Canon U.S.A. : EOS 5D Mark III Firmware Update (http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/standard_display/EOS5DM3_firmware)

HDMI output options in Pal mode: 24p / 50i

Hopefully that's 25p in a 50i signal

It was leaked a few days ago but from the discussions that I have seen the response of users has been pretty underwhelming. Part of the problem is that Canon announced this six months ago & several other interesting cameras have shipped since & the interest in recording from clean HDMI on the 5D3 has waned.

I will of course upgrade & try it out but sadly there appear to be no other features of interest for 5D3 video. Canon didn't magically improve sharpness or resolution. It could be of interest to use it with a HyperDeck Shuttle & record direct to ProRes on an SSD plus dual recording on CF/SD for backup. I am assuming that the HDMI output is live all the time for monitoring so it would mean the end of the 29'59" recording limit (but without dual recording to card). One other feature is apparently that the 5X/10X zoom mode is passed out through HDMI so could be used as an extra crop mode like the 3X on the GH2/GH3

It seems to work well with the Ninja 2. Camera record start/stop will trigger record mode in the Ninja with the appropriate camera settings. Set on auto or 50i signal to get 25p in Ninja 2. There were a few quirks to setting up correctly with Ninja 2 but assume Atomos have this info on their website.
Unfortunately there is no audio through HDMI. The 1Dc has this issue also.
Seems odd Canon chose not implement this.

Ugh. No audio. Typical Canon!

I always use dual audio, but I need a some audio on the video as a scratch track to synch with.

The Nanoflash has a 3.5mm audio jack In, so presumably I could just get a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable to run audio directly from the earphones out to the mic in? Or just connect a videomic directly to the nanoflash?

I have also heard that early video clips are not too promising, but I'm going to run some tests today; I know I have a mini HDMI cable around here somewhere!

No miracles with HDMI out picture quality compared to internal but 422 does have more chroma information.
Probably only noticeable with grading or transcoding to other codecs for web use etc.

Seriously? No audio on the HDMI output? What were they thinking? That's really disappointing,.

What are the external recording options (other than the Ninja2) for the 5DM3 now that it's possible? Recording can't be done directly to a laptop, can it/

Maybe a laptop running Adobe On Location... and an HDMI to Firewire converter?

blackmagic has a mini recorder with thunderbolt connection. I think it will do the job

Blackmagic Design: UltraStudio Thunderbolt? (http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/ultrastudiothunderbolt/)

Seriously? No audio on the HDMI output? What were they thinking? That's really disappointing,.

One of my teamates did some tests yesterday and audio was coming through using an AJA HDMI to HD-SDI converter.

Maybe a laptop running Adobe On Location... and an HDMI to Firewire converter?

I think when it comes to video cameras, firewire is all but dead. In the days of digital tape, firewire was a raw stream of the video codec the camera recorded. There was no difference between the firewire signal & the video recorded to the camera.

Today, a good HDMI output is going to be pre-codec, pre-compression, straight off of the chip. HDMI 1.3 is spec'ed at a data rate of up to 10.2Gbps, 25x faster than FW400, which caps at 400Mbps.

Though firewire is plenty fast enough to send a ProRes HQ signal, which is a great improvement over the compressed h264 codecs that DSLRs record to. So in theory you could have a device that encodes the HDMI signal to ProRes & then transfer to a laptop over firewire to record the data.

But in all seriousness, there are so many self contained recorders, I don't see why anyone would use a laptop over a Atomos Ninja, Sound Devices Pix, Convergent Design Nano Flash, etc. etc.

One of my teamates did some tests yesterday and audio was coming through using an AJA HDMI to HD-SDI converter.

Interesting. I just hooked up my 5D mk III via HDMI to my TV, and there is no audio being passed to the TV during preview, or record. Playing back the video (captured on the CF card) results in audio going to the TV.

It seems that in my case, at least, no audio is indeed NOT being passed through the HDMI cable when recording or previewing, just on playback (of CF card recorded video).

