Capturing live video from Canon 5D Mark II onto Premiere Pro or OnLocation?

[urevbrasil]

Question: Anyone know how or if you can capture LIVE video from a Canon 5D Mark II onto Adobe CS5.5 OnLocation or Premiere Pro? Trying to get more than 12 minutes of recording time from the camera, so I wanted to record straight from the camera to the Computer.

[Harm_Millaard]

No, unless you can output over firewire.

[urevbrasil]

wow thank you for such the fast response haha almost in shock! ok so is there a firewire that can go from the camera to the computer?

Its so strange because I use to have a simple Canon HV4 handycam and it would show up in Premiere Pro wihin seconds of looking for it, and I could shoot live from the camera and capture directly to the computer, but with the Canon 5D Mark II its not possible?

[Harm_Millaard]

You probably mean the Canon HV40? Capturing only works over firewire for tape based cameras. I think the problem is the directory structure required by card based cameras that prevents the use of live capture as well as the interface used. Almost all card based cameras use a USB connection for data transfer from card to disk. But it also raises the question why would you want to capture live, when you can simply copy the contents of the card to your hard disk in minutes?

[urevbrasil]

Sorry Harm, I did mean HV40 please forgive the typing error. The problem I am facing is this: I have a 32GB Kingston card but for some reason it will not allow me to shoot more than 12 minutes of footage when recording video from my camera. I need to shoot at least 40 minutes of video without interuption. If I can shoot more than 12 minutes of video onto the card, then I do not need to shoot "live" to capture video from the camera onto Premiere Pro.

[Dave Merchant]

The recording limit on card-based cameras is because of the 4GB file size limit when saving to cards formatted with FAT32. The default Canon firmware doesn't allow you to pull down the data rate, so the doubling of frame rates between 1080p and 720p all but equalize the times. Using Magic Lantern you can enabled "auto-restart" but it loses a few seconds. The new build of ML for the 5D allows variable data rates, but to get anywhere near 40 mins in a 4G file will ruin your quality.

You could take the HDMI signal from the 5D (via one of the Blackmagic Intensity devices), which overcomes both the recording time limit and the 4:2:0 compression that Canon applies to the MOV files on the card. OnLocation can't capture from HDMI, but BM supplies a dedicated recorder app, and Premiere Pro can sample from HDMI.

[urevbrasil]

I will check this out, it makes since now with the 4GB file size limit, i can only imagine how large the file would be shooting full frame for 40 minutes. Ill look around and see if I can come up with the solution you were talking about. Thank you so much guys. if you have any other info to share it would really help me or if you come across a solution. Love the professionalism guys, thank you so much.

[SAFEHARBOR11]

Please note that I don't believe your camera will put out a proper full-resolution, full-quality HD signal via HDMI while in record mode. DSLR cameras are notorius for not allowing you to fully turn off info overlays on the HDMI output, or even if you can on your particular camera, the output signal is somewhat cropped or otherwise not a proper HD signal.

We're a reseller of the Atomos Ninja portable recorders and this has been a huge issue - DSLR shooters want to use Ninja for the exact purpose you mention, for long, uninterrupted recordings, but the HDMI outputs from those cameras are just not suitable.

Do this - connect the HDMI out from your camera to an HD display and start recording with the camera. Do you get a perfect, full-screen image without any overlays or any cropping, and at full quality? My understanding is that they all "dumb-down" the output signal in some regard while recording, unlike video cameras that will all put out a perfect HD image. The only 2 DSLRs that I'm aware of with "clean" output are the Panasonic Lumix GH2, and the new Nikon D4.

As mentioned, even if a DSLR camera will put out a good image, you will need a "capture device" with HDMI input such as BMD Intensity or Matrox MXO2 Mini connected to Mac or PC.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera

Safe Harbor Computers

[Dave Merchant]

The 5D2 sends a 1620x1080i feed when in standby mode - as it's a duplicate of the 4:3 aspect ratio data for the LCD screen. The top and bottom pixels are black, giving the 16:9 live area in a 1620x910 box. When recording that drops to 720x480 (live area 640x388), but the feed in standby mode is more than adequate to rescale into 720p.

Magic Lantern can turn off the overlay data - see http://vimeo.com/25580112 for a sample.

If the original poster wants 1080p footage without the FAT32 time limit, he/she will need to swap to a conventional video camera rather than a DSLR.

SAFEHARBOR11 wrote:

Please note that I don't believe your camera will put out a proper full-resolution, full-quality HD signal via HDMI while in record mode.

[urevbrasil]

Wonderful information everyone thank you. Now i just want to be clear that I am not concerned about the viewing of the image on a big screen more so i am just trying to capture it to the computer so later i can go in and edit it. I am shooting an event from a distance and want to run a line from the camera to the computer and "record" or "capture" ( what ever the correct term is ) to Premiere Pro & or OnLocation. I looked at www.blackmagic-design.com and it looks promising for this to be done.

Thank you everyone for your input, really helps me out!

[SAFEHARBOR11]

I think you are missing the point - the HDMI output does NOT put out the same quality of image that is being recorded on the memory card - the HDMI output quality is unsuitable for use in editing, regardless of capture method. I brought up the big screen as a way of you checking what the camera is putting out, prior to moving ahead with any capture plans/purchases. What you see is what you get. Whatever you see on the HD display is the same thing that you would be recording.

Jeff

[Richard M Knight]

I think I right but On Location will not record full 1920x1080 HD.