AJA KONA LH/E Review

AJA KONA LH/E review

In the world of professional video editing there's one thing that is tantamount to creating good looking sequences that will look good the viewing audience:  You need to have an external monitor (properly calibrated, mind you) to see what the end result will really look like.

For non-linear editing systems such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, Media 100 and others that means you need a video card that translates this information out to your external monitor and for that you need something like the AJA KONA LH/e.

AJA has been in the commercial film and video industry for decades and not only understands the needs of NLE editors but has also created a few of the standards that many use today for setting up video.

One of the benefits of the KONA is that it will take HD formats/signals and downscale them to SD-widescreen out to any monitor that has an RGB component input (not composite, which is not the same thing).  Let's say for example you're working on a sequence that was shot in HD (of any format) but it's final output is to DVD.  The only way you can view *beforehand* what your final output will look like is to actually see it on either an SD broadcast-monitor or, tube-type home TV set or a flat-panel TV.  The KONA will automatically downscale the HD signal along with audio and send it out to your preferred viewing device and voila, you've got an exacting preview of your soon-to-be DVD content.  Pretty neat, huh?

Of course using a external video card like the KONA has much more features and benefits than simply downscaling HD to SD, such as discrete XLR in's and out's for 2-channel audio, a software-based hard-disk tester to make sure you have enough speed on your single drives or RAID array to handle your edits and, it has a plethora of internal setups for making sure you get a properly balanced external monitor.  And that's just a start.

AJA has been tightly partnered with Apple for it's KONA lineup and is constantly developing newer drivers for their cards making them forward and reverse-compatible with the greatest range of Mac Pro or G5 users.

CONCLUSION:  RECOMMENDED

There are competitive products on the market that sell for slightly less than the KONA series, however my experience has been that AJA tech support is much more accessible than those others and, their drivers tend to be more stable and released less often making the KONA platform more reliable, which in the time-intensive world of editing can make or break a production schedule.

ATTO 42ES Fiber HBA for the Mac Pro

ATTO CELERITY 42ES 4GB FIBER HBA CARD

High-end networking cards aren't often reviewed by anyone simply because the people who use them typically know all about how they work and what they're worth.  But in fact I can't find a recent review anywhere on this venerable card so it seemed worthy of my efforts to share my own experiences.

For those that aren't sure what this a fiber HBA is, it's one type of various interfaces created for either connecting desktop machines to a large server network in an office or, to an external RAID array which hosts either large databases or more relevant, large files for audio and video editing, the latter being how my company and my clients have used it.

To give a relative comparison there are 3 main different connectivity schemes for connecting to an external RAID array:  SCSI ("skuzzi" is how the acronym is commonly pronounced), eSATA (external SATA) and Fiber.  See my page about RAID arrays and setups for more detailed info.

Fiber as you might imagine, is the fastest connectivity type and, the most reliable and stable.  And unlike SCSI or eSATA you can have unbelievably long cable-runs with fiber measured not in feet but meters or yards.  One systems integrator that I've worked with has even connected a fiber network between two offices that were almost a kilometer apart from each other!

ATTO has had a long reptuation for making well designed and bullet-proof stable HBA's (host bus adapter) and the 42ES continues that tradition.  It's a two-channel fiber-optic data-card in PCIe interface that's compatible with both Windows and Mac towers, both G5 and Mac Pro using the 4 Gb Fiber standar.  At full capacity and limited to the PCIe interface that equates to approximately a maximum data-rate speed of 800 MB/s, assuming you have a large enough array that can push out that much data through the pipeline.

Like any fiber card each of  the two ports on the business-end of the 42ES require an SFP (small form pluggable) optical transceiver to move the data in-and-out from the card to the array tower, and most retailers that sell the ATTO cards include the SFP connectors with the card as a bundle.

Setting up the card is as simple as installing the drivers from ATTO, installing the card and then connecting your external RAID and completing the configuration process.  ATTO also includes a free Configuration Utility for monitoring the card status and connectivity speeds, and also allows for updating the card firmware as needed.

