AJA currently has three main HD I/O cards for use in a PC, the Xena HS, the Xena LHe and the Xena 2Ke. The LH and 2K come in PCIe and PCI-X varients, which are otherwise identical to my knowledge. All of these AJA cards support 10bit color and 23.976/24p frame rates. (The Xena HD was AJA’s first HD card for PC, and was identical to the HS except that the HS now includes Standard Def SDI support)
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I was never all that impressed with original Multibridge from Blackmagic Design. It was not an I/O interface for your computer, it was just a Analog to SDI convertor, both ways. When the Multibridge Extreme was released, and with every major revision since then, computer I/O was added in a brilliant way. Basically they embeding their Decklink electronics within the breakout box, and then devised a way to tap directly into the PCIe bus. I don’t believe they created the original concept of External PCIe, but they were the first by a long shot to market a product utilizing the concept. Caldigit and Ciprico, among others, have recently developed drive arrays with an external RAID controller that uses the same basic connection.
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This is a site where I intend to publish information about high-tech media post-production. I will focus on new developments in applications for PCs, and the accompanying hardware to support them. There will be everything from recent tech news, to general workflow outlines, to very specific step by step how-to guides, depending on the topic.
There are many other places on the internet where you can find information on these topics, and I am not trying to replace any of them. Mike Curtis has a great blog over at HD For Indies but he is very Mac and OSX oriented. He also focuses on the artistic and cultural side of independent filmmaking, with film festivals and distribution contracts and the like. As noted above, I am a PC guy, and currently, my interests are purely technical. I have been onlining a movie for the last month that I have never even seen, I just know that I need to start with a stack of tapes, and end with a stack of DPX files for film out. David Newman also has great detailed information at Cineform Insider but his scope is usually limited to solutions he has created with his Cineform products. Cineform is great, but there are other options that bear inspection and comparison. I plan to offer information on a wider variety of products and solution for the post-production workflow.