Jun
A few days ago, AJA Video Systems announced support for Thunderbolt on Windows with its Io product line. One of them, the Io XT, helped drive this technology (on Mac) within AJA. It is a portable device that thanks to its two Thunderbolt connections streamlines capture and playback processes in both on-set and post-production applications.
On June 5, Intel demonstrated the first PCs with Thunderbolt ports, which offer bi-directional 10GBs performance. The data transfer speed provided by this connection offers great advantages in workflows related to the audiovisual world. Now, thanks to its support, Windows users will have the same flexibility already enjoyed by Macintosh users.
This is not the only news coming from the company; also taking advantage of the Thunderbolt connection, and adding the introduction of 4K to the market, AJA announced just over a month ago the Ki Pro Quad recorder (which we already introduced in this article).
Ki Pro Quad is the first portable device in the Ki Pro family to offer 4K (4096×2160), QuadHD (3840×2160), 2K (2048×1080) and HD (1920×1080) recording and monitoring. Features include 10bit 4:4:4:4 or 10bit at 4:2:2:2, and can share accessories with other Ki Pro products.
AJA Video Systems and Canon have worked together to optimize the performance of the Canon EOS C500 with this recorder, allowing it to capture or monitor uncompressed 4K images through its 3G-SDI output.
Thanks to these new features, using Ki Pro Quad allows you to perform various processes in a much faster and simpler way. For example, you can capture files without compression, in RAW, and perform the debayering process for real-time 4K monitoring. Another option is to record at full 4K resolution, in Quicktime files encoded with ProRes (which are stored on an SSD) and directly move the RAW files through the Thunderbolt connection to start dailies, editing or any other post-shoot function.
Finally, and joining the long list of manufacturers that have already done the same, AJA very recently released support for Adobe Creative Suite 6 with its Io Express, Io XT and KONA family of cards.
In conjunction with the new Adobe Mercury Transmit (playback engine that improves performance with or without GPU acceleration), the operation of AJA video I/O devices is optimized. Through this plug-in, all new AJA drivers support video output in Premiere Pro CS6.
The new drivers are now available as a free download for both Windows and Mac from here.
