Canon 5D mark 2 firmware update.WL
 

it time for us to do the wish list on the next firmware update.
sine we have a very nice camera in our hand. now time for us to make action to canon.
to be true i like this camera. but there are thing i hate and i can see canon can make it good
on the firmware update.

we like to see the control same in the photo function. sine the video function is all auto,
and this is not the way we work.

and i hope you guys think the same ask me and we can work together and put on some list to canon.

thank

bad english sorry.

wish....

full manual control in movie mode.

and the ultimate would be.... to shoot "RAW" in movie mode and canon provide a raw converter.

yeah the idea of raw is good, so we can work on uncompress file, like red.
come on canon Red have this, so do you.

and other this is to fix the rolling shutter speed.
oh and focus frame rate... :)

1. Menu option to re-purpose the AV output jack as a stereo headphone jack, for live monitoring of audio recording, per the entire Canon VIXIA camcorder line.

2. Option for manual audio level control (simple, ganged L+R, as on the consumer level VIXIA camcorders)

You guys should understand that RedCode Raw is most definitely *not* uncompressed...

i'm not so sure about red raw. but the idea is to have the 4:4:4 sample so we can get the detail like the F22, i know 5dm2 is good at keying too cuz i was try it last time and it work grate, but still we need more data to work on, like raw video.

can some one correct me, is 4:4:4 can count as uncompress? i know raw have more bit then 4:4:4

thank

Please realize that the *vast majority* of 5D Mk.II buyers would have no idea what to do with uncompressed video. What's wrong with the 5D Mk.II's current video implementation, anyway? Remember the law of diminishing returns: how is a minor gain in image quality worth a major expense in storage requirements? How is the current 48mbps data rate not good enough?

24/25fps and manual controls... that's all I ask

Even the manual controls... I think within a month, everyone will be used to tricking the camera to get the settings they want, but it would be great to have full manual.

Skew fix would be nice, but I think that is more sensor driven than software.

I'm more interested in RAW so that the white balance, sharpness, and contrast ( especially highlight recovery ) can be adjusted in post.... not necessarily in codec quality....

and yes... manual gain control of audio and 24p ( at the same bitrate ) would be a huge improvement.

In no particular order:
- Manual Audio Control
- Audio Monitoring
- 24/25P
- Untainted HDMI Output
- Manual Control in Video Mode.

It's a lot to ask for, I know...

#1 - Full Manual Video Control
WHY? - I'd rather buy Canon EF lenses, but if they want people to buy Nikon...

#2 - 24p/25p
WHY? - Blu-ray supports 24p, not 30p; Don't insult the European market.

These fixes don't just improve our lives, they will improve Canon's sales of Canon lenses worldwide, as well as 5D2 sales in Europe.

Also, these fixes seem feasible. Canon can clearly control focus, aperture, shutter and gain, so it's just a matter of making the controls available to the user. Regarding 24/25p, this is SLOWER than 30p, so it should be doable.

Other features might be nice for us, but they won't significantly improve Canon sales. For instance, better audio might be nice, but we can improve it even more with a separate XLR-input recorder. Clean HDMI would be cool, but it seems that they downgraded it for a reason (lower power? more DSP cycles for better compression?)

I think we should hammer on the two feature improvements above, and not dilute them with other requests. And we need to let Canon know that these fixes will help their bottom line.

I agree Jon, 100%! If the "community" focuses on two really important things it'll be much more likely to happen.

Let's make it three... audio monitoring would be so easy to enable on this camera.

My guess is canon didn't enable 24p because they didn't want to pay the 24p license. If that's the case, I doubt we'll see 24p enabled anytime soon.

OTOH, I'd love full manual control, 24p and the option of choosing between different bitrates. Thing is... the encoder they are using is not the best one out there, so a little extra bit rate couldn't hurt. I'm ok with RGB though :)

My top 10
 

1. Manual control of Aperture, shutter, and ISO.
2. Break the 12 minute barrier (e.g. start a new file after 4 GB).
3. 24p.
4. Manual control of audio level.
5. Audio monitoring.
6. 1-4 stop "HTP" at all ISO over 1600.
7. Live RGB Histograms

Number 6 would leave 1-4 stops of highlights in the image with no penalty to read noise. (The current implementation of ISO 3200+ clips the highlights with no benefit at all.)

Things that will likely require much more horsepower than the 5D2 is capable of:

8. Sample every pixel instead of one in three, to reduce aliasing artifacts greatly.
9. Raw format of any kind (e.g. sRAW to 1872x1053, nonlinear encoding, etc.).
10. Live 1080p output with assist features (peaking, etc.)

Probably true, but there might be a hardware limitation, depending on the architecture.

The Zoom H4 does audio monitoring doesn't it?

My guess is that the camera sums nine pixels (3x3) to make one pixel, rather than sub-sampling.

Digitally, they could filter, rather than sum, but that would definitely take some extra horses.

They could also apply an optical low pass filter. We'd get a beautiful 720p output, but 1080 would be a bit blurred. (I assume that adding my own OLFP for video would void the warranty - and it would make the stills too soft...)