CONCLUSION:  RECOMMENDED

I've been using ATTO fiber cards for more than 5 years and have never had so much as a hiccup in any of them.  On top of that the guys at ATTO tech support are ultra-fast with technical questions and even help trouble-shoot problems right over the phone.  Having that kind of direct support is priceless especially in the middle of a mission-critical deadline.

There are other fiber HBA's on the market but none have been directly associated with Avid, Apple and other hardware developers more than ATTO has, which makes them my primary - if not only - choice for a fiber HBA.

Western Digital Velociraptor Review

WESTERN DIGITAL VELOCIRAPTOR REVIEW

When Western Digital first released it's first series of 10,000 rpm hard-drives which were simply called the "Raptor" line it was quite the stir in the computing world.  The Raptor was the first non-SCSI, SATA 1.0 capable drive to break the 7200 rpm platter speed and it was implemented everywhere from high-end gaming PC's that wanted fast seek times to enterprise-class server racks.

Since then the Raptor has evolved into the "Velociraptor" which has shrunk it's form factor from the standard 3.5" inch desktop size to a slimmed-down 2.5" inch size.  (Note: The Velociraptor is NOT designed for any laptop or portable use currently)  In it's current iteration the new "mini-Raptor" comes in 3 flavors:  A bare 2.5" inch SATA 2.0 interface, and 2 hybrid versions where the 2.5" inch drive core is installed into a 3.5" inch shell that acts both as a mount for internal desktop or server-rack use and really big heatsink.

Despite the smaller form factor from the original the new Velociraptor (that's a tough one to type without mis-spelling!) actually has a small performance gain of up to 35% from the previous generation according to Western Digital, with an average SEEK time of 4.2 ms and average WRITE of 4.7 ms and a theoretical 3Gps SATA 2.0 speed.

I say theoretical because in practical use even this latest-gen Raptor doesn't push out more than approximately 85-98 Mb/s when connected to a system either PC or Mac which means it's not an ideal platform for using in a RAID of any kind.  But that's never been it's intended use, certainly not for the desktop market.  In fact, it's best implementation is as a boot-volume wither it's PC or Mac, where the ultra-fast seek times will allow the OS to navigate around to all it's assets and loaded applications quickly, faster than anything else with exception to an SSD-type disk.  (SSD's are still to pricey to be considered a good purchase for even advanced computer users)

CONCLUSION:  RECOMMENDED

The Velociraptor some in two sizes, 300GB and 150GB so if you're main boot volume is chock-full of applications, user-files and the OS then it may not have enough storage space to accommodate the need.  But if you're smart about how you allocate your resources, which is to only load the OS and your applications on the boot volume (and whatever necessary cache files need to live there because of application-specific requirements) then this ultra-fast data mover from Western Digital is as blistering fast as spinning-disk HDD's get without the kings-ransom cost of SCSI.

Direct Video Capture with a Macbook Pro

There have always been situations especially with the newer tapeless cameras, where capturing direct to a hard-disk is preferable to "shooting to cards" and then having to transfer the gigabytes of data over to a hard-drive for storage and subsequent editing.  Here's an example of how to setup a MacBook Pro properly to accomplish the task:

-  15" inch MacBook Pro w/4gb RAM (don't buy RAM from Apple - see my note about RAM later in this post)
-  External FW800 HDD in an enclosure (Seagate 7200rpm 1-TB  drive installed)
-  (1) 15ft 4 to 6 pin FW400 cable w/Ferrite Cores (see note on Cores later in this post)
-  (1) FW400 Repeater
-  (1) 15ft 6 to 6 pin FW400 cable w/Ferrite Cores
-  Sonnet Tech FW800 PCMCIA card
-  Portable power Inverter  (for unlimited power for the Powerbook, external drive and camera on location)

Here' the logic for this setup:

- RAM. I put the maximum RAM in the MacBook Pro so Final Cut or Premiere Pro could run as smoothly as possible in dealing with DVCPRO-HD 720p30.

- External drive: I wanted a decently sized drive to allow all-day shooting or even for the entire project, and migrate between the capture system and the edit system. I also wanted the fastest throughput to avoid any dropouts on the HD content which is why I chose a FW800 drive.

