Hi there,
Is there a way to get uncompressed HD footage from my FX1?
I'm recording talking head video against a green screen and would like to avoid the HDV compression artifacts.
Thanks.
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The FX1 doesn't have HDMI, so no. My understanding is that once it hits the FW port, it's compressed.

You can capture uncompressed HD if you go out through component and directly into your edit suite through an appropriate capture card.

Hm, good to know.

You can capture uncompressed HD if you go out through component and directly into your edit suite through an appropriate capture card.

Thanks Ryan.
Could you give me an example of the type of card you would suggest? What about Backmagic cards?
Thanks,
Martin
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The blackmagic card requires a fast RAID array to accept in the inbound video data .. on the blackmagic site they have a recommended minimum spec for HD RAW capture ....

Also, the data weight of raw HD is huge ....

so you probabl;y need a 4 x 1TB in a raid 0 array = 4 TB for your capture disk set ... then
equally i would advise having a render array as well ....

The blackmagic card requires a fast RAID array to accept in the inbound video data .. on the blackmagic site they have a recommended minimum spec for HD RAW capture ....

Also, the data weight of raw HD is huge ....

so you probabl;y need a 4 x 1TB in a raid 0 array = 4 TB for your capture disk set ... then
equally i would advise having a render array as well ....

Thanks for that. Is there another option?

Martin, uncompressed HD is not the only option besides HDV. Check with people using blackmagic and kona cards and see what alternative capture formats they offer. While HDV is very compressed, some M-Jpeg codecs as well as others can provide a nice balance between HDV and the huge data rates of uncompressed HD and still give you clean chroma keys. But I agree that capturing analog component out of the FX-1 is the place to start.

One possible hassle, I seem to remember if you capture analog component you might not be able to also use the S-VHS output to monitor the video on an SD screen.

Blackmagic's Intensity Pro card sounds like a pretty good deal, you might want to call/e-mail them with your situation.

Since a capture card would hook to the component out on the Z1, and component doesn't carry audio, would one capture audio from the a/v line? thus you would have 5 lines leading to the capture card?

Barbara, most, (though possibly not all capture cards), include audio capture. The Blackmagic card does. So you would hook up the component cable and use the analog audio cable both at the same time.

Thanks that is what I thought. I do love the Z1