I hope to try a Tiffen Black Diffusion 1/4 on a resolution chart, when I get the chance...

Filters and the Film Look

http://www.tiffen.com/displayproduct...emnum=72BDFX14

The moire is very bad, much worse than anything I've ever seen. Plus, it's worse in one dimension. I think it indicates that it is only sampling every third row. It is perhaps sampling every column, at least, and summing those together.

Of course, even if Canon was sampling all rows and columns, there would still be moire/aliasing due to the OLPF (too weak for video), 1/3 resampling (depending on how they do it), demosiac, in-camera processing, and resizing (again, depending on algorithm).

I, too, will test a diffusion filter to try and suppress the very worst aliasing/moire.

It's clear that Canon is filtering horizontally, which is a good thing. Vertically, they are row skipping or something. It's not clear without some detailed analysis.

We can film people in pinstripes just fine, but the actors have to stand vertically.

There is an opportunity for a custom vertical-only diffuser. There is also an opportunity to do some unique post processing that should be able to stitch the RGB sites together a bit better than what they can do in-camera. It would be like de-bayering with a twist.

But even right out of the box, the images look really good. Applying the right optical filters and post processing, however, would make 480p images - and possibly 720p images - look near perfect, even with a zone plate.

Frankly, I'm not too worried though. Back in the NTSC days I developed encoders and decoders and got a number of patents on the subject. NTSC zone plates look much, much worse than the 5D MKII results. I would say that the NTSC format and broadcasting business model that it enabled weren't exactly failures.

To me, the 5D MkII enables us to use great lenses and to get great results in low light. It gives us the opportunity to tell a story using techniques that were previously only available to well-funded directors. We can develop our chops, and if our films have a bit of aliasing, so be it.

The day one has a project that's worthy and can attract funding, sure, get a RED ONE/Scarlet/EPIC, shoot on 35mm or whatever. Making that jump from the 5D MkII and experience with a variety of lenses and filters wouldn't be such a stretch. And avoiding the cost, hassle and lack of light provided by 35mm adapters is a good thing.

Okay, back on thread... One more feature request...

A video post-processing utility that cleans up the color aliasing on fast horizontal lines.

Then again, this will probably be available from a 3rd party before we sing Auld Lang Syne.

What license do you mean?

Isn't the 24p license for 3:2 insertion into 60i? I don't think it applies to any video recorded at that scan frequency, does it?

Nevermind... Got my answer here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/digital-v...p-license.html

"#1 - Full Manual Video Control
WHY? - I'd rather buy Canon EF lenses, but if they want people to buy Nikon...

#2 - 24p/25p
WHY? - Blu-ray supports 24p, not 30p; Don't insult the European market."

I agree with those choices and the reasons even though the 25p is of no use to me. These choices and the other two I like would benefit Canon the most and should be feasible:

3. Stitch 4Gig files to have seamless recording. It turns into a real video camera with this feature and is purely software without the need for expensive processing power or new hardware.

4. Audio monitoring or at least an audio levels display. Separate audio recording is fine for movie shorts but it is a hassle in editing paying job stuff. Without monitoring of some sort the recording can't be trusted. It should be a feasible addition.

OKAY, please don't put up the desire for RAW/uncompressed video in the list for Canon to add. It won't happen and will make us seem unrealistic and impossible to satisfy. Raw HD video would be a data stream in the neighborhood of 1,492mbps (1920x1080x30fpsx24bits/pixel for 8 bits per color)and I don't think anyone of us is going to carry around a 15K rpm SCSI RAID in our camera bags. Just make the best color profile with correct color and wide contrast range that gets applied before compression and you should have plenty to work with in color correction/grading.

Yeah, Uncompressed RAW ain't gonna happen. The feasible way to get uncompressed would be via a clean HDMI output, but Canon clearly decided to cripple that feature for whatever reason.

If the camera were to record RAW, it would need to be compressed like REDCODE, which uses wavelet encoding. Canon would either need to license REDCODE or develop a brand new format after the horse has left the barn. It ain't gonna happen.

Fortunately, the MPEG-4 encoding in the 5D MkII is darn good, considering it's real time and battery powered. I think the engineers did an excellent job in choosing a cost effective solution that meets or exceeds all requirements in this level of the market.

Regarding 4GB stitching, it would be nice, but there's also the heat issue to consider. Again, I think this was a conscious decision on Canon's part.

The lack of full control was also a conscious decision, but I don't think they considered that they would drive us to Nikon lenses. Oops. The lack of 24/25p was conscious, but boneheaded, considering the size of Europe. Then again, the lack of 24p didn't stop me from adding my name to the waiting list.

The lack of audio monitoring might not have been a conscious decision. It might have been an "I wish we had though of that at the time" decision. It doesn't hurt to ask for it. We can monitor the video, can't we?

However, the bigger audio issue for photographers is the lack of audio notation. That one baffles me. My old Minolta P&S had that feature more than half a decade ago.

