XH-A1 component output??
 

Is the component output of the A1 SD or HD?

I asked this question via email to cannon and got a resounding "duh"

thanks
mike

Component is always and only HD. This is universal across all devices.

Unless you captured in SD

always and only? I'm looking at an old school beta machine right now with an SD component output.

But anyway - what I'm really getting at here is this:

I'm shooting 1080 HDV (with the XH-A1), then editing with Final Cut Pro (6.0.2) on a Mac G5 (dual 2.3 processors). I was planning on digitizing the footage via firewire. I'm just wondering if, indeed the component output of the A1 is HD - will I get any appreciable quality benefit if I buy a blackmagic card with component HD input and take the footage in thru it??

specifically the HD extreme card
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/hd/

My gut says no - that unless I upgrade to the G1 with the SDI output and take the footage in via SDI - that there will be no real benefit to digitize component HD vs firewire.

But - what do you guys think?

thanks
Mike

I didn't tried it myself, but from what I've read, when you playback footage on tape, you get the HDV compressed footage from the component out. So no gain in doing this. But if you can find a way to record the live footage from the component out, you get an uncompressed analog HD 4:2:2 signal.

OK I stand corrected. Sorry. My point of reference is the fact that the only time I have seen component video inputs or outputs on any device, usually TV sets, it is "usually" (I will avoid the term "always" in the future) on HD sets and they are usually for higher resolution signals, while the s-video and red white and yellow hookups are for the SD. Sorry for my mistake.

component out
 

So we have an XHA1 with component out via the cable supplied with the camera. Does the camera output uncompressed video while recording?

If so, can this higher quality video than HDV be captured via some adapter into a hard drive?


Component video has been available for a long time, even decades, on professional level devices.

I don't think so - unless Canon is not telling the truth, the native resolution is 1440x1080, so that is the best you will capture.

Also, just FYI, you can switch between SD and HD on the component out. Under "Signal setup", there is a "Comp out" setting, that can switch between 480i, and 1080i/480i...

There's a big difference between 1440x1080 HDV and 1440x1080 uncompressed. The question is whether the component output is taken from before or after the HDV compression. As far as I know, Canon are not saying one way or the other.

Richard

Ah yes, good point - I was thinking more of the stretched pixel / slight loss of resolution, than the compression issues..