If you can’t make it to NAB in person, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with exciting firmware updates on Canon C300 Mk III and C500 Mk II.
NAB is back, baby. After a few years have gone due to the pandemic, NAB 2022 is sure to be an eye-opener event for all types of creatives.
NAB 2022 has only just started, and if there’s been one consistent theme so far, it’s the prominent rise of cloud integration, whether through cameras, accessories, or software itself.
Even before the doors opened, Frame.io hit us with an update, a big one, trying to steal the show before the show even started.
Frame.io announced they’d be adding C2C support to a range of different product categories. This includes ATOMOS, FiLMic Pro, Teradek, Viviana Cloud, and Canon.
Canon’s inclusion comes from a new firmware update for its two primary cinema cameras, the C300 Mark III and its bigger brother, the C500 Mark II.
The update enables the cameras to be C2C (Camera to Cloud) compatible via Frame.io, enabling the cameras to transfer footage securely in a high-quality, low-bandwidth H.264 proxies, 4K 10bit 4:2:2 H.265 files, and also uncompressed audio files (this is with matching timecodes and filenames), to the Frame.io cloud service.
While there’s a form of networking within the cameras, you’ll need a third-party Wi-Fi, 5G, or LTE stream encoder connected to the camera in order to take advantage of this feature.
Also, before you quickly clamor to the Canon firmware site to download the update with the hope of some more added features, as I did, the update is scheduled to be fully released at the end of May 2022. With this announcement, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some more C2C products announced at NAB, or the very least, within the next few months.
For big production teams who use multiple cameras on set, being able to remotely review footage taken moments ago from either on or off set remotely will now make production on projects much more time-efficient and perfect for producing multiple edits or adjustments for scripted motion pictures and television, reality TV, documentary, commercial, and more.
It’ll be interesting to see if Canon will bring this update to any of its other popular cameras, such as the Canon R5 C or the Canon C70, in the future.
As an owner/operator of a C300 Mk III, I can’t see myself using this feature addition. But, it’s a welcome feature that professionals can take advantage of without having to upgrade to the following iteration of EOS C300/C500 cameras.
Worth noting that Frame.io is free for anyone with an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. Adobe acquired Frame.io for $1.275 billion back in August 2021.