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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

AJA IOHD vs. MOTU V3HD

Jay A. Kelley

Jay A. Kelley

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Ok.. Like so many of us I am now taking a serious look at post production.
And like so many of us I am impressed by FCP and what they propose to have.

BUT....

Up to this point I have been a PC guy. And RED, while cheap compared to similar cameras, is DAMN expensive for a single owner (Evin, I'm going to be writing you about this personally, with the hopes you can help me out with advice on a couple things).

So when selecting my capture/monitoring device, it's kind of important I can make use of my existing PC hardware and STILL be able to move to MAC when I feel the time is right.

The MOTU V3HD seems like a winning combo for me. We can go over the details later (And I am sure we will). Mike Curtis did a good job wth a fly by comparision, but I would like to take some time and really get into the guts of this since I know a lot of people are in my boat.

Here are the two main differences that separate them (There's are lots, but here are the big ones):

MOTU supports both PC (Premiere) and MAC (FCP) editing. AJA does not.

AJAIO supports a nice high-end codec (Pro-Rez) and V3HD does not (They support DVCProHD, which is still cool, but not as good)

Now of course if V3HD supported something like say... Cineform, then this would be a no brainer, but that has not happened yet.

Read up on these two items and let's talk about it.

If you make small features (And you are any good) then you know that sound is more important than picture (Sorry RED guys, but it's true). You can have a sucky picture and some dweeb will call it "Traffic" but if you have lousy sound, you're hosed. Mike and others say in this area MOTU SPANKS the AJA IO (Has something to do with MOTU being a SOUND company).

Let's hear your thoughts
 
iohd.jpg

v3hd_big.jpg


MOTU V3HD vs AJA IO HD at HD For Indies
http://www.hdforindies.com/2007/06/initial-comparison-motus-v3hd-specs-vs.html
 
Going through a DVCProHD codec for monitoring will suck. Why not get a card based (rather than firewire based) box for monitoring HD uncompressed?

If you need audio hardware, MOTU stuff rocks, so buy one of their audio boxes to go with your video hardware.

Graeme
 
A solid monitor costs more than the Red body by itself. Certainly there are reasonably priced LCD's but they are not recommended by any means for any serious post work. Monitors like the BVML230 are going to be the new standard and they run 25K. This is of course for those who take higher end post seriously. For those who can afford a desktop system for offline, I guess it is a different story. But you do have to be able to know whether your image is usable or not, and grading is critical, but I assume most will be farming that job out to professionals.

I will wholeheartedly agree with the audio statement. Nothing beats the original performance in the field, as long as it is usable. But with AES I/O you're certainly working with the best bit depth. The way it was recorded is another beast.
 
Hi Graeme!!

You getting enough sleep dude? All those firmware updates and new features have got to be killer!

Well... You do bring up a good point. However, because we are RED people, there are some differences as to how we will use this stuff as compared to others. See if you agree:

A "Capturing Codec" does not really matter to us as we bypass this feature due to a straight offload from REDDrive or CF Card. As I understand it, when we go off REDCine, we can simply select ProRez (MAC) or if we have it CineForm (PC or MAC). Both the v3 and IO don't make a difference to us in that area.

As for monitoring: Most of us will be coming off the camera I am guessing. Or perhaps going from SDI via RED to the IO or V3 where other monitors will be plugged in.

Something I need to ask you. Both these boxes are also stand-alone up/down converters. Are you saying that if we go in to HD-SDI to either box and then monitor off HDMI that they have to use their individual codecs in order to down/up convert the footage? That would suck.

I am told by the V3 sales person that it will also play back any footage you have in Final Cut or FCP regardless of the codec.

So let's also go back to our basic question: Why would we use these things?

Firewire allows for flexibility: We can go from Machine (Desktop) to Machine (Laptop) quickly.

Monitoring is useful: Both Video and Audio. On location and in studio

Realtime Up/Down Conversion: Allows dubbing of material to multiple sources

Jamming Time Code (Very helpful)

Lets face it.. Thanks to RED a "Capture Card" as it were is NOT something I am worried about.

I am most likely looking at Cineform for my editing work anyway.

Do you have more feedback?

Jay
 
FW doesn't have the bandwidth for uncompressed HD, hence these boxes need the HD to be in DVCproHD or ProRes respectively to be able to send it out from the timeline over FW and out to SDI.

That's why I suggest a uncompressed HD card for monitoring, like a Kona3 or PC equivalent.

When you're monitoring, you don't want to be second guessing the quality of the codec, rather the image itself. On a Mac, IO/HD may be fine as ProRes is full raster and quite nice, but DVCproHD just isn't good enough for anything monitoring related, it being much less than full raster...

