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Sorry I missed this guys. I will test this out as soon as i can and report back.

Dfort

You, my friend, are a legend. Your v4 build looks to be pretty much bang on! 

I took some test shots (link below) on your v4 build (apologies for the low quality, they are night time shots in Movie Crop Mode across my living room at a very high ISO, but at least the pattern on the curtains makes it easy to spot movement  ). I should also point out that my tripod is not great, and my floors are terrible in terms of being level (don't get me started on that one, lol) so if there are a few pixels of movement showing here or there, it could absolutely be down to that). But the good news is, the Raw video is now showing almost an identical framing to the H.264 video! 

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=C14ECDF7700B5618!2545&authkey=!AAmIA2Hkffx_Ba0&ithint=folder%2cDNG

Have a look at the files yourself, just to check there are no corrupt frames again, and that you agree it now looks close enough (i can see a very, very slight difference vertically, but like i say this could just be down to my circumstances, and for my purposes anyway this is more than good enough).

Thanks for the heads up on MLRawViewer. It seems to be working ok for me here on my Windows 8.1 machine.

As far as i know, the only other camera (apart from the 60Da, which is a very niche camera to say the least!) which has a similar 640x480 Movie Crop Mode is the 550d, so perhaps this fix will also work for it (will need tested obviously though).

For everyone else here's the stills from the .MLV and .MOV files in the folder above:

.MOV


.MLV


Let me know what you think dfort, but to me it looks like we've finally solved this (well, you have really!).

xiga.

Sorry dfort, i did indeed do something different. For the last batch of files i used the DD to move to the far Top Right, whereas before i hadn't done this. I did it as i thought it was going to make things easier, but in hindsight it was just stupid! lol

I'm not sure why the 2nd batch had no corrupt frames, perhaps because i turned off Global Draw (Liveview only)? I can't think of anything else i did differently. Can you teach me how i can quickly scan all my DNG's for corrupt files? My 50 sec clips are going to have in the region of 2,400 frames each (and that's just for 1 panel of the mosaic) so i'd like to do some test runs at home just to make sure my settings are stable and i don't end up with a load of corrupt frames on a clear night. Actually, maybe MLV Lite will solve this?

I took a couple of quick comparison Raw and MOV videos using your v3 build. Again, i DD'ed to the Top Right (as your edits were based on me doing this), and compared the two. The good news is they came out very, very close! Vertically the Raw video looked bang on, it was only very slightly too far right, perhaps about 12 pixels or so (i'm no PS expert so i can't say for absolute sure though, the same goes for my original 5 and 70 pixel estimates). Also, there was a thin black bar on the far right of the Raw still.

Anyhoo, now that i know we won't be bothering with the Digital Dolly at all, i took a new batch of files using your v3 build (i left the DD alone). The link is below, it has the usual files:

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=C14ECDF7700B5618!2540&authkey=!AJt7MDIvQiuhVeI&ithint=folder%2cDNG

Sorry about the mixup before. We're getting close now, i can feel it! 

Thanks for the new test build dfort! Forget what i said above about me just using the Grayscale Liveview Preview, it's really not ideal at all, and after using your latest v2 build i can see a big improvement so let's keep going as i think we're getting close to a proper solution now! 

First off, i never tested Digital Dollying (from here on in simply referred to as DD) to the Top Right in the original vanilla nightly build, so i took a couple of quick test shots today on both the vanilla nightly build and on your v2 build and compared the Raw stills to the H.264 stills, and your v2 build is now much closer, so we're definitely on the right track.
The offsets i provided were only a rough guide (i tried to use Photoshop to come up with them but i probably didn't get it right tbh), and from the comparison between the two i think we have over-corrected in both directions (but not by much, and slightly more so in the vertical direction). So we need to back off slightly on the numbers that have caused the shift.
Once we get close enough (it doesn't need to be completely exact), it will be great to know that all i have to do is turn on Raw Video, DD to the top right (would obviously be ideal not to have to do this, it's one more thing for me to forget lol, but at least it's quick and easy to do), turn off Global Draw entirely, and then i can trust that what i see on the back of the camera is pretty much what is being captured. 

I've attached a link below to a folder of the shots i took today using your v2 build. It contains a still from the H.264 video, and a Silent DNG and MLV file (taken by DDing to the top right). You can see that they are now quite close. (in the original vanilla nightly build, the raw still was shifted left and up, whereas now in your v2 build we are slightly  too far to the right and down).