I was thinking if canon are so concerned about competing with their pro video divison that they intentionally crippled the camera, why not have the video divison sell us an "unlock package"? I'd be willing to pay some money for 24p, full manual control, codec bitrate control, manual audio and anything else they come up with. :)

Just a thought.

Me too. At $3500 with a lens I think this camera is a bargain, video wise - other than the crippled manual controls. 24p would be nice but I can live with 30p a lot easier than I can live without manual controls.

My current decision is whether to keep the 5D and my XHA1 and use each as appropriate or sell both and get an EX1 - if the 5D had full manual control I wouldn't even consider the sony, so if such an unlock package was within the $3k price difference it wouldn't even be a question for me.

It's basically what they already do in the video division - $3000+ difference between two models with nothing but a minor hardware difference (XHA1 vs. G1 & XL-H1a vs s) - but that minor difference makes all the difference to a pro who needs it while keeping it cheaper for those who don't need it.

My guess is that the unlock option will be called the 5D Mark III, or the 1D Mark IV...

I thinks what they're going to do about true video lenses is part of the problem. A 5DII type sensor released from their video business they may not use a full FF sensor. But they still have to come up with a form factor to take big lenses. How do they price that? SLR lenses benefit from mass production. They won't have that benefit with video lenses for a big chip.

Perhaps part of the reason Canon hasn't come out with more lenses for their removable lens 1/3 3 ccd camera is that this is a dead end.

Canon doesn't like to lead in the way. Right now it looks like they should. It's very hard to predict what there video division will do with big cmos chips. The photo division seems to have an easier strategy.

Unfortunately i think the 12 minute file size limit is not due to buffer or memory porblems, it is due to the Image sensor over-heating.

I think the 5dmkII is more of a proof of concept for canon... they are showing the world that they can make a full frame camera with eceptional image quality, for a very reasonable sum!!! the next generation of the XL series will most likely have this 21mp imager, and take full size Canon lenses...

NTFS vs FAT32
 

The 4 gig file size limitation is due to the fact that the FAT 32 file system has a max size of 4 gigs. NTFS is higher, but the EOS 5D records video with the fat 32 system. So, each file has to be less than the maximum. You can start over after 12 minutes. When is the last time you shot for 12 minutes?

"When is the last time you shot for 12 minutes?"

Last Thursday. I doubt the congressman would have appreciated the cameraman interrupting his answers three times during his interview.

It would be easy enough for the 5DII to just start a new file at the end of 4Gig. I can shoot a lot of things in under 12 minutes but some things can't stand the interruption.

If you had separate continuous audio the interruption would be easy to cover. But why bother. The 5DII is not and doesn't need to be a universal tool.

You're probably right... just most of us hope we don't have to wait 2+ years for a mkIII (based on the time between Canon high end cameras).

We'll probably see this HD video recording feature improved and moved to another Canon D-SLR (maybe at the Rebel or 50D level, not FF either), before we see an update to the 5D Mk. II. That's my guess anyway. There's usually some leap-frogging of capability among the various product lines...

"The 5DII is not and doesn't need to be a universal tool."

Yes, but it is close enough for a video guy like me to buy one. I would sell my V1 if I could get continuous video capability (for at least 45 minutes). Perhaps this is Canon's way of getting us to buy two 5DII bodies? I can appreciate that. That is the sort of evil that I respect. Hmmm...maybe I'll keep the V1 and do two-camera shoots until I save enough to get two 5DII bodies? The problem with that is the dual tripod and audio systems needed for two cameras that costs a fortune.

Can firmware change these?
 

I am so tempted to buy a 5Dm2, but there are some things that I have concerns about:

30p - Is shiftable frame rate 29.97, 24p, etc. possible via firmware?

Manual Exposure - possible via firmware?

Manual audio level - possible via firmware?

How about audio monitoring?


Is there a reason why Canon would not make these changes if they are technically possible?

How about a third party firmware option? Has it been done with other gear?

"Is there a reason why Canon would not make these changes if they are technically possible?"

Because they don't want the SLR to compete with their video division, expecially at the cheaper price point !

But if Canon doesn't do it, Nikon certainly will. I believe the line has been crossed and there's really no going back.

I think the short comings are not due to evil business intent, but due to the imaging guys keeping the project secret from the video guys. They got the levels wrong in Quicktime. They chose a framerate that isn't used in any video system. They made up a crazy shutter algorithm from scratch. ...yet, they made beautiful pictures.

It's not a conspiracy. It's a matter of non-video people designing their first video product, and not asking the experts for help.

RED won't have this problem. They're getting input from EVERYBODY. :) (Not that they won't make mistakes too. But I expect them not to screw up the fundamentals.)

RED is changing this market, they may have no choice.

Has Canon traditionally been receptive to FW changes suggested by their cutsomers?

Have they been known to add significant functionality, such as the things requested here?

No, never.
But the next camera they sell us will have more of what we want.
Hopefully Red is an option in 2010. Sony should be in this market at some point.