Graeme
 
Torrie,

From what I have been told by audio pros, "The way it was recorded" is the entire beast. If a person is drop dead serious about good sound they will not be recording to the camera (Or breakout box) for any purpose other than reference.

It's always been my dream to own a Aaton Cantar X.. Now THAT'S Sound
 
Graeme Nattress said:
FW doesn't have the bandwidth for uncompressed HD, hence these boxes need the HD to be in DVCproHD or ProRes respectively to be able to send it out from the timeline over FW and out to SDI.

That's why I suggest a uncompressed HD card for monitoring, like a Kona3 or PC equivalent.

When you're monitoring, you don't want to be second guessing the quality of the codec, rather the image itself. On a Mac, IO/HD may be fine as ProRes is full raster and quite nice, but DVCproHD just isn't good enough for anything monitoring related, it being much less than full raster...

Graeme
Click to expand...

So what you are telling me is that even if this V3 is not hooked up to a computer, it's STILL using the DVCProHD codec to view on it's other ports?!

Youch
 
Graeme,

Did a little research and the codecs are only used when transferring video to/from the computer. If you are monitoring from inside the box then that is a different story.

HOWEVER:

It does cause a problem. But let's deal with this part first.

Bottom line: The boxes themselves do not use FIREWIRE as breakout boxes for monitoring from camera.

You could come HD-SDI out of the RED into IO or V3 and use the various ports for monitoring and it shoudl look pretty darn good.

Jay
 
I see your point, but I don't know why you'd be using them direct connect to a camera like that. I see them as computer / edit suite boxes where my comments apply.

Graeme
 
Of course I'm referring to recording to a D-Nagra or other new disk-based device.

We have used Emmy award winning sound recordists and they are absolutely worth their rate. Especially in low budget scenarios. They tend to get uppity on set because the norm is about the picture, but as a director (and often at least an exec producer) I make sure sound is given its respect. The typical gaffer reply is 'heard any good movies lately?'

This discussion does of course raise the question of what people are using on set for monitoring. We use the BVMD-20U with HD-SDI (and it's little brother in the 9" model) and are very confident in what we see, but it is only HD. While we own ours, most will be renting. I don't believe these monitors can be bought anymore as the TriColor monitors from Sony are the replacement.
 
Graeme,

All I can say from my own perspective is that I am very careful about the number of cables coming off the camera. I HOPE there will be only two:

SDI & Audio

SDI would go to the "suite box" as you call it, and the audio goes to the sound mixer. Also if nessesary, the suite box can go to video assist, or engineer, or what have you. I look at it like a "hub" where the support equipment comes from.

As for critical monitoring from the editor.. This is the other problem I was speaking of. I know the system uses DVCPro HD or ProRes to capture, but is it also using that codec to monitor? This is a very important point that I need to look into. There's a good chance it is because as I understand it Firewire is not a "video signal" per sea, but must be decoded at each end.

Uh oh.

Jay
 
I was just thinking about editorial monitoring. I'm not the person to speak to about on set, as that's not where myskillset lies.

For monitoring, I'd rate the IO/HD as very good from what I've seen - although it does only take prores over the FW, at least prores is full raster and v high quality. DVCproHD is neither, so unless you shot with it, I don't see it being good to use as an intermediate codec.

Graeme
 
Torrie said:
The typical gaffer reply is 'heard any good movies lately?'
Click to expand...

And the reply should either be "Very few, which is why I want to get the sound right on this one." Or "See any good silents recently?"
 
I compressed all my r3d's at first to DVCproHD for editing since I had to shoot some of the spot DVCProHD. The DVCPro looked so bad that I went back and did it all ProRes. The difference was BIG. The IOHD looks good to me but I have had a regular IO for years and being firewire based it has always been a little sluggish. I'm thinking Kona 3.
 
Here's a good question:

Do We NEED the AJA IO? Does ProRes exist in FCP without IO? Since we're off-loading from a drive and with REDCine... We can monitor using one of the outs on RED, or something similar.

Is just the laptop enough? Is prores a lot slower without the IO box?

Jay
 
I'm using ProRes now without the HD IO. I do have the standard def IO and it plays back downconverted Prores out to monitor (realtime in 2k prores but not 1080 for some reason!) Prores is built into Final Cut (without IO HD) and is somewhat processor intensive. I can play 2k prores HQ but can't add color correction without rendering on my dual 2ghz G5. I'm sure if I had an 8 core that would be different. The IO HD does prores in hardware so you woudn't need the computer's processor as much. On my macbook pro dual core 2ghz I'm seeing similar Prores performance to my dual 2 G5.
 
I posted long thoughts on HDforindies.com over the summer when the V3HD was announced (google it). BTW, I saw one at Tekserve last week.

Both will have niche applications, no such thing as perfect all around solution.

-mike
 
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