AJA KONA 5 12G-SDI HFR 8K Capture & Playback Card

I am submitting this review to provide an alternate review to the other reviewer that left only 3 stars, as it gave me pause when I bought mine. To be honest I don't understand what that person was thinking. This card is not a 3-star card. I tried to find reviews before buying the card. I am assuming businesses just buy the card as they are available since it is hard to find. But for smaller businesses, I just wanted to check that there was nothing fishy, like first generation product issues or gotchas. So rest assured, the card works as advertised. It comes with SDI 12G connectivity, HDMI port, and can do down-conversion on the fly from 4k to HD on two output signals with no overhead. I use it in an editing machine, mainly to ingest 4k material and edit it. Sometimes I also use it for streaming. Regardless, the card has never given any issues. Control panel always indicates the status of signals coming in and going out. Sound is not a problem capturing it in stereo, or 8 channel or all the way to 16 channels. The card works on windows and Linux, which is great. All functionality is there, except for mixing sound from the OS in windows, which is missing in Linux, so you can output sound from the OS itself and output it via the card on the windows side. This may come in handy if you want to mix extra sound and do DS keying as well, all in hardware and no extra software needed. So, I do have nitpicks with the card. Would love to see a proper channel mixer in the control panel, some times I get 7.1 surround signal and I can't mix the center channel to both, left and right stereo output, it only comes through the left -- again just for convenience really. Would love also to see 4 independent signals go in (to stream with four 4k sources for example) but I did not buy it for that and it is not advertised for that. And to be honest, I am guessing it is possible with correct software and 8k firmware, I just tried with OBS and vmix and both could not do it. I have had AJA capture equipment both internal and external as well as BlackMagic equipment for decades and only BlackMagic has failed on me, not a single AJA one (Konas, IOs, etc). Rest assured this card does what it is supposed to do. Furthermore, going back to the other 3 star review, yes, the fan is noisy, but so is any other capture board at 4k or higher as well as any external capture gadget that does 4k60, so would love to hear of an alternative that isn't noisy or warm for that matter. If noise is of concern, there are many real-time noise suppressor plug-ins in VST3 for your app of choice, even in real-time if you need it, I have one and removes all background noise. If you are spending this much on a capture card, why not also get a plug-in if needed? I guess it is easier to complain. Card rocks and would love to see any other card that does the same at a lower price or lower noise or lower temp for sure, but there aren't any. BlackMagic has one card that is cheaper but is equally noisy, doesn't do downconversion, DS keyeing and forget about LUTs, so...