what is the HDMI out interlaced or progressive?

[John Harvey]

I can't find any info yet on the HDMI out during standby if it is interlaced or progressive? Anyone know for sure on the 5D?
Also, what is the frame rate? Whatever you set the recording preferences to?

jh

[Jon Fairhurst]

On the 5D2 it's interlaced at 60i, though you can recover 24p and 30p from it. It's only 1080i when you are NOT recording. When recording, it drops to 480 lines.

In general, HDMI is progressive for 1080p24 and 720p60 and interlaced for 1080i50 and 1080i60. That said, the most recent versions of HDMI support 1080p60, but most devices don't support it at this time.

[John Harvey]

thanks for that reply Jon. Good to know what I'll be dealing with going into the shoot.

off the original topic, but since you mentioned it,
What is your technical and artistic impression of the recovered 24p footage from the1080i stream if you have done it. I will be doing allot of green screen capture and putting in BG plates later.

And, what is the best post flow for doing that? It looks like I can have the option of recording uncompressed ProRes 4:2:2 to a BlackMagic Hyper shuttle, (have one on the way) or, ProRes HQ compressed 4:2:2 to a Ninja recorder. will uncompressed have a notable advantage over the HQ compressed files for pulling keys and then dropping to 24p?

I like the Ninja in that I can feed it analogue sound from my mixer and it will embed the audio t thee HDMI stream to disk, the BM apparently won't so the Ninja is the preferred choice for sound.

Your insight is much appreciated. Have followed your posts with Magic Lantern from way back.

thanks, jh

[Robert Turchick]

John...please read the plethora of posts about how NONE of the Canon DSLRs has a suitable hdmi out for using an external recorder. BH photo video even started putting a warning note about this on most of the hdmi recorders they sell.

Here's their warning right on the front page of the Hyperdeck and it's the same for the Ninja...

"Note! The HDMI output from DSLR cameras such as the Canon 5D/7D and Panasonic GH2 is intended for monitoring only, not for recording. "

I won't go into the reasons because theres a million posts about this but don't do it. You will be much happier with recording to the camera's internal card. Or get a regular video camera to use with the recorders.

Just trying to save you a lot of headache and money! :)

[John Harvey]

thanks for the nudge. in my searches nothing jumped out at me specifically in the posts and the net on this specific Q.

if it is because of the screen info the camera puts out I have that covered, I'll do some more searching.

thanks again Robert.

jh

[Evan Donn]

It's not just the screen info that's the problem. Basically the output mirrors what's on the back of the camera, which means you get a 4x3 image with a 16x9 masked area, centered in a 16x9 output - in some info modes the image is zoomed slightly more than others, but there's no setting that will get you a full 1920x1080 image output that matches what the camera would record. Add in the on screen overlays and there's no real way to get a clean signal at all out of it.

[Robert Turchick]

You also mention you want to do heavy greenscreen work which I have tried with my 7D and a friend's 5D...thankfully it was not a client project, just me seeing what it would do.

Problem with the DSLR's is the aliasing and moire which really make keying a chore.

And just so you know where I'm coming from, about 75% of my biz is greenscreen and my studio absolutely rocks with my XF300. The 7D and my friend's 5D are not well suited to the task and that's recording to the internal card.

If you want to keep budget reasonable, I'd recommend purchasing one of the recorders you have mentioned along with a pro-sumer camcorder like the XA10 or HMC40. Then you'd get a clean HDMI signal and could bypass the compression.

Hope this helps!