To deliver his unique productions, which feature sophisticated visual effects and are finished in a range of formats from SD to beyond-4K, Crites recently brought in an Autodesk Smoke for Mac creative finishing system, and equipped it with an AJA KONA 3 card for high-quality, flexible video playback.

"My workflow is Mac based", said Crites. "Before Smoke was available on Mac, I would cut in Final Cut Pro and finish in After Effects, or take projects to Chicago to finish at a partner facility. Now I can cut and finish everything in house, on one system."

Key to Crites’ streamlined workflow is the AJA KONA 3 card, which resides in his all-in-one system running Smoke on Mac, Final Cut and After Effects. "KONA is the only video card I keep in the system. Whether I’m using it with Final Cut for offline or to conform an XML in Smoke that has been created by other editors, or using it with Smoke for offline and finishing, I can count on the consistency of monitoring between applications with KONA. It’s convenient and incredibly dependable."

Glyph works frequently in 4K resolution and higher and many of its projects are shot with the RED camera. "I often keep the RED footage at full 4k resolution because I am working it into plates that are sometimes even larger. Although I am monitoring at 2k, I can check my composites a section at a time at full resolution. It’s great to be able to push that much data through Smoke with the KONA card. It keeps up well and is absolutely reliable."

KONA’s flexible support for multiple formats also suits Glyph’s multi-screen work to a tee. "We often work with very large images, which we dice up into different projection plates for multiple projectors. We treat the edit as a single screen edit, and build a large plate as we go, then cut it into segments as a final step. With KONA, switching between those formats is seamless. If I change format, or my timeline I don’t have to think about it. As an artist, if the hardware is invisible to me, it’s working."

About AJA KONA
The KONA family is AJA’s line of 10-bit uncompressed capture and playback cards for video and audio input and output. KONA 3G is AJA’s card for supporting Autodesk Smoke for Mac, featuring 10-bit uncompressed video 3G/HD/SD I/O, HDMI 1.4a output for high quality monitoring, configurable SDI I/O mapping, 16-channel AES digital audio I/O and 16-channel SDI embedded audio I/O, realtime hardware-based conversion to support a range of SD and HD, dual-link HD, even 2K formats, a hardware downstream keyer and more.

About AJA Video Systems, Inc.
Since 1993, AJA Video has been a leading manufacturer of high-quality and cost-effective digital video interface, conversion, acquisition and desktop solutions supporting the professional broadcast and post- production markets. With headquarters in Grass Valley, California, AJA maintains an extensive sales channel of dealers and systems integrators around the world. For further information visit AJA Video Systems.