looking at purchasing Analog to SDI.. Blackmagic vs AJA?

The Black Magic gets HOT! Buy the more expensive heavy duty version https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...CONVMH_DUTYAAS_Mini_Converter_Heavy_Duty.html I've used this one for a good long time, and it seemed to work fine, but I was only going to 1280x720@59.94 for our studio.

Haven't used the AJA but we have a few of their FS2 units and they are great. Support is great on their stuff.

The BMD is short on details, the AJA claims 10 bit end to end which would be important.
 
I think I'm going to go with the AJA.. not that it matters but i think having an AJA box interface with the kipro mini just seems comforting to me and yes, 10bit is very important :) Thanks
 
I don't think you will regret that choice and if you buy it from someplace that allows 30 day returns, you are risking very little.
 
Found one on eBay for $150, brand new.. compared to retailed $345 and i have 30 day returns. Win win. Should be here by the end of the week, will let you know how it fairs with my 900. Thanks again
 
Update: I was sent an SDI to Analog AJA not Analog to SDI and it looks like the guy does not accept returns on ebay. Pretty upset. There is no way i can rewire the signal to go in reverse is there? I can't afford to eat this money.. Ebay has a buyer protection program right?
 
Yes, ebay has a buyer protection program that requires the seller to take it back and pay return shipping. But first make very sure that the auction had it labeled as analog to SDI. The "to" is the key word here, if it just had analog-sdi then it is open to interpretation and you may be screwed. I just recently did this with a Chinese seller on a motorcycle part, it worked far better than I had hoped, even though the sleazy seller had me ship it to the next victim down the line.

Also DO NOT jump to filing a claim with paypal! That negates the ebay buyer protection and you are certain to be screwed on the deal. You have 45 days to file with Paypal, use that time wisely to document and try to go through other channels.

Also, log into ebay and click on the item you bought. It may come back with a page that says no longer available, but click here to view the page that was present when you bought it. Make screen captures of this page! Make sure those captures have the important info like description and return policy. Do this before filing any kind of claim and give the seller a couple days before you click the "I want to return this item" from the drop down menu of things you can do after you purchase it in your history.

And in the end, if you are stuck with it, I would suggest contacting AJA and see if there is anything they will do, maybe they can cut you a good deal as a trade in or something. The few times I've had to work with support, they have been great!

If I had a spare BM analog to sdi, I'd offer to loan it to you, but all of ours are in service with old gear in our studio.
 
Is it possible that i could be getting noise in my image from the component connection? Is there a way to maintain the signal to noise ratio that the imager is giving me through component? would the image be cleaning using a miranda box? thanks
 
Kind of depends on what they designed the analog outs to do, that may be an area where they cut corners because they knew there would be a high priced Sony addition that they wanted to give better quality. It's also possible that the internal COAX cables have an issue, or they could be very temper-mental with cable/connector impedance.

Are you using true 75 ohm cable with 75 ohm connectors? Unlikely to be the problem, but worth asking.

How close is the converter to the camera? Could you try moving it farther away to see if the camera or converter are causing problems in the other piece?
 
i have no idea if my cables are true 75 ohm. they are the amazon basic component cable. As for how close everything is, the ki pro is attached to the back of the 900 on the bauer mount and the AJA HD10A converter is velcroed onto the side of the ki pro.
 
I might have figured out part of my issue. Its not the camera, its the RCA to BNC converter plug that goes onto the end of the cable i am using. i am using 6 of them (3 on each side) and the older gold colored ones are what i think are brining in the problems.. when i switched out the gold ones for newer silver ones the color banding and noise went down by a lot! I'm sure the Component connectors on the F900 could use a cleaning with some contact solution as well.
 
Second Update: I bought a can of Deoxit D5 contact cleaner and sprayed it on the component connectors both front and back as well as all the cables and the noise is gone completely. :) that stuff is magic!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top