New Firmware Enhances Canon XF-Series Camcorders, Supporting Popular Broadcast Recording Format

New Firmware Enables 1440 x 1080 35mbps Recording at 60i or 50i for Canon's XF305, XF300, XF105, and XF100 Professional Camcorders

Canon U.S.A. : About Canon (http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/about_canon?pageKeyCode=pressreldetail&docId=0901e02480533596)

Firmware for XF305/XF300
Canon U.S.A. : Professional Imaging Products : XF305 (http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/professional/products/professional_cameras/hd_video_cameras/xf305?pageKeyCode=prdAdvDetail&docId=0901e0248058963a)

Firmware for XF105 / XF100
Canon U.S.A. : Professional Imaging Products : XF105 (http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/professional/products/professional_cameras/hd_video_cameras/xf105?pageKeyCode=prdAdvDetail&docId=0901e0248058963d)

Thanks, Philip!

Everyone please note in the Canon advisory:

Please update the bundled Canon XF Utility application to Version 1.3 so that video clips that are recorded with Firmware Version 1.0.3.0 can be correctly recognized by the application. The following updaters have already been released.
Canon XF Utility 1.3 updater for Windows
Canon XF Utility 1.3 updater for Mac OS X

Cheers, all.

Installed the firmware upgrade in my XF300 this morning, along with upgrading the XF Utility software, and took it for a test drive. Everything seems to work fine, though I notice 1440x1080 is interlaced only. No big deal. I never felt the lack of that particular resolution scheme.

I --DID-- notice that when I went to pull the footage into PPro CS5, the audio tracks on 1440x1080i came in as two separate mono tracks, while the 1080p footage I shot as a reference came in with a normal stereo track. Is this "normal" for 1440x1080i?

Martin

Yeah, the announcement did say interlaced. I'm sure some people will have use for this setting, but not me. I'll probably do the firmware update anyway just in case there are other unannounced fixes in it.

On the audio tracks, I'm about 95% sure that is a setting in your PPro sequence preset. Since 1440 x 1080 wasn't a built-in preset for Canon XF in PPro, which preset did you use?

Look near the bottom of the light gray "Preset Description" boxes on the right side of the New Sequence dialog box and you'll probably see a listing that looks something like this:

Default Sequence
Total video tracks: 3
Master track type: Stereo
Mono tracks: 4
Stereo tracks: 0
5.1 tracks: 0
Submix mono tracks: 0
Submix stereo tracks: 0
Submix 5.1 tracks: 0

You can change the preset, or modify and save your own preset in the "Tracks" tab. That should take care of it.