- FW cables & Repeater:  My project has very specific requirements and there will be times when the PB will be quite far from the camera - at least 20 feet at times. Initially I was going to use one 30ft cable to connect camera to PB however, my experience with any FW cable regardless of manufacturer is that beyond 10ft there is significant signal degradation (enough to possibly cause dropouts on capture) and a cable that long can also act an an antenna and pick up tons of RF interference, especially in the studio where monitors, power supplies, etc. will be creating a soup of radio emissions.  So I opted for (2) 15ft footers with a FW400 repeater between them to keep signal strength up and Ferrite Cores on the ends of both cables to help reduce/choke any RF nasties.

- PCMCIA FW800 Card: What's extremely important to note about the PB (and actually the same applies to older G4’s as well) is that both the FW400 & 800 ports live on the same physical bus on the motherboard. Because of the nature of the FW bus, the bus speed is only as fast as the SLOWEST device. The specs on the P2HD data record rate is 100mbps, which means that when connected to a FW port it will choke the entire bus down to FW100 speed! The only way to avoid this is to create a separate physical bus, which the a PCMCIA to FW800 card does. So the camera gets connected to the built-in FW400 port on the MacBook Pro, and the external drive goes into the FW800 port on the PCMCIA card - voila! Two distinct FW800 busses.

- Ferrite Cores: Many pro and pro-sumer video cameras come with a few Ferrite Cores to put on the power supply cable, FW cables and even the XLR cable for the on-camera mic. The reason is simple: All this connectivity is a potential direct path for electronic emissions in the form of radio-frequency interference (RF is the term) to either get in or come out of the camera which could degrade the signal coming out of the camera and into an external capture device, regardless if it's tape or digital media. Ferrite Cores "choke" or in some cases eliminate the RF that travels along the outside of these cables and prevents RF interference from continuing into the camera or your capture device. In point of fact, I've taken this idea and applied it to every cable that is on or around my main edit system for the very same reason - keeping the electronic pathways between devices as "quiet" as possible.

So that takes care of the hardware selection and setup, but there's more that needs to be done in software so the PB can run as efficiently as possible during capture to prevent dropouts. Here's what else do to:

Go into System Preferences and:

- Turn off BlueTooth.
- Turn off the Airport.
- Turn off Screen Saver.
- In Energy Saver: A) NEVER put the system to sleep; B) UN-CHECK "put hard-disks to sleep when possible"; C) UN-CHECK "wake when modem detects ring"; D) UN-CHECK both items for "reduce brightness of display...".
- In Monitors: UN-CHECK "automatically adjust brightness".
- Bluetooth services: UN-CHECK all sharing.
- In Software Update: UN-CHECK "check for updates...".
- Download a the free app "Onyx" and use the "Disable Dashboard" feature (there are widgets that will try to call out to a network connection to update themselves in the background. They are small apps, but I don't want them breathing even a whiff of the RAM for FCP).
- Under Sharing: Don't share anything and turn off the Firewall (if it's on)
- Under Security: Turn off "File Vault" (if you're using it). Using this can potentially cause project corruption in FCP.
- Under Print & Fax: UN-CHECK "receive faxes...". Turn off any printer sharing.
- Under Quicktime: UN-CHECK "check for updates…".
- Make sure your OS environment is clean and stable; run all the cleaning and maintenance routines in Onyx and pick up a copy of DiskWarrior and make sure your directory is in perfect order too.

That's the cleanest, most optimized setup you can get for a MacBook Pro.

Regardless what your hardware setup is, be absolutely sure you follow the software setup listed above so that you don't have things running in the background that can potentially compete for resources during the capture process.

This setup is NOT a run-and-gun setup obviously, nor is it a replacement option for some of the new, direct-to-disk recorders that are on the market but it does give a wealth of possibilities and versatility that don't require using any highly specialized hardware or software and allows you to capture directly from your camera to hard-disk using either "Capture Now" uncontrolled device in Final Cut or Premiere Pro with OnLocation.

Build a Fast and Inexpensive RAID array

Build a Fast & Inexpensive RAID array


Whether you're a new or experienced editor one thing of concern to all is both storage of clips and fast access either for grabbing files and especially for editing. Fast access always means an array of some sort, be it e-SATA, SCSI or fiber. But arrays regardless of which kind usually mean spending thousands of dollars both in array hardware and HDD's themselves. This is an alternative to the ultra-expensive arrays - and it works, very well (test result enclosed).

