While watching the NASA TV feed from this morning's docking between Discovery and the ISS, I noticed that station commander Pavel Vinogradov was holding a Z1 with a wide angle adapter attached. So it looks like the HDV format is flying along quite well at 17,500mph in orbit around the planet.

I just noticed on the replay. I think they downlinked raw HDV to mission control.

I'm willing to bet that it might soon be replaced by an A1. Space is always a premium in a mobile home, especially one that's 200 miles up in the sky.

It didn't really take up that much space...

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/151733main_crewgreet.jpg

So it looks like the HDV format is flying along quite well at 17,500mph in orbit around the planet.

Oh wow, think of the motion artifacts you can induce at those speeds. ;)

-gb-

Yeah, but only at 32x zoom.

Will the Z1 work when they flip the shuttle upside-down for inspections? I've heard that HDV has bad artifacts when inverted at over 1,000kph. Also, will the timecode get out of sync when crossing 24 time zones in one hour? I also hope they know to let the camera acclimate to the new environment before taking it inside to a warm compartment. Otherwise, condensation might form on the heads. I wonder how much tape you can shoot from the shuttle's fuel cells? Does using the flip-out LCD shorten the mission significantly? How long will an on-camera light run from a hydrogen fuel cell? Are there any camera cases for the Z1 that are waterproof and can withstand a hard vacuum?

^LOL. I think they're only using it in the station, not in the vacuum of space!

And timecode doesn't matter, they might just set the time to houston time.

all the other stuff you said is just pure LOL.

The ISS crew normally lives and works by GMT. That reminds me of a personal preference that I'll offer up as a small tip: I leave all my cameras' clocks set to GMT as well so there is no confusion at a later time about the timestamp on my travel photos and videos when reviewing them on the home computer!

Also, will the timecode get out of sync when crossing 24 time zones in one hour?
Timecodes between cameras onboard the spacecraft shouldn't be a problem, but will advance a few milliseconds as compared to earth-bound cameras due to the Einsteinian relativity of whizzing around the planet at 25,000 km/hr.