Apparently it IS true, but it is not exactly 5 minutes and doesn't happen to ALL units. No 550D for me, thanks. Such a shame. This camera could have been awesome.
Just shot a rehearsal dinner last night with the t2i and no outages. Some of those speeches went up to 10 minutes. Maybe the camera is shutting off as a power saving feature? I have mine set to 4 minutes if I'm not shooting anything. Perhaps that's what's going on with some people? They don't shoot for a while and the cam turns off?
Just shot back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back (that's five) 12-minute clips at 60p on the T2i and had no problems with overheating or image degradation.
Actually, I ran out of battery juice during the 6th clip because I had forgotten to fully charge the battery.
ya, they might be talking about if you're in-active using the camera for 5 minutes the shutter closes to save the sensor but you can change the time in the camera. Mine is also set at 4 minutes, but thats 4 minutes of in-activity. Not 4 minutes of recording or 4 minutes of using your camera.
I could see this being annoying if you have a director or someone standing over your shoulder looking at the shot and it turns off, but then just make that time longer in your menu settings.