Blackmagic Forum

Hi Everyone.

I own a Canon XH-G1 (not to be confused with the cheaper XH-A1) camera. I am wondering whether this camera is compatible with the 1080P Blackmagic Video Assist? My camera has an SDI HD Output and I want to check if this will work allowing me to bypass the mini-dv tape recording system? Has anyone tried this as I am also interested in the results produced if it does work?

The spec sheet for my camera is:
https://si.ua.es/es/lccm/documentos/av- ... -xh-a1.pdf

Any help appreciated

Aaron

HiAaron,
If it's any help, I recently acquired the Video Assist 4K and it works well with the XH-G1S. So, not quite the same Video Assist and not quite the same camera – still, nearly there

Should work, as the VA will record 1080i 50/59.94/60, and the Canon will output HDV: 1080i/60i, 1080i/30f, 1080i/24f. The VA however, will not record the lower frame rates 30f, and 24f. Nor are you going to be able to record progressive, since camera is an Interlace sensor/signal camera.
You can check the camera's SDI output by connecting it to a SDI monitor and checking to see what the monitor shows as the connection signal.

The XH G1l like the other XL series cameras were nice cameras in their day. But they have passed their "sell by" date. It is still an Interlaced broadcast style HDV signal, whichmis not as high a resolution as full HD progressive camera. Not sure I would invest $500 more in one. You could get the VA HD (5-inch) recorder/monitor, use it with the Canon camera, then later upgrade to a BM Micro Cinema camera or Micro Studio 4K camera (which is also a Rec 709 output camera with great color saturation) to use with the VA.
Cheers

Denny, I hesitate to question on a small point of detail, but is it accurate to say that "It is still an Interlaced broadcast style HDV signal..." if the tape section is bypassed altogether?

The XHG1 documentation states:

The HD-SDI output provides a 1.485Gbps 60i signal at 1920 x 1080 resolution and with 4:2:2 color sampling with embedded audio and time code.

I thought HDV was 1440 × 1080 4:2:0 at 25Mbs ? Fair enough if the source was tape playback.

I certainly wouldn't disagree that these cameras are getting a bit past it.
I'm hanging on to a couple of HDV cameras because of a large tape archive, but things have moved on a bit.

I have this combo.. 5" VA.. It works perfectly fine.. G1 will output 1920x1080 i50 Which works fine for the VA..

HDV has a different resolution but the internal processing does 16:9 HD.. But due to the limitation of the Capability of the DV tapes (They could not get all the data on it to get 1920) so HDV was a crop standard..

Thank, yes, the output would still be 1920x1080 but it will be 8-bit, 4.2.0 Interlaced at best case.
My point is, not as "high a resolution" signal overall, as a 1920x1080 10-bit, 4.2.2 progressive signal, as their is some resolution loss in the Interlace signal.
Cheeers

Thank, yes, the output would still be 1920x1080 but it will be 8-bit, 4.2.0 Interlaced at best case.
My point is, not as "high a resolution" signal overall, as a 1920x1080 10-bit, 4.2.2 progressive signal, as their is some resolution loss in the Interlace signal.
Cheers