7D movie modes full listing...
 

From the Canon USA product page for the EOS 7D...

Advanced movie mode with manual exposure control and selectable frame rates:

1920 x 1080 (Full HD):
30p (29.97)
24p (23.976)
25p

1280 x 720 (HD):
60p (59.94)
50p

640 x 480 (SD):
60p (59.94)
50p

"...the EOS 7D enables easy manual control of exposure, focus and Live View features and even allows for in-camera editing. The large CMOS sensor and compatibility with over 60 lenses provide a wealth of depth-of-field options. And it's all as easy as the press of a button — the EOS 7D has a dedicated Live View/Movie Recording lever with a start/stop button that gets the shooting started fast...."

Wow, the 7D seems like a fantastic all around camera. And it has 24P!!!

I wonder how this will affect their Professional HD Camcorder line ... imagine what the XL update will be like ...

29m59s recording time!

Canon has a strange way of making business, if they had made a 25p firmware for the 5DMkII I would have give them 3000€. Now they made the 7D and I "only" will give them 1500€... ;-DD

In any case it really seems a well thought camera, congratulations to Canon!

In DPReview.com's hands on, looks like we're still screwed since Canon doesn't want to take out the 12 minute hard limit for HD files.

They claim it's an issue that they can't store larger than 4 gig files. To me that's a bunch of bs since every other tapeless format can by creating new files. If you look at XDCAM, AVCHD, MPEG2-based, or DVCPROHD formats, they all split the files up into chunks.

This makes me think that Canon has another trick up their sleeves. If they don't move off to a tapeless format within the next year, they're either really really stupid, or they're intentionally trying to kill the Video group.

As usual the most important information is missing:

Is the HDMI live or not?

Can anyone help.

Argh!! Now I'm torn between keeping my 5D or getting the 7D... Its all there except for the Full Frame Sensor but if the low light is good why not get one.

This probably means that there will never be a firmware update for the 5DMKII giving us 24p and/or 25p.

I have the same feeling. But I really hope we're both wrong.

As long as cameras use FAT file system you can't have larger files than 4GB, not something Canon thought of just a limiting factor of the file system. Allthough I agree that as long as avchd consumer camcorders are capable of splitting files into chunks it should be possible for canon to do it to. But then they probably need to follow some sort of standard to get the NLE's to understand how to put together the right chunks. AVCHD would limit the bitrate to 24Mbit/s..

And they haven't killed of their video department yet, or at least the XL range. Try adding a shotgun-mic with rycote, mattebox, wireless mic and maybe a light for the indoor documentary shots. The H1 also has the TC/Genlock options needed to sync with audio recorders, of course it's possible to the "old fashioned way" without to. Although it's a bit strange they haven't come up with some sort of tapeless solution for their video department...maybe the will surprise ut all one day?

I found out that the primary issue with the 4GB limit is indeed the European tax that's imposed on camcorders (previously discussed somewhere around here about a year ago). Any camera that records video for longer than 30 minutes (as in the SD mode) is defined as a video camcorder and therefore by EU law it must be taxed more heavily. The 4GB / 30 minute limit is in there to keep the price down. I had a hard time believing this when I first heard about it, but it's true.

Didn't something similar happen during early DV in Europe? Firewire in the cameras would only go one way--out. If it went both ways, then the camera was a recorder and would be taxed more. Something like that, I vaguely remember.

I recall that. Those were referred to as nEUtered camcorders. Same concept on tax.

As for the ridiculous EU Taxation law. That's why we came to the United States in the first place. Taxation -WITH- representation.

However, that said, I find that it's unlikely that the limitation is due to any EU limit on the length of the recording. Your stated limits were starting from 30 minutes. 12 minutes is nowhere near that amount.

Secondly, it's not that difficult to program in a firmware update that would automatically create new files at the end of each, this is a functionality that would take a dev about 12 hours to program, and maybe a week to QA with bugfixes. With the 300x and 600x UDMA cards these days that write at 45-90 MegaBYTES (not bits) a second, Canon should absolutely have no issue with creating a model that works a single 600x CF Card can keep up with Panasonic's P2 Card or even Sony's SxS overcranking ability.

Canon probably has a tougher time programming for and getting wireless handgrips to work in the USA vs anyplace in Europe where there ARE differences in regulated radio spectrum.

The simplest way Canon could "make" it work for USA and not the EU is to unlimit 24p and 30p clips and to limit 25p clips to <30 minutes.

So I am still convinced that Canon will be coming out with something soon. Their deliberate crippling of the 5D, 7D, and T1i states their intentions deliberately.

It records 29 minutes, 59 seconds in SD mode, which is the reason for the 4GB limit. They have capped the file size itself, which happens to be twelve minutes in HD mode. The limitation though is due to the 30 minute length in SD mode. Now if they had just left off SD mode altogether, then we'd probably get the 30 minute clip length limit in HD mode.

Excuse my ignorance but how does shooting work w/ the 12 minute limit? can I just pop in another CF card and continue shooting for another 12 minutes and so on? Or is there a heat limitation where the camera will not shoot for a particular amount of time? ie: what's the workflow like w/ the 12min limit? thank you.