Here we are once again …week 11 since FCP-7 was available still no drivers for the AJA io HD…this is becoming a joke…if you can’t fix the problem give us all a refund or give us some idea when your so called engineering department will get their act together.

UPDATE…I have spoken to an AJA representative tonight and he did not give me any timeline for these drivers but gave me an indication that Apple and seven AJA engineers are working to make this happen. This unit relies heavily on Final Cut so I take from this that there are bugs with Final Cut Pro 7 that need attending to before the AJA io HD drivers can be finalised.

Having spoken to various members in AJA over the last 4 weeks they have all been very pleasant but due to some legal agreement with Apple can’t divulge the true state of play or give us a timeline for the drivers. This has also been the longest driver update in AJA’s history and it had to be the io HD !

You can be assured that when we see these drivers they will work with FCP-7 & Snow Leopard.

I must emphasise that although JVC claim that the HM700 and HM100 produce quicktime files that will sit on your Final Cut Pro timeline with no rendering…that’s perfectly true but there is a compromise and that is the way the file is brought in.

MPEG-2 is directed at broadcast formats at higher data rates; it provides extra algorithmic ‘tools’ for efficiently coding interlaced video, supports a wide range of bit rates and provides for multichannel surround sound coding. That’s the official line…

How does it affect you…I have been forced to use Final Cut Studio 3 without my AJA io HD therefore forcing me to ingest footage via the SDHC card itself, I soon discovered a very dark side to editing without my trusty AJA Pro-Rez box. My first serious filming with the HM100 was at my sons wedding in Italy and as I knew I was going to be busy I decided to edit a 2min sequence to upload onto Exposure Room.

Everything went fine till I used a program called “Looks” this is a program from Noise Industries that gives your footage a certain look…I added Looks to my footage and pressed render all…to my amazement I got a box telling me that my MPEG2 footage was conforming, the two minute sequence took almost one hour to render.

Since then I have re-installed my Leopard/FCP-2 hard drive to use the AJA box again and hey presto as if by magic my HM100 footage is now ingested via Apple Pro-Rez and no more MPEG2. As an aside I was filming a theatre show using a Sony EX-3 and a JVC HM100 at 1080 50i and you cannot tell the cameras apart, except for one tel-tail sign…the EX-3 suffers from IR discolouration on the blacks turning them a brownie red, the HM100 having a CCD gives me perfect blacks. Fortunately the HM100 is on wide and the EX-3 is tight so the problem is minor.

The moral of the story is do not be fooled by the hype …you can edit MPEG2 on a FCP timeline as long as you do nothing to it…and don’t expect to be able to use 2 HM100/700s ingest via the SDHC and try to edit a two camera multicam edit…IT WON’T WORK (WRONG IT DOES). The only way to ingest HM100/700 for two camera editing is via an AJA io HD, Express or a Matrox MX02.

Although I would still advise ingesting via a Matrox or AJA as Pro-Rez I was mistaken by telling you not to use HM100/700 as a multicam edit….

SEE HERE… http://www.hdwarrior.co.uk/2009/10/15/multicam-indeed-works-with-jvc-hm100-mpeg-2-file/

FCP 7.0.x – Io Express Driver version 1.0 (Leopard and Snow Leopard OSX compatible version).

I had to download the manual in order to find out if the Io Express has FCP-7 & Snow Leopard compatible drivers…not having this information on the AJA website is a serious omission in my opinion and tells me why we are still waiting for drivers for the £2500 AJA io HD. This is in direct competition with the Matrox MX02 and surprise, surprise, it also has a PCIe card interface…this is my one big beef with the io HD as it uses the FireWire 800 port which in my opinion was a major mistake.

7-8 weeks after Final Cut Pro-7 we are still no further forward with new drivers for the io HD…simply in my opinion it has been put on the back burner getting kit ready for IBC in Amsterdam… which is shocking for a top end piece of video equipment at this price point.

AJA are too embarrassed to tell the world that their io Express is FCP-7 and Snow Leopard compatible when they know hundreds of video professionals all over the globe have been waiting for the new io HD drivers…it’s a disgrace.

Maybe someone from AJA will read this and kick some ass and get the drivers uploaded or explain what the problem is and how much longer we are going to have to wait.

I have had to postpone my review of Snow Leopard because I intend using it with Final Cut Pro 7 running on a MacPro and ingesting with an AJA io HD. The problem is that AJA as yet running into week 7 do not have the drivers for FCP-7/Snow Leopard.

I do however have Snow Leopard running on two iMacs and it works fine in fact I can tell you that my iMac which is a later model is more responsive but I do not have FCP-7 on this machine so I can’t judge using it in a professional editing environment .

For those of us using the Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P eSATA card and a DP500 Sonnet have posted the following message. “Snow Leopard compatible (32bit). Advanced users note that this card is not yet compatible in full 64-bit boot. Snow Leopard default boots in 32-bit mode, except in an Xserve.”

MacBook Pro users have had problems using Snow Leopard as it seems to affect the Sony SxS drivers.

Friday the 24th of July 2009 Apple brought out Final Cut Pro 7 that was 6 weeks ago…July 29th AJA announce support for their KONA card V6.5 and to rub salt in the wound we now have a new version 7 which is Snow Leopard compatible.

I have emailed AJA regularly for the last 4 weeks asking them for an ETA for these drivers, I was told within 2 weeks and today sees the end of that 2 week timeline. As a customer of AJA and having paid £2500 for their HD box I think I and many others have been dealt a raw deal.

Their web site tells you to stick with FCS-2 until the new drivers are ready but companies like mine need to get to grips with Motion 4 etc and a 6 week delay is in my books totally unacceptable. I have various productions on hold waiting for these drivers.

http://www.aja.com/support/io/io-hd.php