HDV or newer cams for uncompressed HDMI capture (Intensity)? at DVinfo.net

Ted Bragg · February 4th, 2010, 12:16 PM

Blackmagic Intensity's website talks about using HDV cameras with hdmi outputs to get full 1920x res (bypasses the HDV smasher) and that's exciting! Uncompressed 4:2:2 footage would do way better than the analog composite we're pulling off our miniDVs. (analog switcher -- long story)

I've seen cams that record in AVCHD with HDMI outputs, but no word if these will feed uncompressed. Anybody know?

We have plenty of space for uncompressed...no issue there :-)

Daniel McPake · February 4th, 2010, 02:54 PM

It all depends on the camera, with the new Sony NX5 Camera its a slightly confusing situation in that during recording the HDMI output sends a pre-compressed 1920x1080i/4:2:2 signal. And yet is uncompressed when not shooting.(I don't know - but you in theory you still should be able to capture uncompressed whilst not recording on the cameras cards)

With the Panasonic HMC-151 things are slightly better though, and I believe that it outputs uncompressed through HDMI all of the time. I also know that the Sony Z5e outputs uncompressed through HDMI throughout recording as well.

This is something very interesting for me as a Sony Z5 owner, and I will soon be going down the line of a laptop with not the Blackmagic Intensity but the Matrox MXo2 Mini instead. As it offers a better form factor, and 10 bit instead of 8 bit, with some other features as well. However it is much more expensive.

And uncompressed does pose more problems than simply storage, other than raw processing power the issue generally (especially when considering a portable capture system) is the maximum available sustained throughput by the HDD.

As one would have to consider a G-RAID system or similar would be needed to sustain speeds of around 1200mbits per second. Unless you had a lot of cash for a high capacity SSD! Or a desktop system of course, with something akin to RAID 0/5.

Ted Bragg · February 4th, 2010, 03:53 PM

We'll be running a desktop with a four disk SATA raid. Looking more like the DeckLink cards would be a better fit. Need to switch between 4 cameras when shooting live...

Andrew Smith · February 6th, 2010, 08:16 AM

My Sony V1 has an HDMI out which comes straight off the CCD. Absolutely stunning, and has shocked other video professionals when they saw the quality of the output.

Andrew

February 4th, 2010, 12:16 PM	#1
Ted Bragg Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 105	HDV or newer cams for uncompressed HDMI capture (Intensity)? Blackmagic Intensity's website talks about using HDV cameras with hdmi outputs to get full 1920x res (bypasses the HDV smasher) and that's exciting! Uncompressed 4:2:2 footage would do way better than the analog composite we're pulling off our miniDVs. (analog switcher -- long story) I've seen cams that record in AVCHD with HDMI outputs, but no word if these will feed uncompressed. Anybody know? We have plenty of space for uncompressed...no issue there :-)

February 4th, 2010, 02:54 PM	#2
Daniel McPake New Boot Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 19	It all depends on the camera, with the new Sony NX5 Camera its a slightly confusing situation in that during recording the HDMI output sends a pre-compressed 1920x1080i/4:2:2 signal. And yet is uncompressed when not shooting.(I don't know - but you in theory you still should be able to capture uncompressed whilst not recording on the cameras cards) With the Panasonic HMC-151 things are slightly better though, and I believe that it outputs uncompressed through HDMI all of the time. I also know that the Sony Z5e outputs uncompressed through HDMI throughout recording as well. This is something very interesting for me as a Sony Z5 owner, and I will soon be going down the line of a laptop with not the Blackmagic Intensity but the Matrox MXo2 Mini instead. As it offers a better form factor, and 10 bit instead of 8 bit, with some other features as well. However it is much more expensive. And uncompressed does pose more problems than simply storage, other than raw processing power the issue generally (especially when considering a portable capture system) is the maximum available sustained throughput by the HDD. As one would have to consider a G-RAID system or similar would be needed to sustain speeds of around 1200mbits per second. Unless you had a lot of cash for a high capacity SSD! Or a desktop system of course, with something akin to RAID 0/5. __________________ Stake Productions - Director, Editor, Cinematographer, ...Sony HVR Z5E

February 4th, 2010, 03:53 PM	#3
Ted Bragg Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 105	We'll be running a desktop with a four disk SATA raid. Looking more like the DeckLink cards would be a better fit. Need to switch between 4 cameras when shooting live...

February 6th, 2010, 08:16 AM	#4
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,018	My Sony V1 has an HDMI out which comes straight off the CCD. Absolutely stunning, and has shocked other video professionals when they saw the quality of the output. Andrew