This setup comes with some very important caveats, so pay attention before you spend your money or ask tons of questions:

- This is an e-SATA array, meaning there is no on-board controller cache and the only cache available is what the HDD's themselves have. That translates into the fact that the array will start out very fast however, as it gets continually used throughout an edit or if multiple file transfers occur it will slow down, sometimes to half it's original speed depending on use. Speed is regained when the individual drive cache is flushed (usually during system reboot or over time if the drives are not used for about 10 minutes or so). Until there are e-SATA HBA's that have on-board cache there is no way around this performance characteristic.

- If you have never setup an array or don't understand how they work, don't start spending your money on this setup UNTIL you get some research done or training by someone who can walk you through setup and usage.

- This setup, while very cost-effective and inexpensive, is more complex in that it uses multiple enclosures each with it's own power supply. That means there are multiple points of failure since you're dealing with more than one independent power supply.

- This setup does not allow for "hot-swap" as the drives are in a fixed enclosure - more on that as the hardware is discussed. Here's the physical setup:

(1) Highpoint Technologies "RocketRAID" 2322 PCI-e HBA w/ (2) mini-SAS to e-SATA cables. (that's a total of 8 individual drive cables) $295 - Cables are separate at $45 each depending on where you get them. $385 total

(4) OWC Mercury Elite-AL Dual Bay SATA Enclosures (2 drives per enclosure, direct JBOD connection) $75 each / $300 total

That's an 8-drive e-SATA array for less than $800 (not including HDD's)!

How fast is it? Using the KONA System Test I ran it using the same codec I shoot in DVCPRO-HD 720p and got just under 280 mb/s READ with a 1gb file test. That's damned impressive for an array that was thousands less than a SCSI setup. This test was done with (8) WD5000YS drives in a RAID-0 configuration. AMUG and BARE-FEATS tested this card with faster numbers but they used a Mac TERMINAL application to do the test, I prefer to use the KONA test because it's specific to mimicking a video-edit environment, so I feel the numbers are more real-world and not hype.

The RocketRAID 2322 is the first e-SATA HBA to create the array in HARDWARE not software, so there's no OS overhead being used for the array management. It's also the first HBA to allow for 8-drive access externally and, (2) RR2322's can be connected in parallel for a total of 16 drives! (this functionality in MacOS requires Disk Utility to join them, in XP you just add a jumper cable and the cards do the work). The card will do RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, and parity on 5, 10.

The OWC enclosures are unique; they do not have HOT-SWAP trays, the drives are fixed so you lose the ability to quickly replace a drive. They also have their own individual power supply, so that means cabling becomes a bit of a mess in this tested config: (8) e-SATA data cables and (4) power cables between (4) enclosures.

The OWC "black boxes" are whisper quiet; with all 4 running I barely heard the fans in the back.

This is not an ideal setup for everybody as it is geared to those who want or need a fast array for accessing OR storing their media files but don't have mega-bucks for a SCSI or fiber array. Here's a cost comparison (minus the cost of HDD's, HBA and cables)

(4) OWC "Black boxes" as described above: $300
(2) Sonnet Fusion 400 enclosures (8 drives total, hot-swap capable, e-SATA connection): $760
(2) Wiebetech SilverSATA IV (same as above): $900
(1) Enhance-Tech T8 SCSI 8-drive enclosure (SATA to SCSI backplane): $2200
(2) Fibrenetix Qubex Fibre 6-drives x2 enclosures (SATA to Fibre backplane): $8100

As you can see, as you go up the food-chain of faster connectivity the costs skyrocket, sharply. Add the cost of HDD's and the HBA and you'll see how cost-effective this e-SATA suggested setup is.

It should be noted however, that no e-SATA array regardless of enclosure or connection type is as fast nor as data-stable (constant data-frame-speed) as SCSI or fiber. But, for the added speed and stability you really have to cough up some serious buckage - something most indies just can't afford or justify.

NOTE:  Highpoint has newer cards that will provide the same functionality as the 2322 but with more features.