AJA KONA Gives Biscardi Creative Media Editing Options

Since its inception in 2001, Buford, GA-based Biscardi Creative Media (BCM) has delivered HD production and post for broadcast programming around the world and has earned multiple Emmy, Telly, Peabody and Aurora Awards. It’s also garnered a notable client roster including NBC, Food Network and PBS, among others. BCM’s credits include television series like This American Land and Good Eats, documentaries such as Foul Water Fiery Serpent and more.
Last January BCM moved into a 6,000 square-foot facility that houses five state-of-the art edit bays, each running Adobe Premiere Pro CS 5.5, Avid Media Composer 6 and Apple Final Cut Pro 7 together with AJA KONA 3G, KONA 3 and KONA LHi cards.
"We’ve been using KONA cards since 2004 and love them, because they do everything and enable us the flexiblity to work with Final Cut, Avid and Premiere on the same machine, tapping whatever tool is the best fit for the job at hand," said Walter Biscardi, owner, BCM.
"Even with age, the KONA cards work seamlessly and keep expanding what we can do. We’re continually seeing ROI from them."
Leveraging KONA’s driver, Walter’s team is able to edit with Premiere Pro, Media Composer and Final Cut Pro on the same partition – without swapping firmware or requiring applications to run on separate OS X partitions.
"As each product evolves, we have to see where we are in a given production to choose the best one for editing, but at the end of the day we’re covered, because KONA allows us to run all three at the same time," he added.
BCM recently edited its first project using Avid Media Composer 6 and KONA 3G, a special Colorado River news segment for NBC. Cut six different ways for six deliveries on NBC News and five local stations, the project is also set to appear in the PBS documentary, This American Land.
"On a project like this, we work with stringers all over the country who shoot in every format under the sun, so we have to be able to work with any given format," Biscardi said.
"The beauty of KONA is endless flexibility. We never worry about what footage format a client brings us, because no matter what you throw at it, KONA can do the job."
When Avid Media Composer 6 was released in November, Walter began testing it with KONA 3G.
He said: "KONA 3G works remarkably well with Media Composer 6, and completely exceeded our expectations. AJA sent us the driver with 2-step installation instructions, and everything popped up and started working instantly. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that we could use old machines and still get DNxHD and ProRes."
AJA’s Ki Pro is also playing a role in BCM’s workflow for the recording of the Atlanta Cutters meetings, and will be used in the future to develop original programming.
"Ki Pro is great, because we can run a small camera into it and get full ProRes, HD quality without the ugly compressed format you usually see with smaller prosumer cameras," Walter said.
"AJA’s been at the forefront of real-time and broadcast quality, and our clients appreciate that. They’re always blown away with the results. It’s an added bonus that we get to work with the people at AJA, who provide the best support in the industry."
(LB)