Hi everybody, I have the 5DMKII since late december (got the kit version) and it hasn't let me down so far. The video quality looks amazing (long live H.264 encoder) and usually my clips are only 30seconds long.But this week the company I work for asked me if we could use the 5DMKII as a second camera for a 1hour interview and of course I was thrilled about it. I have a Kingston 16GB compactflash card which is one of the latest and fastest cf cards out there.So we started to setup the interview with lighting and everything and we sat down on the chair the interviewee would be so we could pre compose the shot. My boss was stoked about the shallow depth of field which we couldnt get with the XL H1, the fist camera. I used a EF 70-200mm f2.8 IS lens and the tungsten preset white balance and the colors in general looked amazing and way better than the colors of the XL H1, believe or not. So yep, 5DMKII video quality really rocks!Ok, now the not so good things: Naive as I was I thought I would be fine with one battery (AC adapter is now on its way, together with 2 extra batteries), but the battery life is really short if you shoot video because there is no way to let the liveview go to sleep, so it took about an hour (or a bit more I think) and the battery was dead.But in this time I shot a lot of clips. Knowing that i would have to record a new clip after either 4GB or 29.59 min are reached, I always tried to record a new clip whenever my boss asked the interviewee a new question.12min 25sec = 3.43GB is what I got for one clip which might be interesting for some.So anyway, some of the clips have been bigger than that:12min 37sec = 3.60GB13min 58sec = 3.98GB (this clip automatically ended because it reached its limit, the card was full after that clip)First I hooked up the camera to the 40inch full HDTV via mini hdmi cable and it looked awesome! Uncompressed H.264 encoded full HD (not the best, but awesome for what it is) via HDMI cable to a full HDTV, a glimpse of how the quality actually can be. So all the files looked well, sound can be used as a reference and for syncing with the first camera.But now, finally, why I am writing!It seems IMPOSSIBLE TO GET THOSE BIG FILES OF THE CAMERA!!!!I am working on a MacBook Pro and I don't know if EOS utility just sucks on a mac computer or if it is an unstable, crappy program for everybody! It works ok for photos and smaller videos, but when I wanna download one of the bigger files, it tries but after like 30 minute (!) when it is only halfway through it kicks me back to the EOS utility menu where i can choose what videos and photos i wanna download. When I connect the Camera to my computer BTW, the camera doesnt show up on my desktop (like for example an external harddrive would do or another camera, sony works), so i cant just pull the files from there. Luckily aperture also detects non-photo files and asks you if you wanna download them to the desktop, but it doesnt tell you how long it will take so I just left it. After 6 hours (!) it wasnt done and I was sure something wasnt working right. I am running Parallels on my macbook pro (simulation of Windows XP or higher, i have XP) and the camera showed up but I couldnt drag them to my desktop, some error message came. This morning I took my girlfriends Sony Alpha 350, put the CF card in it and hooked it up to my computer. It showed up on my desktop and I was finally able to download the 3.42GB file to my desktop, but what was that, the others still didnt work, now they seem corrupt! I reviewed the videos on the 5DMKII again and they play well, everything seems fine. But if I try to hook it up to the computer, they only show up as "dead" .mov files, without any preview possibility (the 3.43GB file does).I assume nobody had that problem yet, because nobody recorded close to 4GB files, or had the same issue that I had or simply didnt post here about it.I tried iPhoto, it doesnt respond as soon as i start the download, even the 3.43GB file doesnt work there). I tried MemoryCard Utility (or whatever the name of that is) for the Sony camera, didnt work. My next step is buying a CF card reader.Please let me know if you have any ideas, thanks and may you not have the same problem as I do!!!– elias

Preferably a Firewire 800 UDMA reader for large cards.

eliaskochwrote:Uncompressed H.264 encoded full HD – eliasH.264 is compressed.

yeah, i know, i tried to mention that in the "encoded," but that is also not completely correct, sry. what i meant was uncompressed in the sense of not being compressed a second time after editing in fcp for example.Effingham Hoofnaglewrote:eliaskochwrote:Uncompressed H.264 encoded full HD – eliasH.264 is compressed.

Uuh, that sounds promising, thanks a lot, will get one of these!Scales USAwrote:Preferably a Firewire 800 UDMA reader for large cards. --

Before I read your post, I already went to a RadioShack store and they only had an USB one, cheap one for 20 bucks, BUT the .mov files aren't corrupt anymore!But I think I will get the Lexar FW800 CF reader anyway.eliaskochwrote: Uuh, that sounds promising, thanks a lot, will get one of these!Scales USAwrote:Preferably a Firewire 800 UDMA reader for large cards. --