C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform

[Richard D. George]

Canon USA Announces Second-Generation EOS C100 Mark II at DV Info Net

I will be placing my pre-order for the C100 Mark II tomorrow at B&H. I have a $3,500 credit there, from my return of an XF200.

No 4K (which might be in an update for the C300, to coincide with NAB 2015), but that is OK with me.

[Bill Petropoulos]

Curious why you returned the XF200?

[Noa Put]

Some experts in Belgium said the c100 would not be upgraded to 4K and the mark 2 still records to a handicam codec, others might say, get a external recorder for a better codec but by the time you get that you are very close in price to what a Sony fs7 offers and I don't have to spell out what this camera can do.

This is just a update to a already excellent camera and I"m sure it will find many new buyers but compared to the competition Canon is not exactly breaking new ground.

[Jeremiah Rickert]

Well, I'm kind of upset, seeing how I saved money for three years and bought a C100 21 days ago. Haven't even had it on a shoot yet.

If this thing is due in 5 weeks why wasn't it news?

[Noa Put]

I think it's normal that they try to wait as long as they can to announce it, if they would have announced it 2 or more months ago that would have put a hold on c100 sales instantly, just like now, you can be sure no store will be selling the old c100 in the following 5 weeks, unless there is a significant enough price difference.

[Jody Arnott]

I'm in the same boat, I got my C100 about a month or two ago. I am annoyed, 50/60p and a better viewfinder are my only 2 gripes about my C100.. but other than that, I'm pretty happy with it.

Canon would have left the announcement as long as possible so not to affect the sales of the current model.

[Thierry Humeau]

Can't wait for the C300 Mark II...

[Richard D. George]

Everyone has a different situation.

For me, this camera is close enough to what I want that I pre-ordered mine this morning. I pre-ordered from B&H, as I had a large credit balance there.

It will be interesting to see what Canon announces at NAB 2015.

I will be happy with my C100 Mark II, and will rent a C100 as needed until the Mark II ships.

[Jim Martin]

To be clear, the MK II is typical for Canon....this is an evolutionary camera. Canon fixed/addressed/improved on everything people have been asking for on the C100...better viewfinder, better movement on the now OLED, and with the DIVIC 4 engine, 60p and slow & fast motion....along with a few more items, nice improvements on a popular camera. I do think it is unfair to try to compare or hold this camera up against the FS7....that camera is aimed at the C300 and I do expect Canon to address this whenever they put out the next C300...I am hoping to see some kind of program announced that would address the need for a lower price on the older C100 to move them out before the new one arrives in the later part of December.

Jim martin
EVSonline.com

[Matt Davis]

Anyone care to speculate on the new recording formats? Specifically the MP4 at 35 Mbits. Now, MP2 at 35Mbits (XDCAM) is pretty close to AVCHD as makes no odds. But MP4 at 35 Mbits sounds like it could be close to MP2 at 50 Mbits. I'm sure Canon don't want to hurt sales of the C300 but the Mk2 seems to closing the gap?

[Dave Baker]

Not much to speculate about Matt.

The XA20 & 25 and HF G30 have MP4 at 35mbps recording capability. On these cameras both 28mbps AVCHD and 35mbps MP4 are 50p only, 25p is 24mbps and lower. Audio is AAC in MP4 mode, but there is a choice of LPCM or Dolby Digital in AVCHD.

I have the HF G30. Comparing 50p MTS files with 50p MP4 files in MadiaInfo, both are High Profile @ L4.2 and CABAC, so 35mbps is a true improvement.

I prefer 35mbps MP4 to 28mbps AVCHD. To my eye, AVCHD looks sharper, MP4 looks smoother.

I will not be buying a C100 mk.II just to see if they allow user selection of the bit rate with whichever frame rate is chosen.

Dave

[Christopher Young]

Speculate. Hmm! Sorry it’s long but it has to be said I think plus the file info takes up some space.

Sony and Panasonic developed the Consumer AVHD format from the original H.264 distribution codec which is commonly seen in the MP4 wrapper. H.264 MP4 was originally designed as a distribution format. MP4 was not really designed with editing in mind as the distribution version in most cases had a highly compressed very lossy 256kbps AAC audio implementation. If you have ever tried to do serious post audio noise reduction and sweetening on AAC audio you will know well enough to leave it alone.

To make the format more robust as an acquisition format and to have the capability of carrying robust Linear PCM audio tracks in excess of 1500kbps and to carry SMPTE time code and have it meet ITU-T H.264 standards recognition Sony and Panasonic adopted the Part 10 subset of the MPEG-4 standard. It became known as 'Advanced Video Coding,' AVC for short.

Vision wise between the AVCHD and the MP4 offerings there should be little difference. Where there is a considerable difference is in NLE handling. Most NLE software is configured to handle the AVC .MTS file format smoothly with modern CPU / GPU configurations. Some will handle the .MP4 wrapper reasonably well. Some NLEs absolutely hate trying to cope with handling the MP4 / AAC combination.

One can’t get away from the fact that AVCHD was designed as the high end consumer acquisition format. On the other hand the base MP4 implementation of H.264 is at the very bottom end of the spectrum. If Canon really felt that this MP4 offering in the C100 MkII was a great step forward they would be shouting it from the rooftops I think. Even Canon’s own literature on the MkII states the camera now has a ‘Web Friendly’ format. If you just want to shoot and upload rushes straight from the camera then sure these web friendly MP4s, especially the lower bit rate versions will slot straight into the YouTube, Vimeo, Hulu world. Time will tell but I really don’t think, especially with the lossy AAC audio that this MP4 implementation will be very popular with editors. What little you gain in video bit rate is thrown out the window with the lossy audio downgrade compared to the AVCHD Linear PCM audio.

