Tip - How to Capture with AJA Kona LHe Plus

[jwillis84]

AJA makes the Kona (formerly Xena) line of Analog and Digital capture cards.

The LHe Plus ('e' means pci express edition) has drivers for Windows Vista, 7, 8.1, 10

AJA has a free proprietary capture app called AJA ControlRoom, which looks very much like BlackMagic Media Express.

And like Media Express, it does not play audio in the capture preview.

AJA also makes Windows DirectX - Directshow Capture and Render filters available.

These work with third party software;

1. Noel AMCap
2. VLC
3. AmaRecTV

Each requires some setup in the software setup to switch the card away from defaulting to its SDI input to its Analog input.

AMCap can do this by itself
VLC has some difficulty but does not play audio

AmaRecTV cannot do it.

However, GraphEdit can access and set the SDI default to Analog Inputs, Composite, YPrPb or S-Video.

A "trick" that can be used to allow AmaRecTV to work with LHe Plus is to simply open a Graph in GraphEdit that has the proper settings.

Then open AmaRecTV and its pre-setup and simply works.

AmaRecTV can capture in lossless lagarith format.

The "lossless" recordings playback in VLC.

The reason for looking for a solution like this is 1. preference 2. to experience "audio" while capturing.

I've also seen a few discussions that VirtualDub can struggle with audio video sync on long recordings, and AmarRecTV seems to reportedly be able to maintain sync on long recordings. The Kona LHe does not work with VirtualDub 1.9.11 it seems to connect, but its obvious its looking for a crossbar, and the KONA has no crossbar filter.

The more important discovery is that GraphEdit might be able to run interference and pre-configure many difficult capture devices that would normally not work with third party software. We used to use a program called "crossbar thing" to do this.. but specifically the Kona Directshow filter does not have a crossbar.

I'm thinking this might be useful on things like a Pinnacle 500, 510, 700, 710 device.. but its mere speculation at this point.

It should be mentioned that there are earlier/older AJA Kona LHe, LSe cards that are not compatible with the latest device drivers from AJA and do not work with the DirectX Directshow filters available. This information is only relevant to the AJA Kona LHe Plus. They do work with their proprietary "Machina" capture software, but the user interface leaves a lot to be desired.. and you can't capture in lagarith lossless compression with AmaRecTV .. only in MOV or AVI losslessly.

The price of a brand new AJA Kona LHe Plus is over a thousand usd. However its more or less leaving the mainstream and used cards are showing up for far less. The Video decoder chip is the ADV7403 with ADLLT sync and line length recovery. It is an UpDownCross frame converter and has outputs with external frame sync, or internal free running frame modes.. so it can be used as a pass thru device to feed some other capture device.. if you want to do that... or prefer to use it as an input for an existing workflow.

PCI Express cards can be difficult to setup at the hardware level, swapping from PCI express slot to slot is often required.. so you have to be comfortable putting a lot of care in selecting your PC hardware, and in assembling it.. so this is not for someone easily frustrated.

[dellsam34]

Using the Aja Machina you can set the inputs easily:

[Attachment 66270 - Click to enlarge]

[acusman]

Some interesting installation issues - had to reinstall Windows 10 to get it going.
Since my application will be to use this card and breakout box to capture VHS tapes, I'm struggling for the proper settings in control panel and in OBS.
UPDATE:
Finally got the control panel settings right and can view VHS tapes in AJA's Control Room app (pretty nice image with TBC). However, while OBS Studio recognizes the LHe+ card, it will not allow me to configure analog input (only shows SDI as input option). Do I need a different, older version of OBS (currently have the 29.0.0 64-bit version)?
UPDATE 2:
Turns out the LHe Plus card is NOT compatible with OBS (other AJA cards are).

Also, you CAN monitor the audio output while recording through a setting in the Control Room software (doesn't seem to impact the capture process, although I am still testing longer VHS tape captures looking for dropped frames).