"We recognize what the most popular choices are now for SD and HD in terms of day-to-day workflows, and it makes good sense to roll it all into one product," says Ted Schilowitz, worldwide product manager, desktop video, AJA. "KONA LH is a completely migrated product with the most utilized features of Kona 2 and Io at a breakthrough price, while maintaining the highest standards of reliability and quality that professional editors require and expect from AJA. The ability to bring in and layback to HDCAM, DVCProHD, HDV, Betacam SP, Digital Betacam, even VHS, all on one product is really powerful and will make a great solution for our customers that build systems around the Apple platform."
The Kona LH supports various codecs such as DVCProHD, HDV playback, DV50, and many more, with hardware acceleration on-board for the playback of DVCProHD, HDV and Apple's Dynamic RT Extreme.
Kona LH's analog video connectivity includes 12-bit HD component analog I/O, which is good for interfacing to today's HDV cameras and decks, allowing the HDV user to digitize to 10-bit uncompressed, DVCProHD, and many other codecs, offering a true professional workflow for the HDV format. For standard definition work, the analog inputs and outputs can be configured as 12-bit SD component/YC/composite, all via three professional BNC connectors. For SD and HD Digital I/O, Kona LH offers SDI/HD-SDI input, and two SDI/HD-SDI outputs. Broadcast-grade Genlock is also included.
Kona LH's built-in 10-bit hardware downconverter can be used during digitize or playback, allowing the user to bring in HD as SD, and/or output HD as SD for laying to tape or monitoring, all at 10-bit broadcast-quality. The product also offers some pro audio features. Kona LH offers native OS X multichannel audio and 24-bit AES/EBU digital audio at 48kHz for digital production. For ease of conversion, Kona LH also includes hardware sample-rate conversion to allow asynchronous or even different sample rates (32-96kHz), eliminating synchronization hassles and unwelcome snaps and crackles. Kona LH offers two-channel AES on XLR, two-channel analog on XLR, and eight-channel SDI embedded audio.
Kona LH features dual-monitor desktop viewing for desktop paint and motion graphics program output and also comes standard with a breakout cable and works with the optional KL-Box for rackmounted I/O convenience.