I can't seem to pull this information off the web.
Does anyone know what bit rate Canon's video engine captures at?

Come on folks - not one bit-rate guru in the house?

I can't speak for that camera, but according to the data on my computer, my camera (a T1i) records at 26377 kbps (total) when shooting in the 720p HD mode at 30 fps. It's the only mode I ever shoot video in so I have no idea what the other rates are if they're any different.

The 5DII uses 38 megabits/second. I suspect your camera will be something similar, although, as far as I can see, Canon don't publish the figure.

I'm not sure why you're asking the question, but it is possible to get live uncompressed video out of the camera and into a computer which enables you a wide range of encoding/compression options.  Then you are not subject to whatever bitrate(s) or encoding formats your specific Canon model is using.

I don't want to spam or hijack your thread, but if you're interested in more details on how to do this then just PM me.

Sorry I'm not useful here, but just realized none of the canon consumer dslrs shoot 1080 at 60 fps without magic lantern.. including the 5d mark iii... wth?

Install the Magic Lantern firmware and you can have more control over your bit rate. At the highest settings, I believe you can get close to 100mb/s. But, you'd need a super fast SD card to make that even useable without the camera freezing up all the time. Even then, the camera really can't even write that fast, no matter the speed of the card.

Referencing the chart in the link below, I have routinely used the 1.4x (60-65mbs) setting on my T3i and 5DMkii with no issues (the menu in the firmware will indicate whether or not you might have issues by making the selection turn red if it's too high for the speed of your card - even with a 80mbs card, 1.4x is the most I can go without any hiccups).

http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Bit_rate

If you're not using Magic Lantern on a Canon DSLR used for video, you're really missing out on a lot of great features. The current stable release is way beyond the beta stage and is very solid and safe to install.

Thanks all...

I just bought an XF100 and it offers full HD at 35 or 50Mbps

If the standard Canon DSLR video engine is 35Mbps, then that gives me an idea of the step up to 50 :-)