It's been obvious from day one that it was possible, but after a couple of years of oh-so-painful 30 FPS recording on the
EOS 5D Mark II, Canon is finally coming through with its
long-promised 2.0.3 update that brings 29.97 FPS and 24 FPS (23.976, to be precise) 1080p recording at last. Even the VGA mode has been swapped to a 29.97 actual rate, and PAL mode has a flat 25 FPS and 23.976 FPS as well. Additional tweaks include a manual volume adjustment (as opposed to the automatic gain the cameras usually employ), a brightness or RGB histogram display (this function, like some of these other features, has been available for a while as a hack), shutter and aperture priority modes have been added for movie shooting, and the audio sampling ramp has been bumped from 44.1KHz to 48KHz. The bad news: now you don't have any excuses for not shooting that heartwrenching mumblecore masterpiece you've been telling everyone you're working on. Hit up the source link for the download instructions.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted March 15th 2010 11:09PM
I believe the audio sampling has gone from 44.1 to 48. Not 44.1 to 44
That's correct, there's even reports of increased bit rate of 38 mbps to 44 mbps, this could be explained by increased audio sampling. The first video shot with the firmware was done by Canon Europe, here's the video : http://www.digitalcinemafoundry.com/2010/03/15/eos-5d-mark-ii-firmware-update-version-2-0-3-is-here/
Scroll to the bottom.
Cheers,
Denver Riddle
digitalcinemafoundry.com
@denverkr Philip Bloom has created 3 beautiful native 24fps shorts with the new firmware... see them all here: http://blog.planet5d.com/98b
planetMitch
Head Honcho: http://planet5d.com
Yeeeah
I do not want drop frame rates, I want actual 24fps!
M
@BigDaddyM nope.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24p
@tjnelsonjr Yes I want actual 24, not 24 drop frame.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZp9WMy4ihg
This may be a stupid question, sorry I'm new to photography...
What is the advantage to having 29.97FPS and 24 instead of 30?
I'm picking up a Rebel T2i sometime soon, and I know people were excited that these frame-rates are available on that camera as well.
Anyway, thanks in advance if anyone can clarify!
@stewart21
24 has that "cinema" look, the 29 is more of a standard rate. Atleast that's what wiki says. It's important if you intend to make movies rather then shoot video of late night club parties.
@Baconbits Neither has anything to do with photography, so if all you care about is photography, then I wouldn't worry about.
It has to do with video.
24p is the cinema standard. So if you take video at 30p, it looks more like TV, rather than 24p which looks like a movie.
@balls
23.97 FPS is the "cinema" standard. NTSC TV is 29.97 FPS and PAL is 25 FPS.
A lot of studios shoot at 30 FPS and then downscale to 25 FPS for PAL territories, as 30 FPS means they have portability.
@stewart21
Thats all ancient bullcrap from the composhit cable days. On any modern LCD/monitor, higher framerate, higher resolution, and ONLY using progressive scan, are all good things.
@elithrar
Your argument is complete nonsense. No ones distributes 1080p as is, which is what this article is about. 1080p is stored on Bluray etc. which is digital and completely independent of PAL/NTSC for all practical purposes. They just decode and play like on a PC. Higher everything is better and doesn't affect compatibility in anyway on HDMI or any digital interface.
@(Unverified)
There's no 'argument' in my post. I was simply stating the facts for broadcast TV delivery, which are true.
I think you'll also find that Blu Ray still has strictures regarding delivery format (read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Technical_specifications) and NTSC is still integral to those.
@Kurian
You're right that progressive scan and higher resolutions are preferred, but frame rates still matter and the argument for 24 or 23.97fps vs. something higher is wrong. Higher frame rates are not preferred except when shooting slow motion. Motion pictures still shoot at 24 frames per second. Most dramatic television shows shoot at 24 frames per second.
@Kurian
1080p is the general resolution stored on blue ray, but many formats can technically be stored on it. PAL and NTSC do still matter on blue ray, as broadcast standards are dictated by framerates in different parts of the world. NTSC and PAL do still matter. Not sure where you're getting all of your information...
