I see from the CES announcements today that Canon has FINALLY started to play catch-up on their Vixia consumer camcorder line by offering 1080p/50 or 1080p/60 in AVCHD 2 at 28Mbps.

Canon Enhances Connectivity And Quality With New VIXIA Camcorders at DV Info Net (http://www.dvinfo.net/news/canon-enhances-connectivity-and-quality-with-new-vixia-camcorders.html)

I've been shooting in this format with a little consumer grade Panasonic TM900 for exactly 2 years now and it's been a pleasure to be able to do Full HD slow motion (especially sharp at 50% speed for 1080p50 in a 25p delivery project) at any time I choose in post production. Razor sharp and very pleasing results. The little Sony's have been using AVCHD 2 for at least 2 years too.

Just maybe Canon might one day give us 1080p/50 or 1080p/60 frame rates on their "professional" AVCHD Cinema EOS C100. Seems kind of stupid that the consumer cams have a better capability than my professional tool. Heck, even at that it would still be a long way behind the FS700 (regarding higher frame rate options).

Note to Canon. Now we know you've worked out it's necessary to compete in at least one market sector, can we have AVCHD 2 at 28 Mbps in the C100 please.

I WOULD PAY (a modest fee, if necessary) for a future firmware upgrade that gave me AVCHD 2 1080p/50 at 28Mbps option on my C100. I bought the C100 for what it does now - and I love it. However, many won't buy a C100 because it does not have a 50p or 60p frame rate option for (good) slow motion shots.

Your call. Just in case you might read this forum.

It may well be the make or break for my purchasing decision too. Frankly the C300 is out of my budget range at this time, and the C100 not having 50p is a potential problem.

I need to make a decision by around BVE in London, so it would be nice to see some indication by then...

It might help their motivation a bit to glance over Sony's spec sheets. Also 4K is a real plus. Features like that make buying decisions much easier.

As much as I want this to happen the new consumer cams have Digic DV IV compared to the C100 Digic DV III. I'd imagine digic dv 3 can do avchd 2.0 easily as it can do mpeg2 4:2:2 50mbs. I guess we'll find out come NAB. I wish someone in the know would give us some hints.

I absolutely love the look of the new Canon sensor but I really don't like an either or choice as a professional and as a pretty dedicated customer over the years.
The lack of that simple and important function pushed us from either "C" cameras that were in our budget for this year. We kept what we have and picked up two $1300 GH3s that produce gorgeous 50mbs 60p slow motion. I never would have considered getting into Micro 4/3 except for Canon's "decision" and I'm sure we're not the only ones that have.

I suspect Canon is so preoccupied with product positioning between their various camera models that they fail to notice the product features of their competitors. The resulting customer loss is unfortunate.

It isn't too late for Canon to address this. That is one of the benefits of firmware updates. That is what they are doing to correct the HDMI overlay problem on the 5D Mkiii.

100% not true.....Canon has a lot of bodies, both here and in Japan, that are reading all the blogs, paying attention to their competitors, etc.....

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

100% not true.....Canon has a lot of bodies, both here and in Japan, that are reading all the blogs, paying attention to their competitors, etc.....

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

That's good to hear. So I will look forward to the 60p firmware update on the C100. That is a very importanr feature for my applications.

Canon are definitely getting left behind in the frame rate war...

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-video-industry-news/513295-procision-jvc-gc-px100-camcorder-announced-ces2013.html#post1771948

Don't forget that to get higher bitrates, you need a different container format. Canon went with MP4 for the 35mbps 1080p60 in their entry level cameras. Panasonic went with MOV for the 50Mbps 1080p60 in the GH3.

The AVCHD 2.0 spec will not get higher than 28Mbps. My experience with TM700 footage is that it really falls apart with high motion.

You can shoot 60p 1080 at either 28mbs AVCHD or 50mbs.MOV with the GH3, so it's not the container that kept Canon from providing it.

Not to get into slamming the C100 or C300, because I'd love for them to have been our new A and B cameras, but in addition to the AVCHD and .MOV IPB formats, the GH3 also offers 72mbs All-I at 24p. And the 50mbs 60p looks stunning.

I hope Canon is listening to it's customers because we still shoot with 3 of their cameras and a lot of their lenses and we felt very "not-listened to" after no camera, from the 5DIII to the C300 offered us basic 60p or these types of common codec options...four years later.