Products from AJA Video Systems featured prominently in the video infrastructure of the 2011 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, held in April and May. Louisiana-based Full Motion Productions handled tapeless recording of performances using AJA Ki Pro digital recorders for archiving and streaming, and put multiple AJA FS1 HD/SD audio and video converters to work supporting on-site big-screen projection of live performances on the main stages.
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell is one of the world’s largest outdoor music festivals, featuring over 500 musical acts on 12 stages and drawing an estimated 400,000+ visitors. Full Motion Productions has been supporting the event’s festival productions team for the past four years.
“All of the main stages depend on AJA in some way,” said Full Motion Productions co-founder Nate Page. “Last year some of the stages recorded to tape and some to Ki Pro. Because of how well that went, this year we went completely digital with Ki Pro. We also use FS1s on all stages to transcode signals and build a cable network to feed the IMAG (LED walls), monitors and streaming feeds. We also use FS1s to down convert signals to SD where needed, when we are we’re working with one of our HD systems.”
Highlights from Jazz Fest performances were streamed on RollingStone.com via AEG Network Live. In addition to delivering live streams, editors on site were able to take Ki Pro drives and begin editing directly, without digitizing, to cut pieces and promos that were streamed in a nearly-live timeframe.
“The Ki Pro workflow is so much easier than recording to tape,” said Page. “You get very high quality with Apple ProRes, and you don’t have to digitize. At the end of the day it’s easy to transfer the media to a consumer hard drive and hand it off to the client. It’s a much faster process.”
He added, “FS1 is pretty much an industry standard at this level of production. It’s an amazing box that makes our truck much more flexible and allows us to manipulate signals, audio — and do just about anything.”
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 resellers and systems integrators around the world. For further information, please see our website www.aja.com.