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AJA XenaHS User Manual — Introduction
Introduction
XenaHS provides high-speed uncompressed digital audio/video input/output in a
simple to install Windows PCI card. Ideal for character generation, video stills, disk
recording, and ultra-high quality webcasting, XenaHS offers Windows users a
professional-quality solution for working with Windows media applications.
The XenaHS driver (“XenaHD” available from www.aja.com/xena.htm) supplies a
generic Windows Media interface for applications. XenaHS also supports PowerCG,
ThumbsPlus, and Adobe Photoshop and After Effects.
XenaHS offers one channel of either standard definition or high definition Serial
Digital video (input and output).
Features
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Supports SMPTE 292M (SDI) digital video (SD).
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Supports SMPTE 259M (SDI) digital video (HD).
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One video input, one video output, and AES audio I/O.
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Supports up to 6 channels of 24 Bit/48Khz AES Audio or Embedded Audio.
The AES inputs support asynchronous audio at 32-96Khz.
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XenaHS drivers are DirectShow-compatible WDM Kernel Streaming drivers
that work with Windows Media and most DirectShow applications.
Windows Media
Support
Most Windows media applications work properly with XenaHS as a capture device.
However, since few applications support using Xena (or any other device) as an
output device, the Xena Control Panel allows you to reconfigure the Windows Media
Player to output video to the Xena card.
Six channels of audio are available from Xena, accessed as three stereo pairs:
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Channels one and two are represented as “Xena Audio Device (1).
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Channels three and four are represented as “Xena Audio Device (2).”
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Channels five and six are represented as “Xena Audio Device (3).”
XenaHS supports DirectShow-compliant (Windows Media) applications. Microsoft’s
DirectX architecture uses DirectShow as the video component. Within this
architecture, Xena’s board driver is considered a “WDM Streaming” driver. Under
control of Windows Media applications, a WDM Streaming driver makes efficient
use of system resources, as user-mode applications can command the driver.
Other system components can process the video and audio streams entirely in kernel
mode without the extra overhead of switching back and forth into user mode for
processing.
Microsoft
applications
Microsoft produces several Windows Media applications that support the XenaHS
board, including:
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Windows Media Encoder
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WmCap
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Sound Recorder
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Windows Media Player
