ronn:

24p (or 23.976p)

SD you mean. HD 24p and HD 23.976p seem to be supported, though.

ronn:

Looking at the Knowledge Base, it appears that even with the Aja iO Express, we will still not be able to monitor 24p (or 23.976p) from MC5.5 - that kinda sucks.

and

Job ter Burg:

ronn:

24p (or 23.976p)

SD you mean. HD 24p and HD 23.976p seem to be supported, though.

Where did you see that information?

I looked around for some info on this, and I found the following chart, which shows the hardware capabilities for the various input/output solutions for MC5.5.

http://cdn.pinnaclesys.com/SupportFiles/attach/HW-Capabilities_1.2.pdf

If you look in the AJA IO Express column under the "Video Playback" section, it shows an "S" (for "Supported") for SD - NTSC 23.976p, 24p, and 30i.  I may simply be misunderstanding something here, but doesn't this indicate that 24p and 23.976p SD output for 5.5 is supported?

Further down, it looks like 1080p "true progressive" 23.976p and 24p are NOT supported, but that "progressive segmented frame" playback is supported for 1080p.

Does anybody have the straight story on this?  What resolutions does the Aja support for 24p or 23.976p material?

Thanks,

Larry

lalittle:

Does anybody have the straight story on this?  What resolutions does the Aja support for 24p or 23.976p material?

Thanks,

Larry

On the AJA Homepage you will find the I/O-Express specification here

http://www.aja.com/pdf/IoExpressSheet.pdf

This shows also 1080 "true" progressive as a valid video format. So may be It is not supported in conjunction with Media Composer. The specification shows both, 23,98 fps and 24 fps as valid HD-formats.

I think the reality will be shown when MC 5.5 is available.

Joachim

What Aja supports and what MC5.5 allow are 2 different things. According to AVID:

http://cdn.pinnaclesys.com/SupportFiles/attach/HW-Capabilities_1.2.pdf

24p playback is not supported.

ronn:

24p playback is not supported.

It is! Just not in PAL. 24.00p HD is supported according to that document.

To be more specofic, I am refering to 1080p ("true progressive") not 1080PsF or 720 or SD or PAL. Looks like (to me) it is not supported. Also not supported on Nitris DX or Mojo DX. However it would appear that MX02 Mini will be able to, with 5.5.1 and new drivers.

Sorry, yes. I was mixing up threads, and did not notice you meant P versus PsF.

Okay -- just to make sure I'm on the same page as everybody here when it comes to the subject of "24fps" projects in MC 5.5; if we're assuming that the pdf chart from Avid is correct, the Aja box supports playback of SD (NTSC) at both 24p and 23.976p (i.e. true progressive for SD), HD 720 at 23.976p, and HD 1080 at 24PsF and 23.976PsF, but does NOT support "true" 1080p (24p or 23.976p) at all.

Does this sound right to everybody based on the current information?

The question is what this will mean for monitoring 1080p 24 and 23.876 projects in MC 5.5.  Will the Aja box add the 3:2 pulldown to a true progressive signal in order to display it at 23.976PsF, or will you have to actually feed a PsF signal to the Aja box in order to display it?  Will the Aja box simply "ignore" a true 1080 23.976p signal and display nothing?  If the Aja box requires a PsF signal, can Avid be set to add the 3:2 pulldown and output a PsF signal from a 23.976p project, or will the Aja box simply be useless for true 1080 23.976p projects?

What strikes me is that 1080 23.976p (i.e. true p) is an extremely popular project format, so it would be an incredibly conspicuous omission to not support this format at all.

It's also worth noting that the Matrox DOES support true progressive 1080p 24 and 23.976 modes.  The only "24" mode that it does not support is SD 24p, but it does support SD 23.976p, which is a more common format, so this is probably not a significant issue.

Assuming the chart is correct, it makes the decision of which box to get (Aja vs Matrox) more complicated.  Before I knew about the Aja's potential limitations (and, once again, I'm not yet clear exactly what they are), I had thought the Aja to be the obvious choice due to its ability to capture.  Depending on how you would work with 1080 23.976p projects with the Aja, however, the Matrox might actually be a better choice.

Thanks for all the feedback on this,

Larry

As a Matrox Mini/MC5.x owner, I am livid that I can not monitor 24p 1080 currently. If I blow another $149 to that end and STILL can't, I will be SO annoyed - and if I blow another grand for the upgrade AND an Aja and still can't - jeeez. Actually there's a much harsher descriptive  than "annoyed" but I don't need to go there. I'll take my BP medicine now.

ronn:

As a Matrox Mini/MC5.x owner, I am livid that I can not monitor 24p 1080 currently. If I blow another $149 to that end and STILL can't, I will be SO annoyed - and if I blow another grand for the upgrade AND an Aja and still can't - jeeez. Actually there's a much harsher descriptive  than "annoyed" but I don't need to go there. I'll take my BP medicine now.

