Canon C70 RAW lite firmware update

[Mklazz16]

Has anyone heard when in March we are supposed to see this firmware roll out? I know when they announced it they said it would be released in March. 

[rs-eos]

Wow, I didn't realize this was happening.  And I see the mention of it on Canon's C70 product page (though just that it's a free firmware update in March 2022).

What is baffling though is how it would even work regarding the recording of it to SD cards.   A V90 card provides sustained 90 MBps writes (720 Mbps).  But Cinema RAW Lite is supposed to be 1 Gbps or even higher.

So I only see two options... First, there's a new version of the codec that is even more compressed.  Second, the camera will record to both card slots simultaneously but treat the cards as a RAID 0 setup; writing half the data to each card.  In theory, this should allow for 180 MBps writes (1.44 Gbps).

Edit: While no specifics as to the Firmware date or actual data rates for the C70, a Canon Europe page provides quite a bit of other details for the C70, EOS R5 C, etc.   One mention of data rates was the LT flavor of Cinema RAW Lite being 1070 Mbps.  But that appears to be for 8K.   So theoretically 4K would be around 267 Mbps.   And (now I'm completely guessing) the standard and high-quality flavors could go as high as around 720 Mbps and still allow V90 cards to work.

[rs-eos]

My above calculations were off.  For the EOS R5 C, the 1070 Mbps mentioned was specifically for 8K 25p.   The LT version of the RAW Lite codec allows for 4K 60p.   So my guess is that would come in at around 535 Mbps; still within the sustained write range of V90 SD cards.

The ST flavor allows for 4K 30p.   And the HQ flavor is limited to 2K while using only part of the sensor (16mm crop).   So my guess is that the bit rates of all three will be around 535 Mbps and give you increasing degrees of quality.

Will be very exciting to see how these codecs compare to the all-I one.  I would mostly be interested in the ST flavor.

[shadowsports]

My only guess is it's release will coincide with the R5c release on or about 4/4.

[ccanada]

Firmware 1.0.3.1 is available for the C70.

https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/details/cameras/cinema-eos/eos-c70?tab=pro... 

[rs-eos]

Thank you, Chris! So exciting to be able to finally work with RAW video!

[Mklazz16]

Oh! awesome, Thank you so much. 

[rs-eos]

So I haven't yet done any footage, but wow.  My hats off to the engineers for pulling off such a feat.  Here are some bitrates:

• RAW HQ (205 Mbps) Sensor must be set to 16mm
• RAW ST (398 Mbps) So a tad less than the 410 Mbps XF AVC Intra codec.
• RAW LT (259 Mbps)

The only downside (for me anyway) is that when selecting RAW, you can no longer do a sub-recording to the 2nd card.  I was doing this to save money on cards.  i.e. Card A would use a V90 card and be set to to DCI 4K 410 Mbps Intra.  Then I could use a V60 card for Card B and set to use DCI 4K Long GOP.

With RAW selected, you can either have Card B set to record a proxy, or to write the RAW clip to both cards (simultaneously).  But since my cards are of different sizes/speeds, that won't work.

I was planning on getting a third set of cards for a total of three 256 GB V90 and three 128 GB V60 cards.  That would give a total record time of 249 minutes.   But I'll now pick up two more 256 GB V90 cards for a total of four.    That will give dual recording for 171 minutes.   Maybe I'll then spring for a pair of 128 GB V90 cards to get to 213 minutes.   This all assumes I'll exclusively work in RAW ST now which is TBD.