Canon announces new features for its XF series of camcorders

The new firmware, version 1.0.4.0, adds the 1440 x 1080 @ 35 Mbps recording format, popular among major news networks, to the XF Series' wide selection of video resolutions and recording speeds.

Canon announced this Tuesday a new firmware update that improves the performance of its popular XF series of camcorders. The new firmware, version 1.0.4.0, adds the 1440 x 1080 @ 35 Mbps recording format, popular among major news networks, to the XF Series' wide selection of video resolutions and recording speeds. The new format will allow video professionals to record 1440 x 1080 HD video at 35 Mbps, at 60i or 50i, and integrate it seamlessly into current workflows.

Once the firmware is installed, the new recording mode will be accessible through the camcorder's normal mode selection menu and the recording speed (frames per second) will be selected automatically, depending on whether the camcorder is set to PAL or NTSC. All previous video resolutions and recording speeds supported by the XF Series will continue to be available, in addition to the new recording format.

Canon XF Utility 1.3 Updater

Coinciding with the firmware update, the Japanese multinational has also released Canon XF Utility 1.3 Updater, both for Windows and Mac-based systems. This update is compatible with the new recording format and will be available to users once they have updated the firmware.

In addition, it has presented a new 'plug-in' for Final Cut Pro 7 and Final Cut Pro 10 (FCP X). Avid users will not need to use any updated plug-ins.