5 D Mk 2 Video unusable on a PC

<p>I have a 5D mk 2 which is great for video; they do play fine and can edit on my Macbook pro; but the video files do not play properly on my PC workstation; a quad core i7 with 8Gb DDR RAM.<br>

The MOV videos break up badly and are unwatchable using Windows Media Player I have also quick time installed which hasn't helped.<br>

Any ideas?</p>

<p>That sounds like a hardware configuration issue. Where's the storage off of which you're playing those MOV files? Is on an external USB drive or something, or over a local network?</p>

<p>Think of playing video as a chain of interconnected things - your performance will be better than the slowest link in the chain.</p>

<ol>

<li>Storage</li>

<li>Network (if Network storage is used)</li>

<li>Processor</li>

<li>Memory</li>

<li>OS </li>

<li>Media Player</li>

<li>Video Card </li>

<li>Video Card Driver</li>

</ol>

<ul>

<li>Speed of disk access - Is it NAS storage? What network speed are you running, full or half duplex? What make & model NAS? Do you have any priorities set on the network? Check that you have the latest network device driver from the manufacturer</li>

<li>Speed of disk access - USB 1.0 doesn't have a prayer, USB 2.0 can be iffy, USB 3.0 is the way to go</li>

<li>What make & model video card, what chipset? - make sure you get the latest drivers from Nvidia, ATI directly</li>

<li>What version of Windows OS / Windows Media Player are you using? 64bit or 32bit</li>

</ul>

<p>I concur with what the first two responses provide above.<br>

Just as a test, download the free VLC program and see whether the files play right off the media card in that program without issues. It's more of a play program rather than an edit program though you can snap images from the video footage and do little special effects that might interest you. But the files should play fine.<br>

My Dell is older technology than yours and I have never had an issue playing or editing video files from my 5D2. I frequently upload videos directly from the card to YouTube as well.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Thought I'd break some things down into "ok", better, best. Mind you the list is VERY arbitrary, and based on my experiences.</p>

<p>Storage </p>

<ul>

<li>Not OK - USB 1.0 external HD</li>

<li>Not OK - most USB CF readers</li>

<li>Maybe OK - USB 2.0 external HD</li>

<li>OK - NAS - providing the NAS device can handle 25MB per second</li>

<li>Better - USB 3.0 external HD</li>

<li>Better - internal SATA 2.0 drive</li>

<li>Best - internal SSD - SATA 3.0 drive (some of the new ones can drive 300-500 MB/Sec and 40,000 - 80,000 IO's/sec</li>

</ul>

<p>Network</p>

<ul>

<li>Not OK - 10 Mb ethernet</li>

<li>Not OK - 100 Mb ethernet running half duplex</li>

<li>Not OK - wireless ethernet - just too many variables to guarantee the throughput you need.</li>

<li>Maybe OK - 100 Mb ethernet running full duplex - providing the rest of the network is good</li>

<li>Best - Gigabit connection</li>

</ul>

<p>OS</p>

<ul>

<li>Barely OK - Windows XP</li>

<li>OK - Vista</li>

<li>Best - Windows 7</li>

</ul>

<p>Video Card</p>

<ul>

<li>Not OK - (just being arbitrary here) - anything older than 4-5 years old</li>

<li>Better - Nvidia GTX 4xx series (or ATI equivalent)</li>

<li>Best - Nvidia GTX 5xx series (or ATI equivalent)</li>

</ul>

<p>If you are playing the video within an editor - (for example Premiere)</p>

<ul>

<li>You really need the latest version - they have made huge improvements in handling HD</li>

<li>Make sure you render everything before you play it</li>

</ul>

<p>If you are playing the video within an external player</p>

<ul>

<li>Upgrade to the latest versions - again huge improvements in handling HD</li>

</ul>

 

<p>Certainly is possible that it's hardware related (read speed, etc.), but given the likely compatible generation of your hardware (given you are running an i7 w/ 8gb, it's unlikely that your HDD is the problem for example - assuming it was born this decade), I think it's more likely software related.</p>