I haven't purchased any hardware for 24p monitoring yet, but I can fully appreciate your frustration.

Frankly, I'm astonished that this is even something that we have to discuss at this point.  It seems like an absolute no-brainer that 24fps playback (meaning both 24p and 23.976p at both SD and HD resolutions) would be fully supported in any device of this nature.  There is no practical reason for this not to be the case -- it's simply a matter of whether or not a unit is designed to play back these resolutions with Avid.

This is why I can't help feeling like I may be misunderstanding something about the situation.  The ability for Avid MC to allow us to work in various 24fps formats has been around for quite a while now. so why would anyone design playback hardware that would work with MC, but that couldn't provide 24fps playback?  It just SUCH a strange omission in today's world.

Larry

lalittle:

Does this sound right to everybody based on the current information?

This is what I'm reading into the document, yes.

lalittle:

Will the Aja box add the 3:2 pulldown to a true progressive signal

No, if it says PsF then it will send a PsF signal over its spigots. And PsF is what most if not all HDSDI devices (decks, monitors) expect to receive. For example, my Panasonic pro plasma screen does NOT accept PsF over HDMI, but it DOES accept PsF over its optional HDSDI input board.

It has nothing to do with the media INSIDE the Avid. There are no PsF projects, there are just p-projects. It only has to do with the type of signal at the output side of the box. Most (consumer type) HDMI devices are not capable of handling a PsF signal, only P signals.

It's the very same thing with Mojo DX and Nitris DX.  The Nitris DX does have both HDMI and HDSDI outputs, but it will create a PsF signal from the media, and send that over its outputs. So not all monitors will accept its (PsF) signal.

The Matrox unit, being HDMI based, and being meant to be used with most any HDMI display, allows you to set the output to either PsF or P.

So when you decide what unit to use, a lot of it has to do with what type of monitor you will be using.

Also note that the MXO2 is monitoring-only. The AJA also supports capture.

ronn:

I am livid that I can not monitor 24p 1080 currently. If I blow another $149 to that end and STILL can't, I will be SO annoyed

From what I understand, 5.5 will support the newer driver for the MXO2, which allows for 1080p24 playback. If you have cold feet, wait until mid March, and you will be able to hear from folks running 24p first-hand, then decide to spend the $$$.

ronn:

To be more specofic, I am refering to 1080p ("true progressive") not 1080PsF or 720 or SD or PAL. Looks like (to me) it is not supported. Also not supported on Nitris DX or Mojo DX. However it would appear that MX02 Mini will be able to, with 5.5.1 and new drivers.

I'd just like to point out, unless my understanding of this conversation is wrong, that there is no such thing as SD PAL 24fps (or any 24 fps in PAL), only NTSC SD allows for 24fps (or 23. etc). And there is "true progressive" 720p 24fps (e.g. JVC HDV1), which the AJA seems to be able to handle according to that PDF. Also as Job points out the AJA seems to function exactly as the Mojo and Nitris DX in terms of SDI IO, which is a question of the HD-SDI signal more than the hardware.

Job ter Burg:

It has nothing to do with the media INSIDE the Avid. There are no PsF projects, there are just p-projects. It only has to do with the type of signal at the output side of the box. Most (consumer type) HDMI devices are not capable of handling a PsF signal, only P signals.

This is where I get a bit fuzzy.  I know that projects in Avid are only "p" and not "PsF," but what I'm NOT clear on is if Avid is able to output a PsF signal "to" the Aja box.  In other words, the bottom line question is this:

If I'm work on a 1080p 23.976 project in Avid MC 5.5 and I use the Aja box, what happens?  Will I be able to see it on the monitor through the Aja box, or will I simply not be able to monitor this project at all with the Aja hardware?

More specifically, does the signal get converted to PsF at some point (i.e. pulldown applied) so that the Aja box can display it on the monitor?  If so, at what point is the pulldown applied?  Will there be some sort of setting in Avid for this?

Thanks,

Larry

lalittle:

If I'm work on a 1080p 23.976 project in Avid MC 5.5 and I use the Aja box, what happens?

It will output 1080/23.976PsF. It's not about what the Avid is sending to the box, it's what the box will output. Maybe - like Nitris DX - it will allow for some cross-conversion, but I doubt that.

lalittle:

Will I be able to see it on the monitor through the Aja box

If the monitor is capable of handling that signal: yes.

lalittle:

does the signal get converted to PsF at some point (i.e. pulldown applied)

PsF is not the same as pulldown. Pulldown means adding fields and converting 23.976p to 59.98i. Maybe the AJA supports that (the Matrox does, AFAIK), maybe not. But PsF is just P-in-two-segments. It's the way all HD decks work as well.