Your argument is complete nonsense. No ones distributes 1080p as is, which is what this article is about. 1080p is stored on Bluray etc. which is digital and completely independent of PAL/NTSC for all practical purposes. They just decode and play like on a PC. Higher everything is better and doesn't affect compatibility in anyway on HDMI or any digital interface.
@stewart21 The difference between 29.97 and 30 is 3 frames every 100 seconds. You have to lose them if you play back using NTSC. Basically, 29.97 doesn't divide 30 into a nice number so the recording framerate doesn't sync well with the playback framerate.
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
I wonder if they shot that photo with a Canon...
Thank you, Canon, You're now back into "best Friend" status...
Please don't make me ever want to review that status again...
They should release a firmware that makes the camera 50% less expensive so I can afford one without having to go on food stamps.
@DanH
The general idea with photography; if you can't afford it, you probably don't deserve it. Most 5D IIs I know of pay more 30 times back their value again and again...
Oh glorious day!
Now I only wish they'd give us 720p mode as well. The jump from 640x480 to 1080 is a bit steep when it comes to filesize...
@kaitou
The bitrate probably wouldn't change. On the 7D 720p60 and 1080p30 have the same bitrate.
Another new feature is that bitrate is now at 44 mbps VBR, instead of 38 mbps VBR. This means that if now you shoot at 24p (instead of the old 30p @ 38mbps), you will get an improvement between 16% and 45% in quality, depending on how much motion there's in the scene.
"...after a couple of years of oh-so-painful 30 FPS..."
Oh, come on. There's no need to exaggerate. The 5D MkII was announced in Sept 2008. I was very lucky to get an early one in Dec 08, and it was much later than that when most people were able to get their hands on one.
Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but even the very earliest adopter has only had the camera for a year and a half, and people who weren't on a waiting list will have been lucky to have had theirs for a year.
@Jon S
that, and the part where it was not marketed as a 24p capable camera anyways
Just installed the update. Nice. I like the audio level controls now and the being able to view the histogram. I also noticed since the firmware I downloaded was from the Japanese server, I now have a Language menu option letting me choose from manu languages. I don't recall the original English version even letting you change it.
Any word on if and when these features will be released for the 7D?
@MRPysnik I think the 7D has been able to do this since it's release. As well as capturing video at 50p and 60p for slow motion. It's a shame the 5D's processor can't handle 50p and 60p. This is the one thing that's stopping me from buying the camera. Slow-mo is one of the best things that ever happened to cinema.
@JonAhdout I was talking more about the sound leveling and histograms.
I like the idea of 60fps at 720p too. I just wish I had the option to capture even faster frame rates at lower resolution - 120 or 240 at the VGA setting.
@JonAhdout
Wouldn't you need a faster frame rate to do slow motion? And couldn't this be done in software during post processing?
Anyways, it is a good day and I now have to figure out how to install this.
Just updated. 24p looks much more dramatic. The subtle flicker produced by 24p looks much better than the recent footage i shot in 30fps. Going to pen the screen play for my short film this year. Thanks Canon, this'll help get it into the cinemas ;-)
hmm, well before this news was published here: http://www.dpreview.com/news/1003/10030201canoneos5dmkiifirmware.asp and here: http://a-brezhnev.ru/2010-03-obnovlenie-2-0-3-dlya-eos-5d-mk-ii . However, it is strange why the Canon, this update took so long ...
Incidentally, I much more useful and interesting appearance a shutter-priority AE mode (Tv) and aperture-priority AE (Av) mode to the exposure modes for shooting movies :-)
Wow this is great, been waiting since day one when I bought my 5D mark II. It's going to be fun testing out the new features. Thanks to Engadget for informing us first hand.
@MbZbuGSy
Jeez, the firmware is located on a slow-ass server, or there are too many downloaders right now. The file is about 10MB, but so far I only get time-outs and speeds arround 4kB/s. It would be great if this was shared as a torrent file. So if you got the file share it on torrent please!!
Well great timing considering my shiny new 24-105L arrived last night :)