<p>Drivers can be a problem (of course), specifically your video drivers, but further, much malware causes the same kind of issues - Some of the free AV software doesn't consistently check for malware. I would probably check the suggestions made, but not expect any of them (hardware related) to fix the problem. I expect it's either drivers, malware, or other programs causing the problems.</p>

<p>Dave, your quagmire is certainly not new. Your PC specs are absolutely fine. They trump mine by a long stretch (dual core, 4GB RAM) yet my 5D2 video files play as smooth as silk. Before you start to panic, download the VLC player. Then check out this link for the settings:<br>

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eos-5d-mk-ii-mk-iii-hd/238176-5d-mkii-pc-playback-good-solution-found.html</p>

<p>...saved you the trouble. Read below:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"The Canon EOS 5D MkII can shoot video in either 640×480 (VGA) or 1920×1080 (1080P, Full HD) resolution, both encoded with H.264 video compression. Playing video files in the former is easy, but the sheer amount of data that needs to be processed with 1920×1080 resolution can tax even quite modern computers.<br /> VLC has been my video player of choice for many years as it is free, open-source, and will play virtually everything you can throw at it – but disappointingly I couldn’t get it to play 5D MkII videos without major stuttering or no playback at all.<br /> <br /> Thanks to this post on the Photography Within blog, I’ve now found a trick that enables VLC to play these files very smoothly – you just have to change one setting:<br /> <br /> Go to Tools > Preferences<br /> In the lower left of the box click the checkbox “Show settings – All”<br /> Then go to Input & Codecs > Other Codecs > FFmpeg and look for the option called “Skip the loop filter for H.264 decoding”<br /> Change it from “none” to “all”<br /> Restart VLC<br /> <br /> I’ve tried it on Windows and all the 5DmkII videos that were problematic before now play perfectly. I would imagine it would also work on Mac."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>If that doesn't work, then you can look into other hardware-related options.</p>

<p>FYI, since I started using VLC a few years ago, I haven't used WMP or any other media player since :)</p>

<p>I've had good luck using this freeware program to track down driver/OS lag problems. <a href="http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml">DPC Latency Checker</a></p>

<p>Also see if the manufacturer of your video card has a movie player available, and (if so) whether it can read the .MOV files your camera produces. Most graphics chips from the last several years include hardware acceleration for at least part, and often all, of MPEG4 decoding, and since they have dedicated hardware for it, they have no trouble keeping up with even 1080p video. The video card maker's player, if there is one, would know this and would take advantage of it; other video players may or may not (you'd have to check the documentation) and may force the CPU to do the decoding instead.</p>

 

<p>Just a thought ... I don't do video so I can't give you a list off the top of my head of which players can utilize hardware acceleration for video decoding and what drivers/GPUs they support this on.</p>

<p>I've had the same problem and finally gave up on video, assuming it was my much older PC. I will try these tips too. I guess I still can't edit though. Last week I read that a firmware upgrade would resolve the problem. I bought my 5D II last fall and assumed it already had been upgraded by Canon but I will try that too and something else for Dave to check. </p>

<p>I am surprised that you are having trouble with such a new PC. My nephew does not have any trouble with 7D files on his PC but perhaps the 7D files are different.</p>

<p>I use a PC exclusively for creating videos from my 5D2. I use a Lenovo Laptop I purchased at Best Buy for $399.00. I added an 3TB external ESATA hard drive which is much faster than my USB external drives. I use Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 for editing. Currently my laptop running Windows 7 64-bit only has 6 Gigs ram but looking to go to 8GB. I used to use Sony Vegas for editing but didn't have a 64-bit version and found it to be unstable and it often crashed when editing too many tracks.<br /> Here are a couple of samples of 5D2 Videos create on PC.<br /> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0xeoxUSNpA<br />

<br />By the way I absolutely love having a camera which can shoot both Video and Stills in one body. Anyone who has a DSLR and not learning to shoot video with it is missing a huge opportunity. I have made more money on the two video linked above than I made on shooting photos all last year. I had no prior experience doing video before these two.</p>

<p>Ive given up the PC for video; too much trouble. In any case I just picked up a 2nd hand 2011 21" iMac which works well for video editing and will replace an old office PC.</p>