When AJA introduced the Io HD at NAB 2007, it was received with great industry enthusiasm and awards recognition from the key media outlets honoring products at the show. Since shipping to record numbers of users since its release in September of 2007, the Io HD has been put to the task on innovative film and television productions.

The Project:
The Gene Generation

The Challenge:
Build a portable HD playback system that is light, tapeless and eliminates the need for costly and unwieldy VTRs.

The Solution:
Keith Collea, co-writer, producer and technical supervisor for "The Gene Generation," used AJA's Io HD as an integral part of a fully portable movie projection system that allowed the film to be projected via a Sony 4K digital cinema projector without the use of tape-based VTR for playback. "Our goal was to create an 'over-the-shoulder' projection system, one that fit entirely into a shoulder bag I could carry on my motorcycle and that would allow us to just walk in, plug in a cable, and walk out again—no tapes to back up, no heavy equipment to schlep, no truck to rent," relates Collea. "Using the Io HD, an Apple Intel MacBook Pro and a G-Tech G-DRIVE, we were able to do just that and nobody could see the difference. It saved us time and money, and the picture quality was better than if it came off of tape. It was just incredible." "I'm a huge AJA fan," says Collea. "Their products are rock-solid dependable and the customer service is beyond stellar — there's never been a time when I couldn't get someone on the phone to help with any issue I might have, even with non-AJA related problems. It's also great that AJA is so closely associated with Apple. The moment Apple comes out with new software updates, AJA is ready with new drivers. Everything is in sync, which makes my life so much easier."

The Project:
The Interrogation of Harry Wind

The Challenge:
Develop simple and cost-effective workflow for on-set ingest and conversion for editing and playback in real time.

The Solution:
Shot on two Panavision HD-900Fs (Panavised Sony HDW-F900s) in studio locations in Switzerland and Germany, "The Interrogation of Harry Wind" is a dramatic thriller set in Zurich during the 1950s. Second Unit Camera Operator Marek Poray-Heywowski, who also served as the film's Technical Supervisor, created the entire workflow for the project, using AJA's Io HD along with a 17" MacBook Pro to ingest footage and convert it into Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) for editing and playback.

"After each day of shooting we would use the Io HD to capture footage into Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) on one of our five one-terabyte eSata Hard Drive RAID storage arrays. Everyone was amazed that we could do this with just a laptop computer, the Io HD and storage connected via the ExpressCard/ 34 interface, but it worked perfectly."

"Io HD is brilliant," Poray-Heywowski continued. "It changed our workflow completely. Just recording with the Io HD system as a DVR, I was actually able to show the director material shot during the day that same night, something I would never want to do with the original camera tapes. I used a MacBook Pro on set, and as a result we were able to create a timeline for all the master shots right in Final Cut Pro. Using Io HD, we were able to see all the master shots play at once, and most importantly, see them in full HD resolution from Apple ProRes (HQ)."

The Project:
"Tension" Wilson Staff Golf Commercial

The Challenge:
Shoot and post a :60-second commercial in a week and a half while maintaining the highest image quality and production standards.

The Solution:
Jeremy Garchow, editor for Chicagobased Maday Productions worked as an editor and post-production supervisor on this television spot. He tapped the AJA Io HD as a kind of digital DDR enabling the team to record everything in HD, 720p at 23.98 fps to meet delivery needs domestically and abroad. "We were able to maintain a very high quality throughout our production using the Io HD, with a 10-bit end-to-end pipeline, we didn't have to go back to tape or flash media based recordings at any point in the project. All duplicate pulldown frames were extracted as we were capturing to record 23.98 files which further enhanced our productivity. The Io HD also allowed us to immediately monitor playback on set to ensure that we captured exactly what we needed in an efficient manner," explained Garchow.

The Project:
Miami Dolphins Broadcast from London's Wembley Stadium

The Challenge:
Facilitate a remote HD editing solution during the Miami Dolphins' visit to play the New York Giants at Wembley Stadium in London.

The Solution:
Brendan Nieto, Senior Manager of Prodution and Programming for the Miami Dolphins credits the Io HD with enabling the team's Miami-based fans to view their London game. "The best thing about the Io HD is that I got it, plugged it in and it worked— it's really as simple as that. We would not have attempted to do this sort of live, quick turnaround HD production before having the Io HD. The Panasonic Varicam, a laptop and an Io HD are all you need to get the high quality results that previously demanded much larger, more cumbersome and more expensive solutions."

Nieto heads up the production of all of the Miami Dolphins' HD material for the stadium video boards, the team website and a local broadcast network. Nieto needed a mobile HD editing system to take along to capture the team's visit to London. He wanted to get HD video into an Apple MacBook Pro laptop from various professional cameras including the Panasonic P2 enabled cameras and the Panasonic Varicam at the event. Nieto took HD-SDI video straight out of the Varicam and into Io HD, recording it right onto the laptop's hard drive using the Io HD's hardware-based Apple ProRes 422 encoding capability.

"With this setup we were able to edit material on the fly, and send MPEG 4 video onto our server so that local fans could watch our features at a viewing party on the High Definition Daktronic Video boards at Dolphin Stadium in Miami," Nieto explained.