Long Form Shooting w/ 7D Setup

[Tyler Lambert]

Hey guys, so I found the 7D as the closest alternative that I could find to the Scarlet, so I am pretty sure that that is what I am going to go with. But, the 7d is only supposed to record up to 4GB video files.

So, what I did is piece some info together from some different forums, and here's what I came up with. I'm assuming that with this setup, I will be able to record up to the battery life of the laptop, but correct me if I am wrong. Note, imagine that the laptop actually has a PCIe slot I've found a different one.

Parts:

7d (B&H, $1700)

Black Magic miniPCIe hdmi capture card - http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...RO_Intensity_Pro_HDMI_and.html#specifications

MiniPCIe to PCIe Converter - http://www.orbitmicro.com/global/pemini2x1-s-f--base--p-8247.html#

Acer Laptop - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...EMC-IGNEFL102909-_-Notebooks-_-L0A-_-34115654

Will this do the trick for getting past the 12 minute limitation?

Thanks

 

[Kenn Michael]

Nope. The HDMI output is not full res. You'll have to deal with the 12 minute limitation... Like a film mag. Use the extra cash not spent on the capture card, etc - on some nice accessories.

 

[Tyler Lambert]

Am I correct in guessing then, that the output resolution for the HDMI out is 720p? That wouldn't be so bad, considering that I would not need full HD when I would be needing more than 12 mins HD or 24mins 720p.

 

[Harry Lipnick]

From what I hear it's actually more like badly debayered 480p for the live HDMI out.
Peace,

-Harry

 

[Tyler Lambert]

I guess when I do weddings with it, and I will have at least one other camera covering the wedding, it will not really matter if I have to restart the recording every 12 minutes...it will only mean more audio syncing in post.

 

[Eddy Robinson]

The HDMI capture from the 7d is neither practical nor beautiful. It's been tried into a pro portable box, the result was fairly poor. It's a fine camera...just not suited for this kind of long-form stuff. I wouldn't call it a Scarlet alternative either, unless you want to get people yelling at you.

Kenn's right on the money with the film mag comparison. Treat it like a 16mm camera, for your wedding stuff use it as the 'special' one, supplement your existing rig rather than trying to replace it.

 

[Tyler Lambert]

Yeah, I've been doing some research about that. Doesn't look like its a good idea. I have heard though that it outputs at a full 1080p (i) when it is recording.

Like I said, 24 minutes isn't bad for sd mode, its not like I'll ever be recording something without another backup camera or two where I can't stop and start the recording after 24 minutes. I don't really have much of a camera right now.

I wouldn't call it a Scarlet alternative either, unless you want to get people yelling at you.

I doubt that I will get yelled at...I mean that it is a Scarlet alternative in the sense that I can get decent DOF and resolution and highly customizable picture looks with this setup. Its the "film" look I'm after anyways, and after viewing countless sample footage from the 7d, I'm pretty convinced that it comes really close.

Thanks for your input guys.

 

[Billy Barber]

So...why is it that plenty of people are using the direct sdi/hdmi out of the EX1 to Nanoflash, bypassing the compression and getting great 4:2:2 results? What is Sony doing right that Canon is doing wrong?

 

[Eric Ferguson]

I have a 7D and can tell you that the output from HDMI is usable, but nothing to write home about.

It's 1080i60, BUT cropped to 4:3 and then cropped AGAIN to 16:9. So on your 16:9 monitor you see black bars left and right, and translucent bars top and bottom. At least a quarter of the pixels on the screen are thrown away. Then there's the red "REC" dot top right, which you can't get rid of.

You can also expect the camera to overheat after a while in liveview mode, and it will automatically shut down liveview mode if you don't periodically press buttons on the camera back. you can not turn this off.

There are a number of modes available for display overlay, but the one I've describes is the best of them: other options include adding shooting info to the screen, etc, which just reduces your usable resolution even more.


Magic lantern may fix some of this eventually, but in the mean time I think that a Black Magic card would be much more use with an HV20 than a 7D.