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 car is compresse using H.264 at a bitrate that might be to low for
certain scenarios an with 4:2:0 chroma enco ing, sometimes resulting in somewhat blocky primary
colors.
To the rescue is the HDMI output of the camera. The HDMI signal is a uncompresse 1080i signal
at 60 Hz with 4:2:2 chroma enco ing, 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 gui e escribes the process of capturing input footage so it is rea y to
process by the Syn icate 7D Tool.
What you'll get
Due to the nature of the HDMI output of the 7D the actual usable resolution of the uncompresse
footage will be 1620 x 910 at 24p or 25p with a reconstructe 4:4:4 chroma an a re ot in the
corner. The re ot can be replace with the correspon ing pixels in the compact flash recor e
material in post pro uction. Future versions of the firmware mo ification Magic Lantern might
support 7D an allow for removal of the re ot or perhaps even 1080p uncompresse .
The final output file will be a QuickTime with each frame store with lossless compression, which
means huge files.
What you need
To follow this gui e to capture vi eo from the Canon EOS 7D you nee the following:
•Canon EOS 7D ( uh!)
•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 recommen e ) an
ExpressCar slot
◦Mac Pro with free PCIe slot
•Final Cut Pro 6 or later
•A computer running Win ows XP/Vista/7 with QuickTime 7.6 or later installe
•Syn icate 7D Tool Software ( emo version available)
•Something to film
Setting up Matrox MXO2 Mini for 7D capture (first time
Install the Matrox MXO2 Mini on your Mac as escribe in the ocumentation an set it to capture
through the HDMI input an not the efault analog option. This is one in OS X System Settings.
Goo 7D capture requires a custom capture preset so insi e Final Cut Pro open the Audio/ ideo
Settings.

Go to the Capture Presets tab an scroll own until you fin the first entry starting with ”Matrox
MXO2 Mini – Apple ProRes 422 (HQ)”. Select it an click the Duplicate... button. A new win ow
will open with the capture settings.
Rename the preset to ”Matrox MXO2 Mini – 7D” an fill in an appropiate escription. Then make
sure the following settings are set.
Frame Size: 1920 x 1080 HDT 1080i (16:9)
Digitizer: Matrox HDT 1080
Input: Matrox MXO2 Mini 1080i 59.94 YU 10-bit
Compressor: Apple ProRes 422 (HQ)
FPS: 29.97
Note that if you are running a slower computer such as the MacBook Pro at 2.66 Mhz you might
not have the processing power available for realtime ProRes 422 (HQ) enco ing an get roppe
frames, which in turn causes the capture to fail. In that case select regular Apple ProRes 422. If you
have a monster computer with super fast isks you might also try capturing as uncompresse 4:2:2,
but ProRes (HQ) is virtually lossless an much more convenient to work with.
Click the Advanced... button an make sure you set the compressor to not use interlacing.

In the QuickTime Audio Settings set the evice to None. The Canon EOS 7D oes not transmit au io
over the HDMI cable so there is no point in wasting valuable processing power on au io. Specially
if you are on a MacBook.
Once this is one click OK on everything until you're back in regular Final Cut Pro. You'll never
have to repeat these steps again once your preset is create .
Capturing Video
Start your Log & Capture as usual but make sure you on't capture au io.
In Capture Settings set evice control to Non-Controllable Device since we can't control the 7D
from Final Cut. It is not a tape eck! Then set Capture/Input to your newly create ”Matrox MXO2
Mini – 7D” preset. Now you can start capturing live footage from the 7D.
When recor ing it is recommen e that you follow the following workflow to ease the lining up of
the footage from the capture an the compact flash recor ing as well as avoi ing any roppe
frames:
1) Once per scene: Set a goo balance exposure using the Vi eo Scopes in Final Cut Pro
2) Start the capture in Final Cut Pro
3) Start recor ing on the camera
4) Film your subject
5) Stop the capture in Final Cut Pro
6) Stop recor ing on the camera

Processing the captured video
The output from the final processing takes time an pro uces very large files. It is therefor
recommen e that you e it your film first an then only process the takes you really nee to
process. If you eci e not to process the entire take file, but just a portion of that take make sure
you a some hea an tails to the clip or the interlace etection won't work.
The processing will analyze the capture footage an extract the actual 24p or 25p footage from that
stream an write it to a new file. It will also reconstruct the color channels to make the 4:2:2 capture
into a better quality 4:4:4 file. The reconstruction is primarily visible in primary colors such as
bright re .
To process a clip simply take your capture footage file (one at the time) an rag an rop it on the
7DTool.exe executable. A comman -line win ow will open up an the ren ering will start. The
executable is only available on Win ows XP/Vista/7 (for now).
The resulting file will be name the same as your input clip, but with a _24p or _25p postfix. Before
starting, make sure you have enough storage for the resulting file. They usually en up at aroun 1
gigabyte for 10 secon s of vi eo.
Windows 7 only: Due to a bug in the QuickTime SDK you nee to run 7DTool.exe in compatibility
mo e. Simply right-click the file an select Properties. Go to the Compatibility tab an set it to run
in compatibility mo e for ”Win ows Vista (Service Pack 2)”.