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AJA U-TAP capture card

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2016 14:46
by Shaun
Hey, I'm about to buy a few AJA U-TAP capture cards and wondered if anyone knew about any issues with getting them to work in arena?

Cheers

Re: AJA U-TAP capture card

Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2016 13:26
by philmcrackin
What hardware are you capturing with? You capturing SDI or HDMI?

I've seen people use the Magewell capture card without issue. When I saw the two dudes that do visuals for Pretty Lights, they were capturing Resolume running on one laptop into another laptop running Touchdesigner using a Magewell XI100DUSB-HDMI. The thing that tripped me out was they were using a Chamsys console to control Resolume, they said because it's easier to program chases and stuff on it.

Also Brent Bucci and VJ Voodoo at Electric Daisy Carnival Vegas this year were using the Magewell too at one of the stages. The signal flow IIRC was laptops running Resolume & ptz cameras -> video mixer -> sdi to hdmi converter -> Magewell XI100DUSB-HDMI -> Some beefy laptop Running Resolume (Maybe it was an MSI) and then that laptop output to the LED processor for the video wall.

Re: AJA U-TAP capture card

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2017 08:02
by hiten
i use AJA Utap in resolume without any issues, i have both magewell and aja, i prefer aja as it has got 5 year warranty , and does not heat up like magewell.

Re: AJA U-TAP capture card

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2017 21:50
by Warspite
What about latency? Is low, is it consistent? (considering USB-connection).
We have quite a bunch of thunderbolt hardware (including Windows PC racks with thunderbolt ports) and overall are happy with them.

Re: AJA U-TAP capture card

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2017 22:40
by Shaun
Got some delivered today and they're pretty damn good.. latency is really low (few ms at most).. would definitely choose AJA over blackmagic from now on..

Re: AJA U-TAP capture card

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2017 11:54
by Warspite
Did you tested AJA U-TAP under Windows or MAC or both?

Re: AJA U-TAP capture card

Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2017 01:32
by Warspite
I got my AJA U-TAP HDMI version.
Tested it on MB Pro 15 Retina 2012 and MB Pro Retina 15 2016 with touchbar and DO NOT recommend it.
Delay is BIG!
It is was first check, so no exact numbers with delay, but around quarter of a second or more. Forget about lipsync, even when you drag windows you get lost if you control motion on captured screen.
Blackmagic design thunderbolt devices are waaaaaaay better.

Without input signal AJA outputs Color Bars to Resolume. It is bad, i do not need ugly color bars in the middle of the show if connection is occasionally lost, black is better.

I will try to work this around and will post exact delay after deeper tests.

Re: AJA U-TAP capture card

Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2017 16:57
by Arvol
Got the U-tap as I've been a big AJA fan. Working with broadcast, it's the preferred brand of all my clients so I've just adopted that feeling as well. The BMD stuff isn't bad either, but this AJA doesn't heat up as bad for me.
I haven't tried the Magwell stuff, but I know there's a lot of people who love them on here.

Haven't had ANY issues with frame rate or latency on my Windows machine.

philmcrackin, We're most likely doing a Pretty Lights gig in a few months, I'll have to check it out. Touch Designer uses Spout/Syhpon does it not? Wonder why they didn't go that route?

Re: AJA U-TAP capture card

Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2017 20:05
by Warspite
Well, finally i measured AJA U-TAP vs Blackmagic Ultrastudio Express Thunderbolt.
Used 1280x720p resolution for input-output, built-in Resolume timecode (it's 25fps).
Aja U-TAP gives me 4 to 5 frames delay (0.16-0.2 of a second). Taking photos i admit that i get 4 frames delay more often, so delay is around 0.17 of a second.

Blackmagic gives 1 to 2 frames of delay (0.04-0.08 s). Most of a time 2 frames, so delay is around 0.07 sec.

So, Blackmagic gives 2,25x times less delay.
I am sure that blackmagic keeps delay constant under most heavy load, not sure about AJA U-Tap - will see.

I will not call AJA U-Tap a crap. But i do not like it.
I will keep with blackmagic (thunderbolt and PCIe) - it is fully integrated in Resolume and works better.
Blackmagic vs AJA U-Tap.jpg

Re: AJA U-TAP capture card

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 22:51
by Warspite
Well, after some use at events i will admit that this hardware is not bad. Avoid this hardware if you need live camera input - it has quite a delay. But everything else is ok.
It was working stable for hours. You do not need to guess correct input resolution - it detects it automatically and scales down to you comp size.
It is USB 3.0, so you can use it on wide park of MAC, PC, whatever. And cables are cheap.
It is versatile, you can use it in Resolume or Skype, or Google Hangout or other software.
It is nice to have this device along with blackmagic. Sometimes Blackmagic does not work for your task and AJA U-TAP will save you.