beautypg.com

Accepted inputs using multiple aja products – AJA IoExpress User Manual

Page 8

background image

2

Accepted Inputs

HD/SD SDI Video with embedded audio

HDMI Video with embedded audio

Note: Encoding of Apple ProRes is available only on Apple computers. Apple ProRes can

be played back on a PC with the appropriate QuickTime Windows decoder.

Using Multiple AJA
Products

Starting with KONA, Io HD, and Io Express v7.5, more than one AJA product can be used
with your host computer. Using the AJA Control Panel, you can choose which installed
product an application uses for input/output. If you have more than one product and the
associated drivers installed, in the upper left corner of the AJA Control Panel you will see a
board name, such as Io Express or KONA3. (If only one product is installed, the AJA/Io
Express Control Panel will not show a product or pulldown menu.) To “target” a specific
installed product for use, select it from the list of available products that appear in the
pulldown.

When you launch an application such as Adobe Premiere Pro, or AJA TV, that application
will use the product that is currently selected in the AJA Control Panel application for its
input/output. Once an application is running, you can change the “targeted” product
selection in the AJA Control Panel and select a different product. The running application
will retain its connection to the product. If you change the “targeted” product and launch a
different application, that application will use the new product for its input/ output, while
the first application you launched will continue to use the previous AJA product.

Multiple AJA Products Pulldown Menu

Example: select an Io Express as the targeted product in the Control Panel application.
Launch your third-party editing application. This application is now using the Io Express for
its input/output. Go back to the Control Panel application and select a KONA card as the
“targeted” product. Launch the AJA TV application. AJA TV would now use the KONA card
for its output.

If you switch back to the third-party application, you will see that it still uses the Io Express
for its input/output. Note that some applications, like AJA TV, have a provision for playing in
the background, so playback on one product could even continue when switching the
targeted device for use with another application. You can even feed the output from one
AJA product to another AJA product on the same system in such cases.

AJA TV optionally supports playback in the background; checkbox “Continue Playback”
when AJA TV is in background.

Note: Performance of multi-product use depends on a variety of factors: CPU usage, RAM,

disk IOPS/bandwidth for streams of video, etc. and therefore performance may vary.
Also be aware that multiple input/output streams are only supported by software that
is explicitly designed for a multi-product environment. Also note that due to limitations
of FireWire bandwidth, only one Io HD product may be used at a time on a host
computer.