New Mini-Converters, OpenGear Rack Cards, and Desktop Software Upgrade Also Unveiled

AJA showed up at IBC with the FS3, a new upconverting frame synchronizer that accepts SD/HD input (including 60p) via BNC or fiber and upconverts 4K or UHD to multiple outputs simultaneously.

The FS3's feature set also includes RGB color-correction, region-of-interest scaling, audio controls and routing, and a web UI. It's a 4K-capable piece of kit that joins the FS1, FS1-X and FS2 frame synchronizers.

"With FS3 we're excited to introduce an easy way to integrate SD and HD signals into 4K workflows," said AJA President Nick Rashby in a prepared statement. "These products are true workhorses."

The FS3 is expected to ship next month for an MSRP of $2,995.

Corvid HEVC for Developers
Now shipping to development partners is AJA's Corvid HEVC, a 4K and multichannel HEVC PCIe 2.0 eight-lane encoding card. 

The card can encode 4K, HD, and lower resolution video to 8-bit or 10-bit 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 HEVC in real time with low latency, AJA said. Audio and metadate are included in the encoding process.

For the IBC demo, AJA partner Cisco integrated the card into its UCS rack-based server. More information is available at AJA's Developer Program web page. 

OpenGear Rackframe Cards
AJA also brought its new OpenGear line-up to IBC. OpenGear is a modular, open-architecture hardware platform for broadcast infrastructure.

Starting in October, AJA will offer the 2RU 20-slot OG-3-FR frame ($1249) designed by Ross Video along with an introductory range of rackframe cards: the OG-1×9-SDI-DA distribution amplifier ($495), the OG-FIBER-2R two-channel fiber-to-SDI converter ($645), and the OG-FIBER-2T two-channel SDI-to-fiber converter ($645).

AJA promised that more OpenGear-compatible products are coming "in the near future."

Mini-Converters? Yeah, We Got Mini-Converters
New Mini-Converters at the show included the HB-T-SDI ($595) and HB-R-SDI ($595), which extend 3G-SDI over Ethernet via HDBaseT. Because they support bi-direction IR and RS-232, they are being pitched at AV, digital signage, live events, post production, network, studio, and on-set applications. They can be used with AJA's HDBaseT HDMI Mini-Converters announced at InfoCOMM for highly configurable video I/O on both ends of an Ethernet run.

The ROI-HDMI Mini-Converter ($995) delivers region-of-interest scaling and SDI out from HDMI computer inputs. Other ROI converters from AJA support DVI and DisplayPort input.

And the HD10MD4 ($995) converts HD-SDI to standard-definition SDI and analog component or composite video. It can also apply 3:2 pulldown to convert 1080p24 or 1080p24sf to 59.94 Hz video in 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratios. Four-channel HD-SDI audio is passed through the SDI out, and a mini-USB jack allows the unit to be controlled from Mac or PC software.

I/O Device Drivers
Finally, AJA updated the software for its Kona, T-Tap, and Io devices to v12.3. Here is AJA's bullet list of new features.

• Closed Captioning Improvements: KONA 4 and Io 4K now support closed captioning in Adobe Premiere Pro and AJA Control Room.
• Closed Captioning Capture: Stored in a closed captioning track in a Quicktime file as well as in an .scc and .mcc file. Closed captioning playback is also supported.
• Output Support for Telestream Wirecast: Monitor output with Wirecast generated graphics overlays, including support for AJA T-TAP™.
• New Linux Retail Driver: Supported by Shotgun Software’s RV and The Foundry’s NUKE.
• SMPTE 425 controls for KONA 4 and Io 4K in AJA Control Panel.
• Audio Delay Slider: An audio delay slider is now part of AJA Control Panel supporting KONA 4 and Io 4K. Delay audio on input or output up to six frames, in 1/10 frame increments.
• Follow Input mode: Automatically changes the framebuffer to match the video input
• Windows 10 and Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan support.

The new software is available as a free download for Kona 4, Kona 3G, Kona LHi, Kona LHe Plus, Io 4K, Io XT, Io Express, and T-Tap.