Compare for example the media information files from a couple of different formats below. The first one is the consumer AVCHD 24-mbit 420 format from a C100. It could just as easily be from a Panasonic or Sony AVCHD camera. The second media info file comes from an XAVC-L 50-mbit 422 clip out of a Sony sub $2,500 camera. This is a professional media format.

AVCHD 24-mbit 420 8-bit

General
ID : 0 (0x0)
Complete name : 00065.MTS
Format : BDAV
Format/Info : Blu-ray Video
File size : 64.7 MiB
Duration : 22s 500ms
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 24.1 Mbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 24.0 Mbps

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=12
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 22s 480ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 21.6 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
NOTE: Even thought this was shot 25p it is PSF in an interlace container
Scan order : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.417
Stream size : 57.9 MiB (90%)

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Muxing mode : Blu-ray
Codec ID : 128
Duration : 22s 555ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Delay relative to video : -80ms
Stream size : 4.13 MiB (6%)

Why Canon is persisting in this day and age with this AVCHD offering while Panasonic and Sony are offering much higher quality acquisition formats on their lower end cameras is somewhat beyond me. They must really trust in the loyalty of their Canon faithful.

I believe that the likely reason is that unlike Panasonic and Sony Canon does not have a mature software video codec development team in-house. Previously they have used the Sony MXF codec which I would imagine is under some kind of licensing deal. Now contrast the above info with a sample of what their competition is now offering. Remember this is available on a sub $2.5K camera.

XVC-L 50-mbit 422 10-bit. Make note of the four 24-bit audio channels plus the thee ancillary channels. Two for time code and one for acquisition data.

General
Format : MXF
Format profile : OP-1a
Format settings : Closed / Complete
File size : 136 MiB
Duration : 21s 120ms
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 54.2 Mbps
Encoded date : 2014-10-19 04:34:20.000
Writing application : Sony Mem 2.00
Writing library : Sony Mem 2.00

Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High 4:2:2@L4.2
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=12
Format settings, wrapping mode : Frame
Codec ID : 0D01030102106001-0401020201316001
Duration : 21s 120ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 50.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 50.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:2
Bit depth : 10 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.482
Stream size : 125 MiB (91%)
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : IEC 61966-2-4
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio #1
ID : 3
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, wrapping mode : Frame (AES)
Codec ID : 0D01030102060300-0402020101000000
Duration : 21s 120ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 152 Kbps
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Stream size : 2.90 MiB (2%)

Audio #2
ID : 4
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, wrapping mode : Frame (AES)
Codec ID : 0D01030102060300-0402020101000000
Duration : 21s 120ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 152 Kbps
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Stream size : 2.90 MiB (2%)

Audio #3
ID : 5
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, wrapping mode : Frame (AES)
Codec ID : 0D01030102060300-0402020101000000
Duration : 21s 120ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 152 Kbps
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Stream size : 2.90 MiB (2%)

Audio #4
ID : 6
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, wrapping mode : Frame (AES)
Codec ID : 0D01030102060300-0402020101000000
Duration : 21s 120ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 152 Kbps
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Stream size : 2.90 MiB (2%)

Other #1
ID : 1
Type : Time code
Format : MXF TC
Time code of first frame : 00:02:19:34
Time code settings : Striped

Other #2
ID : 7
Format : Acquisition Metadata
Muxing mode : Ancillary data / RDD 18
Duration : 21s 120ms
Frame rate : 50.000 fps

Other #3
Type : Time code
Format : SMPTE TC
Muxing mode : SDTI
Time code of first frame : 00:02:19:17

If I was in the Canon market I would bide mine time a while. The new engine in the MkII has an incredible spec. 8K RGB channels! This gives the camera a full 4k internal with 444 color science capability if I’m not mistaken. I can see no way in the world that all Canon is going to offer on that engine is AVCHD and low end MP4. No way. That engine is destined for far greater things. Possibly an XAVC-L 4K offering on SDXC cards in a new model, C200 maybe? And an even higher bit rate XAVC-I Frame on possibly CFast 2.0 Cards a-la-ARRI Amira in a new C300 / 500 line-up. Why do I say XAVC? Because Canon are smart and can see that XAVC has been ratified by the broadcast authorities and is rapidly being accepted as a broadcast industry standard by many other manufactures and last but not least they have been in bed with Sony before with their MXF relationship and that worked well for them.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Andy Wilkinson]

Excellent info and insights. I think your last paragraph is right on the button too. Thanks Chris!

[Andrew Maclaurin]

Thanks Christopher Young,
that was a very useful and interesting post.
Other than that, 1080 50p and a LCD that you can actually use sound great. As much as I love the C100, focusing is not easy even with peaking. The lcd screen is awful. The C-cup is good but cannot improve a poor viewfinder.
Hmmm!

[Philip Bateman]

I'm sure this is 'obvious' to someone somewhere, but I haven't seen it in any photos..

Can that screen open up, flip and be closed again so it's a digital / viewfinder back? Or does it have to be used 'wide open' to see it? I put my C100 on a Movi m10 an hour ago and the screen has to stick out a bit.. I wouldn't have clearence if it doesn't close on itself whilst operating.

I'm a big fan of my C100 and it seems every drawback I've had with it is fixed in this update, so come January / Feb the MKII will be the A camera and the mark I can be the B Cam.. unless Canon really are making a c200, either way I'll wait till 2015.