While I’m quite happy with the image quality based on the DNG workflow, I’m disappointed by the video quality of the Z1.
Even the unstitched out-of-camera MP4 shows heavy compression artifacts. This is especially noticeable when you move the camera within a textured environment, e.g. by carrying it on a selfie-stick on front of you walking in the woods.
The video stream has a bitrate of about 56 Mbit/s which is not much for this resolution. In addition, the standard compression algorithms are not working well on the fisheye images as techniques such as motion prediction will fail unless being adapted to fisheye projection (which I doubt being currently the case).
Nevertheless, I hope that Ricoh’s developers can improve the video quality via firmware upgrades. If not already limited by hardware speed, please increase the bitrate! Yes, this may result in thermal issues but a configurable rate would at least give the user the choice.
Not directly related to the compression artifacts but also contributing the disappointing end result is the stitching quality which is considerably worse than the stitching quality of still images! Fortunately, this can be improved as it is done in postprocessing outside the camera. Ricoh, pleeeaaase!
