Instruction manual

HDV Data rate: 19 MB/second high deﬁnition720p, 25 MB/second high deﬁnition

1080i—supported by internal system drive

Quality: Excellent

KONA LH supports and accelerates the Final Cut Pro HDV Codec. You can use

KONA LH to convert HDV projects to uncompressed—in real time—for

monitoring and/or output. KONA LH can capture uncompressed from any

input, directly to HDV media. The KONA LH advanced scaling engine takes the

native frame (long GOP 1440 HD) and outputs it via hardware—in real time.

Precision AJA circuitry re-sizes the video to proper 1920 x 1080, providing quick

playback of HDV captured by Final Cut for monitoring and recording.

HDV captures HD images via MPEG2 compression and allows for recording the

signal to a MiniDV tape. This MPEG2 compression is similar to a DVD

(although DVD is a program stream vs. HDV’s transport stream and HDV uses a

constant bit rate whereas DVDs use variable bit rates). The issue for post

production is that the HDV transport stream is based around a long-GOP

structure (group of pictures) which produces images based on information over a

section of time, via I, P and B frames; Intraframes, predicted frames and bi-

directional frames. Formats that do not use this scheme treat frames as individual

units, as in the progressive formats where a frame truly is a frame, or as interlaced

frames where two ﬁelds create the image. Sometimes we refer to these formats in

contrast to MPEG formats, as I-frame formats where frames can be easily deﬁned

as individual.

Since the frames of HDV have the long GOP structure to deﬁne them, herein lies

the problem for post-production; how can we work with the material if we must

know what lies before, after and during? Luckily, the transport stream MPEG2

can be transmitted over IEEE1394 (aka FireWire). This means that the

compressed HD material can be transferred into systems with the appropriate

hardware and software (for example, a G5 with Final Cut Pro 5). While this

seems like a simple solution for post-production, it means that the footage must

be brought into the system as a rather heavily compressed format and that the

computer must continue to work with the material as a MPEG2 transport stream,

which is incredibly processor intensive for the computer.

How does the AJA KonaLH/LHe card connect to HDV and digitize material to

uncompressed HD ﬁles for editing—or at the very least, to a lightly compressed I-

Frame HD format? The answer to this is provided in a feature common to many

HDV devices: analog HD output via component video. The component

connectors on JVC cameras and decks, along with Sony cameras and decks, allows

for the output of the long GOP MPEG2 data as a standard HD video format such

as 720P, as with the JVC products—or 1080i as with the Sony products.

Since the KonaLH/LHe cards have the ability to digitize analog HD signals, the

analog component output of the HDV devices can simply be connected to the

KonaLH/LHe inputs. Note that HD signal cannot be transported over composite

or S-Video (Y/C) cables, so the HDV device must have an analog component HD

output. The KonaLH/LHe also has the ability to ingest analog audio, so the

analog audio outputs of the HDV devices can be sent to the Kona card as well.

(Also note that these analog audio outputs on the HDV devices are usually

unbalanced RCA connections where the KONA card uses balanced XLR style