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=C14ECDF7700B5618!2535&authkey=!AJPDFT_upJ5JBmI&ithint=folder%2cMLV

You mentioned in your PM that you saw some corrupted frames in my last MLV. This worries me slightly, i don't know what a corrupted frame even is (or what it looks like) but if they're showing up in a 2 sec clip i can only assume there will be a lot in the 50 sec clips i intend on taking! Is this likely to be a big deal do you think? You suggested running the old raw_rec instead, so i took a Raw shot as well (it's also included in the folder above, you can check if there are any corrupted frames in it too). The problem with using raw_rec however, is that to my eyes there definitely appears to be more colour noise than when using mlv_rec, so i've shy'd away from using it. Does this sound right to you? I'm using MLVMystic to convert the MLV and RAW files to DNGs.
MLV Lite sounds interesting. I'd definitely be willing to give it a bash once we get the offsets sorted.

Again, thanks for all your efforts so far up to this point. Hopefully we'll get this sorted soon and it can be incorporated into future builds for other 60D users.

Thanks for the test build dfort!

I gave it a quick test, taking a couple of rough and ready shots just in my front room. As far as i could tell, i don't think it made any difference though. I'd need to do a more thorough test to be absolutely sure though.

However, this got me thinking, for what i'm trying to achieve here, i suppose it doesn't really matter if the Raw video doesn't exactly match the H.264 one. For me, what matters the most, is that what is displayed on the camera screen itself is exactly what is captured in the Raw video. With this in mind, i tried changing the 'Preview Options' under the Raw Video (MLV) section from Auto to 'ML Grayscale'. There is a note at the bottom of the screen that says 'Looks ugly, but at least framing is correct'. And indeed, when choosing this option i can see the framing suddenly shift in the required direction! It's true that it does indeed look ugly (the resolution is terrible, everything looks blocky as hell) but i took a quick video (lining up something in the very corner of the frame) and the resulting DNG files seemed to put it right in the corner, so i think i may have stumbled into a solution here by accident! I think i can live with the ugly preview issue, i'm hoping i will still be able to make out the features of the moon well enough to know where i am in terms of putting together the mosaic.

One thing i've noticed though, this means i have to have Global Draw on in Liveview (to take advantage of the ML Grayscale option). Global Draw adds a row of information at the top and bottom of the screen. Normally this information is desirable, but in my case it's simply getting in the way of important screen real estate, as what is underneath is still being captured. As a workaround, I can tap the Q button to get a peak through Canon's semi-transparent bar to see what's under there, but it would obviously be preferable to not have to touch the camera at all. I don't think it's possible, but it would be nice to have the option to turn these info strips off but keep Global Draw on in Liveview. Just a thought i suppose!

As for everything else above that's gone before, if you guys still think the issue with the offsets needs updating then i'm happy to continue to help with taking test shots and testing out any new builds.

Thanks everyone for all your help on this, you're all lovely people.

Cheers,

xiga.

As per dfort's request, here is a link to some Silent DNGs and their corresponding MLV files:

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=C14ECDF7700B5618!2511&authkey=!AK_HoDSjL9HYWds&ithint=folder%2cDNG

In the folder are Silent DNG's and MLV files for each of the following:

1080p 30fps (Canon menu)___the highest reolution ML would let me choose was 1728 x 1156
720p 60fps (Canon menu)___the closest i could get to 720p in ML was 1280 x 694
640x480 60fps (Canon menu)___640x480 resolution chosen in ML
640x480 Movie Crop Mode (Canon menu)___640x480 resolution chosen in ML
1080p 30fps (Canon menu)___this time with x5 Zoom applied, again the highest resolution ML would let me choose was 1728 x 1156

Hopefully these will prove useful.

a1ex, i don't have any still at hand with the digital dolly moved to the far right, nor the H.264 one. I will try again either later tonight or tomorrow morning, but i can say for sure that there is hardly any 'leg room' to move it right, certainly not enough for the correction.

Here is a link to the Silent.DNG:

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=C14ECDF7700B5618!2504&authkey=!AF7IRSm17GWjjC8&ithint=file%2cDNG

I have had a play with the Digital Dolly feature, but unfortunately i don't think it's going to help. 
Once i turned it on, i was able to see a rectangle that took up almost all of the screen, and i was able to move it around using the direction buttons. And sure enough, it did actually have an effect on the resulting Raw video. The problems however, are that:

1) there is no fine control. I had to press the direction twice in a row for it to move (and then quickly in the opposite direction to stop it moving), and even then it moves way too fast and also in really large increments.
2) there was definitely enough travel in the up and down directions to match the H.264 file vertically, but nowhere near enough horizontally. I could only move it a very small amount to the right, so not enough to correct for the Raw video being shifted too far to the left.
3) wherever i moved it to, it would always reset back to it's original position on each reboot. So not much good for achieveing consistent, repeatable results.

