C300 Mark II monitor compatibility issues
 

I have been having a tough time getting the camera to play with my existing field monitors... and the reason is this:

"The camera is going to output whatever your internal settings at. It is all going to be PSF and there is no pull down. Hence, older monitors may not take PSF."

Progressive Segmented Frames, or PSF, is not new but my other HD cameras always output some sort of pull down to the monitor output. Hence, almost all older monitors would work just fine with the older cameras. I hooked up to the Mark II and had no joy with all my field monitors, an older crappy Ikan 7-something and a Panasonic BT-LH8W.

The Ikan was useful for the 5D, where it lives for most 5d stuff. It does HDMI and SDI but neither inputs were working with the MarkII. The Panasonic is getting old, about 8yrs, and it only has SDI. It didn't work either. After asking around, I found out about the PSF output.

I've since purchased an Odyssey 7Q+ and that will be my field monitor for the Mark II, along with the recording capability. I've also picked up a tiny Ikan D5W that does an ok job and takes PSF... although it squeezes the image slightly and I cannot get it to go full 16:9. I bought it off craigslist local, for a shoot happening quickly, so it got me through that well enough.

So, take-away is that it is a good time to upgrade monitors if you've been relying on older gear. Anyone want to buy a Panasonic 8in HDSDI monitor with Anton Bauer battery plate?

Re: C300 Mark II monitor compatibility issues
 

Thanks for this clear info Scott.

I've seen this discussed elsewhere without anyone coming up with an explanation for why their monitors wouldn't work (one guy had tried hooking up several C300/2s to various monitors without luck).

Fortunately for me the Small HD501 I've just bought does play with the C300/2 (as in your case, my older monitors don't).

It's a bit of a nuisance as you can't guarantee playback to a client's large screen on location if they would like to view clips (I've done this previously with the original C300 - useful for media training jobs etc).

I hope they can address this in future firmware.