important caveat: while it is never a good idea to run both a capture device and a storage device on the same FireWire bus, AJA emphasizes that Io HD will not run at all if anything else is on its FireWire bus. I tested it myself, and they are right. On my test MacBook Pro system, I use an ExpressCard/34 eSATA card that can interface either to one of my RAIDs or to a single external SATA drive. Furthermore, no other capture device can reside on the host computer. In other tests, though, the unit was solid. It has a built-in fan to prevent overheating. In a studio test in which we did not turn it off for seven hours, there was neither any sign of overheating nor loud fan noise that would have interfered with shooting. We brought in footage from a Panasonic HVX200 in both 1080i and 720p via the HVX component outputs and transcoded to ProRes 422 and ProRes www.dv.com Above: The Io HD’s control panel offers a clear representation of functions. Below: The box’s jam-packed backside. 422 HQ. We captured live via HDMI from a Sony HVR-V1U, which provided effectively uncompressed material, since the HDMI output is wired before the digital signal processor, which introduces the HDV compression to tape. And we were even able to capture live via SDI from the camera control unit of a Sony F950 CineAlta at 1080 23.98 and transcode to ProRes. The SD versions of Io have always been plagued by a certain amount of latency when capturing via RS-422 deck control. I noted a consistent one-frame latency with Io HD. It’s there and needs to be noted. This drawback isn’t an issue to me, though it could be a source of minor annoyance to others. I also noticed a degree of latency when playing out from the timeline. Again, this is of little concern to me. WHO NEEDS IO HD? Now the important part. What’s the prac- tical application here, and who needs Io HD? A great deal of studio testing was conducted in the Dallas offices of Latimundo with Latimundo president and producer Mark Alameel. Alameel doesn’t believe Io HD is a product he needs. He shoots a CineAlta in studio and acquires Dual Link 4:4:4 into a Kona card to a Fibre Channel array. When in certain rare circumstances Latimundo shoots HVRV1Us, the simple HDMI capture card from Blackmagic is sufficient. Latimundo is an excellent case study in both the high end and the low end of pro shooting. Yet virtually everyone I spoke to who shoots HD in field situations can hardly wait to get their hands on the Io HD. While showing off the unit and testing, several people tried to buy it from me on the spot. I can easily envision the scenario of a nature show crew deep in some snake-infested rainforest with HDCAM sources, a MacBook Pro and a couple of external hard drives. After a long day of close-ups of large reptiles ingesting cute little furry things (that is what too much of nature HD is about, after all), the editor can edit a full-quality HD sequence without the need for the desktop Mac rig with a capture card and massive array. Yet another producer in the media department of a university awaits his back-ordered unit to take SDI output from a JVC HD250 camera and go directly to ProRes, avoiding the GOP frame compression of HDV and also laying down a timeline in 4:2:2 color space for far better titling and graphics than could be achieved in a 4:2:0 HDV sequence. Yes, this is a product for certain very specific uses. But the portability, the versatility, and the solid, consistent quality make the Io HD well worth the six-month wait from introduction to delivery. For a large percentage of FCP users, ProRes 422 and ProRes 422 HQ will be viable codecs. The Io HD isn’t perfect; the addition of true HD monitoring through Apple Color, though, will bring it closer to perfection. It certainly earns my highest recommendation. DV dv february 2008 17 http://www.dv.com
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