So does this just leave us with the option of editing the code to allow for offsets in some way?

ps - i will be taking some more Silent.DNG's, one in each of the Canon video modes (including one in 1080p and x5 zoom) and will post them up, in the hope we might be able to get to the bottom of this.

Okay i took a few more shots today.

First, the Silent DNG:
Silent

And here is the H.264 one:
Mov

And just in case it's needed, here is a still from the Raw video as well:
Raw

I overlaid the H.264 image on top of the Silent DNG one in Photoshop and lined them up as closely as i could, and the top left corner of the H.264 one was at position X=124, Y=51.

Hopefully this information will help, but let me know if i need to post up anything else.

Cheers!

Thanks for your help with this guys, although i'm going to have to hold my hands up and say that i'm in way over my head here in terms of compiling code. I thought it was just going to be a case of editing a few text files, but it looks like there is a lot more to it than that.

Given i already have an idea of the offset in terms of pixels (the Raw video needs to be about 5 pixels Up and 70 pixels Right) is it possible some kind person could do a quick update for raw_rec and mlv_rec for me to test out?
Or alternatively just bring this issue to the attention of a dev so they could look in to this?

Either way, i'm happy to test out any new builds to see if we can nail the crop mode framing closer than it currently is.

ps - The post above describes pretty well the outcome i'm trying to get to (although i'm hoping for better resolution). The idea is that each individual video will be used to create a stack from which i will only take the best 10%. This shoul dgive me over 200 frames to use for each pane, which should be enough to keep the noise down. I will then need to stitch them all together for the final mosaic, so that when one zooms in on the image it keeps all the detail and resolution, rather than breaking down as is normally the case.

Thanks for this dmilligan.

Yeah i also suspected this might be something that just hasn't been noticed up until now, due to the unusual nature of it :/

The problem with option 1, is that it will lead to shorter captures. At present, if i choose 640x480 at 48fps in the ML menu, then i can get 54 secs of continuous video (note, as high an FPS as possible is critical for what i am doing. I'd ideally like 60, but 48 seems to be the sweet spot). This gives me enough frames to then stack the best 10% for each panel of the mosaic. If i choose a higher resolution, it will only cut down on the length of video i can record.

Option 2 sounds interesting. I know nothing about editing ML code, and you kind of lost me on the whole silent DNG thing lol, but i do reckon the offset when shooting Raw in the Movie Crop Mode is in the region of 5 pixels down and 70 pixels left (give or take), so if there's some way to easily copy these numbers into a line of code somewhere then i'm more than willing to give it a bash, with a little help of course 

Hi dmilligan

Perhaps I wasn't being clear. I am already using the 640x480 Crop Mode in the Canon Menu (it's the one at the bottom). For the purpose of what I'm trying to do, this is the only mode I need.
The problem is that when using this mode the Raw video framing doesn't match the H.264 version.

Thank you dfort, i was about to upload the images to Flickr to make them easier to view, but your animated Gif is much better! 

Both of these were taken using the 640x480 Movie Crop Mode in the Canon menu. This is the only mode i am interested in, as it gives me an effective Crop Factor of over x7 and perfect 1:1 pixel resolution, which means i can get in real close for the planets and the moon without losing any detail (as would be the case if i chose any other video mode in the Canon menu). I know not a lot of camera models have this mode, and probably very few people here on the forums actually use it for raw video, so i admit i may be in a minority here, which probably doesn't help me!
For the raw one, i simply chose 640x480 as my resolution in the ML menu, so as to not mess with the pixel scale, however as you can see the Raw video doesn't seem to be centred at the same spot as the Canon video when using the Movie Crop Mode.
I don't have a tripod so when i took these i just made sure i did not move the camera at all between shots. I took another couple of shots today, and i think i did a better job of not moving the camera. When i compared the 2 in Photoshop, it appears that the Raw capture is about 5 pixels lower and 70 pixels to the left.

ps - I now don't think this has anything to do with centering the zoom box. I started the camera without the SD card and checked where the zoom box was and it seemed to be dead centre, as pressing the Trash Can button didn't make it move. Also, when using Movie Crop Mode you can't actually zoom in using the magnifying glass, the camera gives you a message saying it's not possible in this mode, so i don't think the zoom box is the answer. Is it possible it could just be down to the ML code not allowing for the exact sensor position when using Movie Crop Mode?

