HD For Indies Labs: Successful Capture of Uncompressed Video from HVR-Z1
 

This guy Mike sure deserves a lot of credit!

The Z1 apparently has more to offer than we thought:

"We were able to successfully capture 10 bit uncompressed 1080i60 video to disk at about 160 MB/sec."

http://www.hdforindies.com/

actually they managed to capture on a mac the HD-SDI coming from a converter.
They could have set any kind of camera or VCR on the converter, so announcing "uncompressed video from the HVR-Z1" is a bit optimistic.
Sure it is probably better than the firewire MPEG2-TS output, but nothing indicates what is exactly the specification of the signal they get.

According to the Sony press event, the component outputs are prior to any sampling. It's not as though it's all that hard to check, if you're a doubting Thomas, check it out for yourself.

Hey, anything better than the firewire MPEG2-TS output is gravy in my book.

Any ideas on cost though? He's not giving prices for equipment..

as i'm not very knowlegdable on HD, what are the real benefits of uncompressed HD when your outputting to DVD? Does it allow more post production work? Less compression artefacts? Or is it mostly beneficial for film transfers, HD projection, etc.

Less compression at capture always translates to a better final image regardless of what the delivery mechanism is going to be.
If you're getting a 4:2:2 uncompressed or a 4:4:4 uncompressed, or even a 4:2:0 uncompressed image from the camera, you'll be starting with better information. This is one of the main things that separates the men from the boys in the realm of cameras. Lesser compression/no compression means the cost goes up. As the cost goes up, so do features which further drives up cost. By comparison, a Sony FW900 is 150,000.00 plus goodies that go on it. (Basic/Average lens is included in that price) It's a 4:2:2 uncompressed camera, whereas the Z1 is a 4:2:0 MPEG compression camera.
the main benefit is, the MPEG encoder is working with more information, better color accuracy, and a better overall image. Therefore it outputs a better image.

The Sony F900 uses standard HDCAM compression doesn't it? Something like 5:1?

I'm hoping using the uncompressed output may show you the motion aberrations introduced by other components of the Z1 and not the mpeg2 codec within the camera which is most noticable when a lot is moving within frame. Be cool to have a clipping display kind of like what an VU meter does for audio which shows zebra like lines on your monitor for when there is too much moving information for the mpeg2 encoder to translate

As you increase digital sample rate/depth of the Z1 live component out, there comes a point where you get no additional chroma/luma information or the inherent weaknesses of the lens, ccd etc will produce too many artifacts or noise that this increased resolution is muddied. Be interesting to find where this point is.

Thanks,
DF