Entertainment Technology News

A New Line of USB3-Enabled KiStor Drives and KiStor Dock with Thunderbolt™ and USB3 Connectivity Announced at IBC 2012;
Firmware Update for Ki Pro Rack and Ki Pro Mini Also Announced

(Amsterdam, Netherlands, IBC Conference Stand 7.F11) AJA Video Systems today announced several new enhancements to its Ki Pro family of tapeless video recording devices available in both portable and rack-mountable form factors. At the International Broadcasters Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam, AJA is introducing a new line of USB3-enabled KiStor drives for Ki Pro and Ki Pro Rack, along with a new KiStor Dock with Thunderbolt™ and USB3 connectivity. The AJA Ki Pro family of products enables fast and efficient workflows that interface traditional analog and digital acquisition formats into simple edit-ready files.

The new KiStor drives use a built-in USB3 connection in place of the previous FireWire connection allowing for faster throughput to the host computer and dramatically reducing transfer times. The new drives will be available in three capacities: 250GB, 500GB and 750GB. The 750GB drive will allow a maximum recording time of nearly 8 hours of 1080p/24 Apple ProRes 422 HQ material with 4 channels of audio or almost 13 hours of Avid DNxHD 145 quality. The KiStor Dock is an accessory for KiStor drives, making it simple to mount KiStor drives on Mac or Windows desktops or laptops and transfer files between them at high speed. The Dock uses a SATA connection internally for the KiStor drive modules, allowing compatibility with all KiStor Drives ever made and provides both Thunderbolt™ and USB3 connectivity to your computer. Unlike systems that use bare drives, KiStor drives are designed in a custom enclosure that ensures reliability and repeated use in the field.

"The adoption of AJA's professional tapeless recorders, both our portable and rack-mountable Ki Pro products, continues to proliferate at a rapid pace," said Nick Rashby, President, AJA Video Systems. "We designed our Ki Pro family of products to stand up to future technical and production workflow demands, and the release of our new KiStor Dock, USB3 KiStor storage modules and frequent firmware updates is evidence of that design."

Version 4.1 firmware for Ki Pro Mini and Ki Pro Rack is also being announced. The new firmware will add time-lapse recordings for interval record, interval frames and interval time, and also new camera data menu parameter additions for ARRI Alexa cameras, Panasonic AG-AF100 series cameras and the Sony PMW-F3 camera enabling start and stop via ancillary SDI data. These new features build on the recent v4.0 firmware for Ki Pro Mini and Ki Pro Rack which introduced support for the Avid DNxHD codec, enabling recording of files at all quality levels; DNxHD 220x, DNxHD 145 and the very efficient DNxHD 36, unlike competitive products which only support a single quality level for Avid DNxHD or Apple ProRes. All Ki Pro devices also support recording to Apple ProRes 422, Proxy, LT and HQ.

The KiStor Dock will be available soon at a US MSRP of $495. New KiStor drives will also be available soon at the following price points (all US MSRP):

--KiStor USB3 750 - $495
--KiStor USB3 500 - $385 (same as the FireWire version price)
--KiStor USB3 250 - $265 (same as the FireWire version price)

All firmware updates will be available for free to existing customers directly from the AJA website. For a complete set of features and technical specifications, please visit www.aja.com.

Resources:

www.aja.com