First off, thank you very much dfort, that was very helpful! :-)

Here are the two files in question, .MOV first, and Raw second:

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=C14ECDF7700B5618!2472&authkey=!ADBztVRh_vg6pE4&v=3&ithint=photo%2cjpg

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=C14ECDF7700B5618!2471&authkey=!AF0w6LTlMty8UzU&v=3&ithint=photo%2cjpg

(i tried using the Insert Image and Hyperlink buttons, and inserting the links between and hitting Preview, but i still couldn't see the images in the Preview, so hopefully the lins above work ok).

So from what you are saying, it sounds like i need to centre my zoom box. I don't mind if it's not 100% accurate, just as long as it's close enough.
Can you elaborate please on how to go about editing the zoom box setting (permanently) so that it matches up with the H.264 files? The trash can button only brings up the ML menu, and the Set button doesn't seem to do anything while waiting to capture.
Surely there has to be a better way than me having to mark the screen in two corners where the capture actually starts (and consequently have to guess where it ends in the other two). Is this not a common thing others have had to deal with? And what is this CROP_MODE_HACK you mention, does it not exist for the 60D?

ps - sorry for all the questions!

Arghhh, that wasn't supposed to post already. I was trying to find out how to attach files (sigh)

Anyways, the issue i've encountered is that when i take a Raw Video on my 60D and compare it to a normal .MOV file taken from exactly the same position without moving the camera, the framing is different between the two. The Raw video seems to capture a little lower and to the left compared to the .MOV file.
I intend on using the camera to take some videos of the moon in Movie Crop Mode (to get 1:1 pixel resolution) and to then do a mosaic to stitch it all together. For this purpose all i need is for the camera to capture 45 or secs in 640x480 ML mode at 50fps and it's able to do this just fine, so all is good in this respect.
I am using the latest nightly build and am using MVLMystic to extract the images and they look fine when doing so, it's just the framing that seems to be the issue.

The reason this is a problem, is that i need to use the camera's screen to visualise exactly what i'm capturing, so that i can move on to capturing the next frame. I've tested it, and the in-built camera .MOV video matches exactly with what is shown on the camera screen, but the Raw video does not, so it makes it much more difficult for me to know what exaclt i've captured and where i need to go next.

Can anyone help me with this please?

ps - I have 2 still images from the .MOV and .DNG (raw) videos i'd like to upload, but i'm not sure how. I feel like a total noob here, can anyone explain how i can upload these please?

Cheers!

Hi guys

I've encountered something strange

Thanks dmilligan.

So if this is correct, then because ML basically re-enables this specific mode, even for models that don't have it by default, then i can look at other models aside from the 550D/60D for my AP needs?

And also, i know that in Raw mode it is much harder to obtain a high fps. Are the cheaper models (e.g 700D, 60D) able to do 640x480 1:1 at 60fps for a couple of minutes? Because from what i am reading i know that they struggle to do 24p, but then that is at higher resolutions.

Hi Guys

I've never owned a DSLR before and I'm thinking of buying a 60D and have a specific ML-related question so I thought I'd ask it in here before I commit to buying.

I'm basically on the lookout for a cheap 2nd hand Canon camera, for casual daily use (i.e a family camera) but also for some beginner Astrophotography (mainly Planetary imaging for now, if the bug bites I'll probably get something more specific for DSO's). I've read that the best mode for filming the major planets is a special 640x480 movie Crop mode, which apparently only the 550D, 60D, 60Da, and 70D have. The reason this mode is so special, apparently, is because it can record at 60 fps and at 1:1 pixel resolution, using only the middle 640x480 part of the sensor, which is plenty enough for planetary imaging (plus, I think this mode also gives you an effective zoom of x7, which also helps as the planets are small!).
The reason I'm being drawn to the 60D, is simply because it is the cheapest one that has this mode, but also has an articulated screen. Oh, it's worth noting as well, that for Planetary imaging you only really need to record short clips, say 1 or 2 minutes long, but ideally at very high fps (hence the need for 60 fps) so that you can obtain a high number of frames, i.e around 5k or so.

All of this is fine, but the camera will obviously only record in 8 bit, whereas ML now supports Raw, i.e 14 bit!

So my question is, if I install ML, will I still be able to access this same special movie Crop mode, only the video will now be in 14 bit instead of 8 bit? The 1:1 pixel resolution, high fps, and zoom level are of paramount importance though!

Cheers guys!