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If you´re thinking about getting the brand new pocket-able LX-100 from Panasonic for all occasions where you can´t (or don´t want to) carry a big DSLR - and if you´re not sure if those scenes will intercut nicely with your regular raw footage: Take a look, I´ve tested it!

http://hackermovies.com/panasonic-lx-100-vs-5d-mk-iii-english

Enjoy reading and watching the videos!

[a After Effects script which should make the lifes easier for everyone who converts ML raw via AFX]

Hi, community!

After reading along for a long time I can finally contribute with some software as well - a After Effects script which should make the lifes easier for everyone who converts ML raw via AFX that was written for my needs of converting MLV files to 10bit Quicktime files from the talented programmers in my company.

It starts with the "Smart Import" functionality from the original AFX script which goes through folders and imports file sequences, but adds some new interesting features.

It automatically syncs audio WAV files which are in the folders from a MLV file! It even considers the offset which is in the MLV files at the moment (might change in the future, that´s why it´s not hardcoded).

You can set the footage framerate for all the shots you want to import, you can set width and height of the comps (as you might´ve shot vertically cropped but need full-HD to transcode to ProRes or DNxHD), you can add several output modules for transcoding and set a folder for all the files. All you have to do is click OKAY for every ACR window that pops up and in the end you have to hit RENDER in the render queue - that´s it!
I use it together with CineLOG (http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=10151.0) to create flat LOG DNxHD 10bit quicktime files for further editing and grading.

Download it here:
www.alexandsteffen.com/smartimport2.zip

Just place the JSX file in your AFX/Scripts directory, go on FILE / SCRIPTS and execute it!

Happy encoding!

Steffen

[but definitely give the camera these five seconds do do the task without interrupting.]

Hi!

Just recorded 12mins of clips on a 64GB Komputerbay card and when it got full, the recording stopped - as always not properly - so the camera had to be turned off (built from 23. feb 2013).
After turning on I did not wait for the cards to be warmed up, but pressed PLAY instantly. This resulted in a destroyed card, can´t be read by the camera or a computer anymore, every device wants to format it.
So either it was just bad luck or interrupting the warming up process. Can´t say for sure - but definitely give the camera these five seconds do do the task without interrupting.

Card won´t format on a computer or in camera anymore, seems to be somehow damaged now. Will try some sort of low level format, so no chance for data recovery.

cheers,
Steffen

Hi, guys!
I´ve been experimenting with all kinds of workflows and definitely would like to stay with ACR since it delivers the best end result which should be key since we´re going to hassle with all the expensive CF cards etc. - I just can´t logistically keep hundreds DNG sequences (even if compressed lossy with Adobe´s own DNG converter) for a Indie feature film, it would be overkill. And I don´t want to jump on Cineform , I could live with less clarity and more blur, but the highlight recovery and rolloff is a big mess in Cineform, it produces pink cutoff areas in all my shots.

Do you think one of the talented programmers can somehow write a script/plugin for After Effects that reads DNG sequences for batch converting and writes ProRes files? I know Prores won´t work on a PC, but maybe some other compressed file format that can handle 10bit? And while being developed in ACR it might make sense to underexpose them to get most of the highlights and then apply some form of log-curve to it to bake the maximum you can get into this file, then write it out as 10bit log and keep those files then instead of the DNGs.

99% of the folks shooting with Alexas trust the 10bit log ProRes files all the time and never shoot ArriRAW, so if you can get as close as possible to those Quicktime files it should be the easiest workflow if it can be automated for batch-conversion. What do you guys think?

cheers,
Steffen