Canon EOS 7D HDMI User Manual

User Guide:
Canon EOS 7D HDMI
capture

Version 1.0

Syndicate Entertainment AB
www.syndicate.se

Disclaimer: This document is provided without any
guarantees or warranty. Any action taken, based on
information in this document, is the sole responsibility of
the reader.

Introduction

The Canon EOS 7D is a great camera to film full HD material with. However, the material you get
on the Compact Flash memory card is compressed using H.264 at a bitrate that might be to low for
certain scenarios and with 4:2:0 chroma encoding, sometimes resulting in somewhat blocky primary
colors.

To the rescue is the HDMI output of the camera. The HDMI signal is a uncompressed 1080i signal
at 60 Hz with 4:2:2 chroma encoding, giving a superior picture quality to the compact flash
material. However, to extract the real 25p or 24p image from the HDMI stream requires some
special software. This guide describes the process of capturing input footage so it is ready to
process by the Syndicate 7D Tool.

What you'll get

Due to the nature of the HDMI output of the 7D the actual usable resolution of the uncompressed
footage will be 1620 x 910 at 24p or 25p with a reconstructed 4:4:4 chroma and a red dot in the
corner. The red dot can be replaced with the corresponding pixels in the compact flash recorded
material in post production. Future versions of the firmware modification Magic Lantern might
support 7D and allow for removal of the red dot or perhaps even 1080p uncompressed.

The final output file will be a QuickTime with each frame stored with lossless compression, which
means huge files.

What you need

To follow this guide to capture video from the Canon EOS 7D you need the following:

• Canon EOS 7D (duh!)

• Matrox MXO2 Mini

• A computer running Mac OS X 1.0.5 or later. Must be one of the following.

◦ MacBook Pro 15” / 17” with 2.66 Mhz minimum (faster recommended) and

ExpressCard slot

◦ Mac Pro with free PCIe slot

• Final Cut Pro 6 or later

• A computer running Windows XP/Vista/7 with QuickTime 7.6 or later installed

• Syndicate 7D Tool Software (demo version available)

• Something to film

Setting up Matrox MXO2 Mini for 7D capture (first time)

Install the Matrox MXO2 Mini on your Mac as described in the documentation and set it to capture
through the HDMI input and not the default analog option. This is done in OS X System Settings.
Good 7D capture requires a custom capture preset so inside Final Cut Pro open the Audio/Video
Settings.