Convergent Design nanoFlash and XHA1s

[Alex DeJesus]

Are they compatible? the "A1s" model only has component out.

[Dave Stern]

anything can be compatible, question is what's it worth and how would you use it? (studio or field).

I looked into it .. ..... biggest issue is that you need to convert the component out of the A1 (or A1s in your case) to SDI .. there are two converters that would work, black magic design and one by AJA ... the issue with each of those is how to power them for on camera use .. they each have different power requirements, some not so easy to satisfy easily (if that makes sense) when not connected to studio power, and then you'd want to use a single battery to power both the nanoflash and the converter which also takes some work ... mounting of the nano flash and converter is a question - not the cleanest given the design of the A1 but could be doable (bracket1, etc). also I believe the AJA could embed the audio, but that made for a large breakout cable for that version (rather than connectors on the box itself).. just another factor...

for me it became not worth it to pursue, both price and 'complexity' of mounting, power, cabling, etc ... also looked at the kipro, etc. ended up going with the firestore fs-5 (before they had the newer CF models with the same software as the fs-5 .. fs-CV was more expensive and software was much older) .. all of the benefits of tapeless recording (which is not to be under estimated), none of the benefits of escaping from HDV (which is ok - not what I was looking for, but for my purposes I had to live with it).

then I thought about selling my camera and getting one with SDI output, which would have been easier .. now the new canon is out with 50mbps mpeg2, which is 'all' I was really looking for (vs. 200 mpbs or higher which those guys have pushed the nanoflash to), but it's so new and is $$....

anyway, here's one thread on the nanoflash / A1 topic:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/converge...log-input.html

good luck! post back with what you decided to do...

[Alex DeJesus]

Thanks for the link. Man, that looks way too complicated and expensive just to bypass HDV. I will just have to make do until my next camera purchase. In the meantime, I have a Matrox MX02 Mini that I use to capture from the component out of the XHA1s. Not sure if it's any better than HDV because it's going digital to analog and back to digital.

[Dave Stern]

depending on the quality of your picture (lighting, etc. that would generate noise in the picture), I bet the analog is slightly better.

I believe the signal coming out of that component output is the full 1920x1080 (at least as generated from the CCDs, although I think they use some magic to get to a full 1920x1080 frame in the output .. if they start at 1440 (which maybe they do) then I'm not so sure).

if you're then capturing that at say 50mbps or similar, my guess is that you'll get more data in your capture than you'll lose going D to A to D.

If you're in studio, you may not have too much motion anyway, which would be where the HDV codec would struggle more. So, the visual result may be similar to the HDV. but in envrionments where the HDV codec would struggle (fast motion, complexity, etc. .. anywhere the long GOP format is more challenged vs. full I frames) I think you would notice a positive difference towards the analog signal.

colorspace would depend, but if your matrox is capturing in 4:2:2 (or better), well, I like that better that 4:2:0.

HDV is just more convenient sometimes (tapes in the field), etc.

at least that's my view...

[Dave Stern]

if you want to see something cool, check out the following (although costs as much as the new canon camera with the 50mbps recording):

cinedeck

but for that price, it includes component in and runs from a standard battery!

[Alex DeJesus]

cinedeck is cool but WAY overkill for my camera.

[Dave Stern]

I wasn't suggesting to buy it, just wanted to point it out!