Just as reference, I use a 4 250 gig Western Digital SATA RAID 0 based on a Highpoint 1820a controller and have recorded 10 bit uncompressed HD. My read/write speeds at with the array half full is 220/201 megs/second. The speed will drop off drastically by the time the array is near full, but haven't yet filled it that far with uncompressed material. Cost for the controller and the 4 drives was under $900.00US.

I hope to use the Z1 to record uncompressed or lightly compressed material "live" in the studio with my existing NLE setup for bluescreen work. Conversion from analog component to HD-SDI via a BlackMagic Design Mulitbridge, or you can use the appropriate AJA converter.

Beyond the technical needs of bluescreen, the cost/benefit worth of making a portable field ready solution isn't the greatest. I'm not saying it can't be done, but why? If this is the track to interest someone then you just as well go full-bore and wait for an HD box camera solution.

Regards,

Jim Arthurs

What I'm seeing here is suggesting that the Component outputs of the Z-1 would be better than the IEEE1394, is this true? or just preference?

Dave

They're certainly better but ONLY prior to recording. That's why you need some form of field recorder. The component outputs when in camera mode are prior to the HDV encoder so you get better color sampling and no compression.
Bob.

Jim,
I'm wondering if your really recording uncompressed 10 bit?
To get my figures I simply took 60 secs of generated media in a 1080i project and rendered to uncompressed AVI. The resulting file would be 4:4:4 8 bit and the file size was 12.5 GB in round figures. I'm suspecting your figures are for 4:2:2 10 bit?

Bob.

Color sampling is not usually included in the concept of compression, nor the bit depth.

The bit depth can be 16 bits, or 32bits, and floating point can be used too (for post work).

10-bit log has about the same dynamic range as 12-bit linear, it's just a way to have mercy on the tape drive. :O)

Hi Bob, yes, I'm really getting 10 bit... 4:2:2 of course.

I don't normally USE it, as there's no advantage if digitizing from standard HDCAM tape as I generally do., so in practice I use 8bit uncompressed only when doing bluescreen work and 30 to 40 megs/sec compressed when doing longform (again, 4:2:2).

Regards,

Jim Arthurs

do the component outs on the Z-1 work with SD (Can't imagine why they wouldn't), and if so, what kind of converter would be suggested for that kind of thing?

Is the SD-Connect the best way to go? or is there another choice.

BTW, is this true of most/all cams, that it's best to go from analog assuming that it has component? (don't really know of any in the 5K range that do besides the Sony HDV cams).

Dave

Yes, we've run the component outputs from the FX1 (in SD) thru an AJA SD component to SDI converter to a DVW 250 and the results are stunning.
Yes again, if you have any camera with component outputs recording that using a better system that what the camera uses should produce better video. Of course the issue is that very few (any?) cameras provide this. In fact I don't know of any cameras at any price apart from these HDV cameras that provide that. I'm certain some of the studio camera have it, but they're a bit outside my orbit.
We regularly shoot with the JVC 500 camera going composite into the DVW 250, I don't really think we gain much going down that path, S-Video would seem a better option. The images certainly don't have the typical DV edginess to them but that's a pretty subjective evaluation.
Bob

All prosumer and pro Sony cameras have uncompressed analog output, even the $2K PDX10 has one. Sony normally does not cut corners. Its products are more expensive, but worth it.