Interesting. I just hooked up my 5D mk III via HDMI to my TV, and there is no audio being passed to the TV during preview, or record. Playing back the video (captured on the CF card) results in audio going to the TV.

It seems that in my case, at least, no audio is indeed NOT being passed through the HDMI cable when recording or previewing, just on playback (of CF card recorded video).

I get the same thing...

I updated the software and expected to get a full frame on my S-1071F 7-inch HDSDI&HDMI Waveform LCD monitor so I don't have to use the Canon DSLR scale zoom-in anymore. But I didn't get the full frame of the monitor filled, even with the clean HDMI out?

What's going on?

Check the aspect ratio of your monitor, it most likely isn't a true 16:9. It won't ever be able to fill the full frame of your monitor if it is a different shape. It's not unusual, most on-board monitors are not true HD resolution or even 16:9. The real benefit of the clean HDMI output is for recording not really for monitoring...

Yep... just looked it up and your monitor's resolution is 1024x600, so the monitor has to do some scaling in order to display 1920x1080. Like I said, not unusual at all, even for a super duper high end monitor like yours. The good news is, you should be able to zoom in to a 1:1 pixel display on your monitor and get a great critical focus.

Yep... just looked it up and your monitor's resolution is 1024x600, so the monitor has to do some scaling in order to display 1920x1080. Like I said, not unusual at all, even for a super duper high end monitor like yours. The good news is, you should be able to zoom in to a 1:1 pixel display on your monitor and get a great critical focus.

Thanks John! Pressing the info did the trick, I had to press the button until I got a full frame view from the HDMI output.

i plug into my Marshall 7" LCD, it fills the whole screen

Same with my Lilliput 7" 5DII. Downscaling is going on but the full frame pic is nice and sharp. Certainly much nicer than it was before the firmware update. And it stays full frame (or 16:9 at least which almost fills the frame) when I press the playback button which it didn't before. So although I may not be buying an external recorder just yet if at all, my monitoring has just got better.

Hey guys, I've been ready all of the post regarding the new firmware, so I decided to upgrade mine his morning. I noticed I do get full screen on my IndiPro 5" monitor without having to rescale. Now I'm trying to decide if I should get a Atomos Ninja2 or the BM Hyperdeck shuttle and use it for recording. I don't record greenscreen nor do I go overboard on color correction in post. The only benefit I can see from what I've read is that it would eliminates the 29:00 minute recording limit.

David A

Hey guys, I've been ready all of the post regarding the new firmware, so I decided to upgrade mine his morning. I noticed I do get full screen on my IndiPro 5" monitor without having to rescale. Now I'm trying to decide if I should get a Atomos Ninja2 or the BM Hyperdeck shuttle and use it for recording. I don't record greenscreen nor do I go overboard on color correction in post. The only benefit I can see from what I've read is that it would eliminates the 29:00 minute recording limit.

David A
Recording direct to ProRes would be a good benefit as would dual system recording simultaneously to card & HDMI recorder.

Recording direct to ProRes would be a good benefit as would dual system recording simultaneously to card & HDMI recorder.

This brings up a question I have... if you can't record audio via the HDMI output to an external recorder ATOMOS etc), then you're back to syncing via a slate, rather than being able to sync by matching audio waveforms (EG using PluralEyes), right?

From what I've seen online Julian , if you run a 3.5mm mini jack audio cable frm the 5d3 to the ninja, you'll have audio.

Canon 5D Mark III & Atomos Ninja 2 ...finally on Vimeo


A very in depth video in using the 5d3 and ninja 2

…but not the BMD Hyperdeck Shuttle unfortunately. No external audio in for that.

The audio-in on the Ninja 2 is line-in level, not mic-level, so you can't plug an external mic directly into it. However, you can put an external mic on the camera, and then feed the Ninja 2 with a stereo cable from the camera's headphone socket. Atomos told me there are no latency issues by doing it that way, and, looking at the photos of the menus, it appears you can adjust the audio by any number of frames anyway.