IBC 2012: AJA - Creative COW

CreativeCOW presents IBC 2012: AJA -- AJA Ki Pro Editorial

Debra Kaufman
Santa Monica California USA

©2012 CreativeCOW.net. All rights reserved.

AJA is unveiling several new products at IBC 2012, chief among them the Corvid Ultra, which supports 2K and 4K high-frame rate DI workflows. Corvid Ultra also features the new TruScale arbitrary scaling engine, which allows up and down scaling from web video to 4K. Also of note is a new line of USB3-enabled KiStor drives for Ki Pro and Ki Pro Rack as well as a new KiStor Dock with Thunderbolt and USB3 connectivity.

AJA, located in Hall 7.F11, unveiled several new products at IBC 2012, including Corvid Ultra, the latest product in AJA's Corvid family of OEM technologies for I/O, processing and scaling. Corvid Ultra supports 2K and 4K DI workflows with high-frame rate (48p and 60p) support as well as scaling capabilities for all resolutions, with real-time 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 SD, HD, 2K and 4K I/O support. Corvid Ultra was shown as a technology demonstration (codenamed "Riker") at NAB 2011. Other features include support for stereoscopic workflows, onboard de-Bayering support and two expandable card bays.

"With 4K, what's going on is a huge revolution begun by RED," says AJA Product Marketing Manager Bryce Button. "They got the market excited and the entire industry has produced sensors that can record 4K. The question is, What do you do with it? On the display side, you're starting to see more projectors. But the second, more difficult problem is workflow. That's what we're addressing at IBC 2012."

Corvid Ultra, the latest product in AA's Corvid family of OEM technologies for I/O, processing and scaling.

Corvid Ultra features the new TruScale arbitrary scaling engine option that allows up and down scaling of any raster, from web video to 4K. Real-time and keyframeable, TruScale enables motion video to be resized without losing image quality. Corvid Ultra can also be expanded to two TruScale cards for multi-stream scaling of up to 4K images.

Other features include HDMI 1.4 output up to 4K or up to 2K stereoscopic, 1D and 3D LUT support and half-float frame buffer support. Button notes that Colorfront will be at the AJA stand to demonstrate real-time 4K 60P playback with On-Set dailies. Corvid Ultra will be available at $7,995 (with PCIe card and cable), with the TruScale option available soon for $3,495.AJA also introduced Corvid 24, which builds on the Corvid 22 video I/O card for OEM partners. Corvid 24 supports up to four independent channels of video and embedded audio capture or output (with support for full 4K) on a single PCIe card, with bypass relays and "watchdog" timers. It is available for AJA OEM partners for $1,895.

The new line of USB3-enabled KiStor drives for Ki Pro and Ki Pro Rack as well as a new KiStor Dock with Thunderbolt and USB3 connectivity. The new KiStor drives replace FireWire connection with a built-in USB3 connection, allowing for faster throughput

The new line of USB3-enabled KiStor drives for Ki Pro and Ki Pro Rack. Click image for larger view.

Also unveiled at IBC was a new line of USB3-enabled KiStor drives for Ki Pro and Ki Pro Rack as well as a new KiStor Dock with Thunderbolt and USB3 connectivity. The drives will be available in 250GB, 500GB and 750GB versions, the latter of which permits nearly 8 hours of 1080p/24 Apple ProRes 422 HQ material with 4 channels of audio capacities or almost 13 hours of Avid DnxHD 145 quality. "The KiStor Dock is an accessory for KiStor drives," explains Button. "The Dock makes it simple to mount KiStor drives on Mac or Windows desktops or laptops and transfer files between at very high speed." The price for the 500GB and 250GB KiStor will be $385 and $250, respectively, the same price as the previous FireWire version. The 750GB version and the KiStor Dock are priced at $495.

Shortly after IBC 2012, for Ki Pro Mini and Ki Pro Rack users, AJA will introduce Version 4.1 firmware that adds time-lapse recordings for interval record, interval frames and interval time, as well as new camera data menu parameter additions for the Panasonic AG-AF100 series and the Sony PMW-F3 series.

AJA also debuted KUMO 3232, a compact SDI router with 32 inputs and 32 outputs, for cost effective routing in a small (2RU) form factor. KUMO 3232, which is aimed at a range of broadcast, production and post production environments, is part of the KUMO family of SDI routers that deliver full 3G SDI capabilities. The KUO 3232 will ship in Q4 2012 and is priced at $3,495.

AJA Product Marketing Manager Bryce Button

Version 2.0 Software for AJA's FS2 1 RU dual channel universal frame synchronizer and format converter was also introduced. A new feature is a DVI signal scaler with ROI (region of interest) parameters, which allows the user to selectively crop from the DVI-D signal source (such as a web page) and scale it in real-time via a live signal output on the FS2 to standard broadcast HD. Version 2.0 also supports non-broadcast digital input formats for use with the FS2's HDMI input.

T-TAP, AJA's lightweight HD-SDI and HDMI Thunderbolt-powered video device, which launched at NAB, began shipping at IBC 2012. T-TAP allows users to use Thunderbolt to deliver high quality video and embedded audio output from any compatible Mac system. T-TAP is priced at $295.

Button speaks to AJA's focus on products that enable 4K and Thunderbolt. "We listen and try to stay ahead of the industry and then provide the most powerful tools we can that will be affordable to the greatest number of people," he says.

Indeed, AJA's pairing of technology aimed at urgent workflow issues with compact size and very affordable cost seems like a winner. The fact that the very smart folks at Colorfront gravitated to an AJA solution before it came out on the market is a ringing endorsement. As the products begin to ship, AJA's clients will no doubt use them in a range of innovative ways, stories we intend to cover at Creative COW.