Video external record

[lucho]

Hello everyone,

I have to record a 72 min. theater, and the video is made for festivals, where the main request is "no edit", what means no cut at all. I was planning to capture the image from the Canon 550d with the Clear Overlays feature active. The point is I don't exactly understand the process to capture it in my Macbook pro, I've seen there are some RCA - USB connections, but they cost around 70U$.

I didn't find any topic before with this discussion, but if there were, just make me now, I'd really like to solve this

Thank you so much,

L.

[DFM]

To record onto an external device you need to capture the output of the HDMI port, not the USB port. That will require additional hardware, either a self-contained HDMI recorder (Atmos Ninja, etc) or an interface unit (Matrox Mini, etc), both of which cost a heck of a lot more than 70 bucks.

The critical thing is that in standby the HDMI signal runs at 3:2 aspect to match the Live View screen, so you only get 1620x1080i instead of 1920x1080p. Cropping back to 16:9 the best you can get is 1620x910i. When recording you only get 480i with a usable image of 640x388. Because it's all interlaced - there's no way to get progressive or raw output - the visual resolution is even smaller, and you'd need an external monitor.

The chip in a 550D was never intended to record for extended periods, and hoping to get 72 mins indoors without it shutting down or requiring mains power is really pushing your luck. All in all, DSLRs are not designed for this type of thing and you would be much better off hiring a regular video camera for the day (though to get 72 mins uninterrupted footage will be tricky even then as you're going to hit file limits on storage cards unless you use super-low quality settings). The normal solution would be to use at least two cameras so you can cut between them in post - if they're far enough away and mounted side by side it'll be hard to notice the cuts.