Canon Reveals New FullHD Video Recording Format

By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 2/2/2010

Lake Success, N.Y. - Canon USA said Tuesday it has adopted an MPEG-2 FullHD (4:2:2) file-based recording codec planned for a new file-based professional video camera currently under development.

The Canon MPEG-2 codec is said to enable high-quality imaging and audio performance with up to 50Mbps data recording and twice the color data of the HDV profile format.

File-based recording provides greater post-production efficiencies to video operations, including those dealing with newsgathering, documentary filmmaking and event videography.

Canon said the new MPEG-2 FullHD compression 4:2:2 codec will enable recording of 1,920 by 1,080-pixel full high-definition video with color sampling that offers twice the volume of color data, providing double the level of color resolution.

It will also allow a maximum 50Mbps data recording with approximately twice the data volume of HDV for higher resolution and increased color data.

In addition the industry-standard Material eXchange Format (MXF) is a widely supported open source file format for the recording of video and audio and metadata, developed to suit the latest editing systems used by broadcasters.

Canon said it is partnering with Adobe Systems, Apple, Avid Technology and Grass Valley to ensure compatibility with major editing and processing software programs widely used within the video imaging industry.