Canon 40D video Capture

Balb0wa · 25 Jan 2009 at 22:36

Just tried it on mine, quality is very good 1024x680, a screen cap below, no sound or auto focussing, but not bad

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1019&thread=30778943

mrk · 26 Jan 2009 at 13:13

Yup was reading about this today, will be trying it tonight with the 40D connected to my netbook and netbook connected to "me" LMAO

Phate · 26 Jan 2009 at 13:19

Didn't know the 40D could do this...shall experiment tonight.

PinkFloyd · 26 Jan 2009 at 13:30

Didn't see this thread last night....
Ended up making my own

Works on the 450D also. It's quite cool

Balb0wa · 26 Jan 2009 at 16:36

PinkFloyd said:
Didn't see this thread last night....
Ended up making my own

Works on the 450D also. It's quite cool

I saw yours and sighed ! lol , i did a seach before posting

I wouldnt mind a longer cable from the cam to pc, cant find one anywhere

PinkFloyd · 26 Jan 2009 at 16:39

Yours was posted before mine which is why you wouldn't have found it when searching

I imagine you could use a usb extension cable

Balb0wa · 26 Jan 2009 at 16:44

PinkFloyd said:
Yours was posted before mine which is why you wouldn't have found it when searching

I imagine you could use a usb extension cable

No i meant i did a search before i posted mine :-)

anyhow it doesnt matter, get shooting some video

Yes good idea, just wanted an all in one cable really, not sure if signal degrades over length

James07 · 26 Jan 2009 at 16:53

So you can use it as a webcam?

ScarySquirrel · 26 Jan 2009 at 16:54

I take it Live View is needed for this to work?

PinkFloyd · 26 Jan 2009 at 17:06

bobbyboy uk said:
get shooting some video

Yes good idea, just wanted an all in one cable really, not sure if signal degrades over length

It shouldn't do, after all it is a digital signal.
As to shooting some more, I'm gonna be pretty busy for the rest of the night, but hope to have a good play tomorrow

James07 said:
So you can use it as a webcam?

Doubt it would work, this only works with the piece of software you download. I guess in the long run someone could get it working along with msn and other apps.

ScarySquirrel said:
I take it Live View is needed for this to work?

Yeh pretty certain this is the case.

teaboy5 · 26 Jan 2009 at 19:23

So how do i get this to work, just use usb?

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 26 Jan 2009 at 20:38

Yeah it can be done. This has been hovering around for some months. I read it ages ago on something but this was listed on engadget today.
Works a treat.
The 40D can't capture video, its just the software recording what you can see. The Canon software has the ability to stream live view to your pc but not as smoothly as this does.

There is nothing but a start and stop control and it forces your camera into live view upon launch. Very simple and effective software.

mrk · 26 Jan 2009 at 22:46

I uploaded a video sample to show the quality, this was an ISO800:

It's VERY high quality even though it's not HD resolution it has the sharpness and smoothness of a HD video I'd say especially at lower ISOs.

I can only imagine what raw 5D mkII video is like!

My video seems to have some speed issues due to being recorded on a netbook, makes for an interesting "effect" though

(click in for HD 720P!)

teaboy5 · 26 Jan 2009 at 22:54

what did you use to encode that? I can never get youtube right

Phate · 26 Jan 2009 at 22:59

mrk said:
I can only imagine what raw 5D mkII video is like!

You do know the 5dMk2 does HD Video as standard yeh?

teaboy5 · 26 Jan 2009 at 23:17

Phate said:
You do know the 5dMk2 does HD Video as standard yeh?

Thats what he is talking about

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 27 Jan 2009 at 01:56

Yes he does.

I see what you mean Robbie. The speed up does make for some really good effects. It also makes it look like your auto focusing!

I was making videos this morning of lightin a match. was fun

mrk · 27 Jan 2009 at 05:06

I tried walking around with the netbook attched recording like a camcorder but....no go!

I soon realised the flaw in this plan, the netbook needs to be open at all times not tucked away in a manbag as the camera's LCD is disabled during liveview via cable

teaboy5 said:
what did you use to encode that? I can never get youtube right

Windows Movie Maker

PinkFloyd · 27 Jan 2009 at 08:43

mrk said:
I soon realised the flaw in this plan, the netbook needs to be open at all times not tucked away in a manbag as the camera's LCD is disabled during liveview via cable

Try hitting the set button on the camera (or whatever button it is you do to start live view normally)

I can get the view showing on both camera, and my pc with my 450D.

Can the 40D focus during live view at all? I've trie it on my 450D, and although it will focus with either the mirror flipping down and focusing like normaly, or using the live focus, both seem to loose feed of the picture to the pc.

mrk - how do you get movie maker not to shrink the res - I can't see an option to choose something more complex than saving at dvd res or similar when saving the file?

mrk · 27 Jan 2009 at 09:51

Pressing set button does indeed show it on both pc and LCD but it won't record this way, recording has to be initiated by the software on the 40D it seems so no LCD+PC dual view.

I used VirtualDub to add a 16:9 crop filter at the original resolution width then exported as raw AVI then used Movie Maker to save as 1280x720 (720p)

This is Vista movie maker btw, standard movie maker does not support higher resolutions.`