Is the main purpose of the SDI output on the G1 so that you can extract uncompressed footage WHILE recording, say while recording to a RAID drive? I can see how this would be appealing to those who shoot narrative or strictly in studio, but to me, a run and gun documentarian, it certainly doesn't appear to justify the $3000. Is there any benefit to using the SDI on playback, as compared to say Firewire? Bear with me, I'm just trying to make sure I'm ruling this option out for the right reasons.

If you're planning to do a lot of effects/correction etc. with your HDV material, it would be a good idea to capture via SDI then in a 4.2.2 colourspace and an uncompressed codec. That could be a reason to use SDI post shooting.

I could see that, but still, with the type of docs I do, there isn't much call for a whole lot of effects. Thanks for validating my notion. Here's a question - has there been any talk of "Andromedizing" the XHA1, or having a way to add the outputs later on if need be?

But once it is recorded to tape wouldn't it be compressed to the file type on the tape?

What good would SDI do?

Canon's HDV implementation is amazing and nearly bullet proof. Because you're using the camera for more run and gun type shooting I wouldn't spend the extra money on the HDSDI. You'll rarely use it.

But once it is recorded to tape wouldn't it be compressed to the file type on the tape?

What good would SDI do?

SDI is good if you want a realtime capture/transcoding to more robust editing codecs in QT or AVI. (and I edit often in HDV despite its inconveniences)

With the embedded SDI on the G1 you get audio and timecode, which the H1 doesn't have via SDI.