Using a monitor on the 7d

[Phil Bloom]

It's so much better than a 5dmkII. I hadn't tried it out until today but it doesn't drop down to 480p and change aspect ratio when you hit record. It's still not FULL HD out but it's leaps and bounds better than with the 5dmkII

Philip Bloom Blog Archive Using a monitor on the 7d is much better than with the 5dmkII

[Brad McGiveron]

That's some great news Phil !!

The 7D seems to be looking better and better by the day.

[Jon Fairhurst]

This is HUGE.

Not only is the 7D easier to focus than the 5D2 because of its smaller sensor, but the higher quality monitor will make live critical focus possible.

The only downside of the 7D that I can see is the lack of fast, wide primes.

Man, oh man, do I hope that the 5D2 firmware is upgraded to give 24p - and that either Canon or Magic Lantern give us higher resolution monitoring.

Hmmm. I could sell the 5D2, buy a 7D and spend the change on an HDMI monitor...

[Burk Webb]

That is great news!!!!!

That is the main thing that bugged be about the 5D. Do you know the resolution it is sending out when rolling?

Thanks a bunch for all the reports on this camera Mr. Bloom, I am turning inside out waiting to get my hands on one of these things!

[Evan Donn]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

The only downside of the 7D that I can see is the lack of fast, wide primes.

Exactly, and until I had the 5D I never would have imagined how important that would be to me - but now the thing that keeps me from considering the 7D is the impact it would have on wide angles!

Man, oh man, do I hope that the 5D2 firmware is upgraded to give 24p - and that either Canon or Magic Lantern give us higher resolution monitoring.

No real knowledge here, just speculation, but I'd guess the 7D is able to do the high-res monitoring while recording due to the second DIGIC, so I'm not too confident we'll ever see it on the 5D.

[Matt Newcomb]

If it's not full HD and it's not 480p, what is it exactly outputting as then? 720p?

[Jenn Kramer]

It looks like it's inset, might be the base resolution of the preview lcd scaled to fit 1080.

Phil's latest video: TwitVid - @philipbloom quick demo of 7d video monitoring, filmed at WEVA

[Khoi Pham]

It said 1080i 60hz on the top left corner of that monitor when it received the signal so it must be output full 1080i, it is at the end of the video.

[Jenn Kramer]

The mode changed when he switched to playback, so we know that playback is full 1080, but it didn't show what the mode was before. I wouldn't be surprised if it was also 1080, but we'll have to wait for someone with a camera to confirm.

[Khoi Pham]

yeah you are right, can't tell much but as far as I can see on the web, the recording picture looks identical to the playback picture so maybe it really does output full hd during recording.

[Chris Barcellos]

My guestimate:

If it is outputting full HD, the height would be 4;3 with 1080 height, and the width of the image, since it is only a 4:3 screen would be 1440 ?

That would make the image in the 16 x9 view area, in the monitor about 810 high, or 810 x 1440. Anybody ??

[Tramm Hudson]

Originally Posted by Chris Barcellos

That would make the image in the 16 x9 view area, in the monitor about 810 high, or 810 x 1440. Anybody ??

My original computation from another thread (also a guess!):

However... while the output signal is 1080, the image region is 3:2 in the best case (no Canon info displayed, after calling lv_output_device( "1080full" )). This means there are side-pillars on both sides of the 16:9 1080i signal, and then soft-mattes to show what portion of the 3:2 is the 16:9 recorded image.

So the effective resolution is even less than the 1080i signal might suggest. I haven't measured it exactly, but my estimate is that we lose about 150 pixels per side-pillar, leaving us with a 1620x911 useful image on the HDMI. I'm still investigating to see if it is possible to get different ratios and to fill the entire screen.

[Nick Hiltgen]

Phil when you plug in the monitor do you lose the ability to monitor on the LCD? If not do you know if you get the option to monitor via both outputs at once?

[Tramm Hudson]

Originally Posted by Phil Bloom

It's so much better than a 5dmkII. I hadn't tried it out until today but it doesn't drop down to 480p and change aspect ratio when you hit record. It's still not FULL HD out but it's leaps and bounds better than with the 5dmkII

I've just figured out how to make the 5D continue to output 1080i while recording. Here is a short demo video: Magic Lantern - 1080i while recording on Vimeo

[Jenn Kramer]

Sweet! Nice job, Tramm!