Regarding uncompressed capture from Z1 to FCP
 

My wife recently decided it was time to upgrade the Mac so she ordered an 8 core Mac pro. After the arrival of this beast I decided to look into getting HD off of the Z1 and bypassing the HDV that it outputs from FW.

At the recent LAFCPUG meeting, Black Magic demoed their Intensity Pro card:

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/

So, in theory, I should be able to pop that into the Mac, attach the Z1 via component output and capture uncompressed, right?

If that is the case, what would I tell FCP it is capturing from? Normally I use the Z1 preset in the capture dialog for FCP to do this. Obviously whatever I choose will have to be sans device control.

Well, sort of.

You would need a Component to HDMI converter as the Intensity card captures HDMI, not Component.

However, there are a few Component to HDMI converters on the market, and I'm going to eventually look into them and see if they work as I'm a Z1U owner as well.

Let me know if you find something that works.

Jim

It appears the Pro card DOES capture analog component so it should work. From their website: "HDMI and Analog Component switches between high definition and standard definition."

but again, if you are just playing back from tape, there is absolutely no interest of doing that, firewire is the same.

Understood - the capture would be live off of the camera. I understand that if I am playing back off of tape, the component output at that point is HDV and not uncompressed (same for FW obviously).

since moving such a beast (the mac 8 core) to the field would be a bit adventurous, i would recommend to use a simple pc (a small cheap barebone like the Shuttle SD39P2) with just the intensity pro and some big disk (320 gig should be ok) inside.
you can build such machine for about 1200$.
Since Cineform will be available on PC and Mac, you can even use this to share the files between both OS.

Well this capture would occur only in my studio with the camera locked down on sticks. So my only downside there is making sure the resident klutzes do not trip over the umbilical.