Intensity Pro - Analog out of XHA1 - capture uncompressed - Final Verdict?

[Tyson Persall]

My Situation -
I want to do High quality greenscreen work with the XHA1 in After effects uncompressed.

What i want to do -
I have an XHA1 and want to capture uncompressed via Analog component output of the XHA1 to an INTENSITY Pro card so i can composite greenscreens at best possible quality.

What equipment do i currently own -
A fast new computer, An 4 disk RAID-0 array for uncompressed, the XHA1, and the original "Blackmagic intensity" card. ( HDMI only) I bought this and then they decide to come out with the Pro version with analog component capture (doh!)

My Question is -
Is it worth me making the purchase upgrade to the "Intensity Pro", just so i can capture via the analog output of the XHA1? -- Or should i just try to rent a Component to HDMI adapter of some sort? for $50 bucks. to solve this problem?

Ive read a lot of threads on this and cant seem to get a grip on if im making a good decision.

[Marcel D. Van Someren]

Depends on how often you need to capture component out. Doesn't the Intensity component card cost around $400? 8 rentals and you could have paid for the card.

[M. Gene Hoffman]

I have the Intensity Pro card and it works great. I'd say look at the price difference between a converter and the new card. The Intensity Pro is $349. It might be nice to have a converter and be able to run a single, long HDMI cable instead of three RCA cables for component too.

- M

[Larry Vaughn]

Has anyone tried this with the XHA1? Do you get uncompressed HD video this way, or does it go through the HDV compression? Because according to this thread, is NOT compressed. If so, what is the difference between that signal and the one that comes out of the XHG1 side port?

"In a LIVE situation, the Component output bypasses the HDV compression going to tape. It is an uncompressed analog Component Y(Green) Pb/Cb(Blue) Pr/Cr(Red) 4:2:2 output"

From the Canon website: The XH G1 integrates seamlessly into a professional studio: with Gen lock input and Time Code input/output it can be involved in multi-camera shoots; with an industry-standard SDI output connection, uncompressed HD and SD video can be sent to external recorders.

[Christopher Drews]

Originally Posted by Larry Vaughn

If so, what is the difference between that signal and the one that comes out of the XHG1 side port?.

By side port, I assume you mean SDI port, right? There is an age old debate between analog and digital - the same could be waged with component hd vs hd-sdi but both are methods for getting a signal somewhere.

The real question is implementation. Are you trying to capture video on a set or in a production environment? If that's the case, know the strengths and weakness of the signal path.

Component HD = Cheaper, Longer Cable Runs w/o boosting, more susceptible to interference, Cannot embed audio

HD-SDI = More Expensive, Short Cable Runs, Can Embed Audio, Can Embed Partially Segmented Frames

The next question is about bit depth. In your case both are 8-bit output from these cameras.

Well, I lost my train of thought with this post but you get the idea... Best case scenario honestly is something like the Sony EX1 > HD-SDI out > Decklink SDI

The Decklink records 10-bit Uncompressed if your system can handle it. Pretty awesome. But this is a Canon forum...
-C

[Marcel D. Van Someren]

Originally Posted by Larry Vaughn

Has anyone tried this with the XHA1?

Yes someone has done this and quite well. Take a look at this thread. There are two examples of greenscreen work using the component out of the A1:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/xh-serie...-red-rock.html

[Larry Vaughn]

Christopher, yes. They call it a jack pack on the XH-G1 that costs double the XH-A1. I shoot mostly in an in the field, production environment. Just want to maximize flexibility and keep the costs down.

There is a new digital alchemy device called an AJA Ki Pro which takes that component signal and makes it 10 bit. Just shipped this month. So I record my data on that, and output from that is firewire 800, which the sales guy says it is fast enough for prores.

I'm not sure I like extrapolation or bit padding or whatever they call it but it seems interesting. Costs as much as the XH-A1 did, however.

One problem is their hard drive storage device costs something like $500 for a 250 gig removable hard drive, but of course they made it proprietary, so apparently you can't throw in a 2 terabyte drive that costs about half that. And you can't use an off the shelf SSD drive either, so I was told.

But, since the Pro Res is supposed to use less processor power than HDV recompression does, I guess I could use the firewire 800 output from that removable 250 gig drive to supply the internal hard drive on my I-mac. This means my internal boot drive is also my scratch disk. So I put a 2 terabyte drive inside the I-Mac?

Then I dump that to a different external drive when I need to archive.

Not a pretty solution, but it might work. Maybe I should sell the XH-A1 and buy some other gear all around.