Messages

Tony, thanx, but I did not see anything inside of Tencoder that has convert my H.264 files to ProRes?? I did want to say that this app wins the prize for having the most amount of xtra apps we don't want while trying to sneak them in on an installation. I think there were seven extra apps. After all the Declines I made, at the end it did nothing for thirty seconds and then it finally installed Tencoder. What's the world coming to? I like the old days of getting one app I want and it installs. :-) BTW, none of this is meant to be against you, Tony, just the people who make the app for download.

I am just looking for a simple batch convert app with a UI on a win 7 64 bit PC system to make my H.264 movie files to ProRes (all versions if possible of ProRes). I use PPro CC to edit and I see no ProRes ability to convert to.

Lol. I always use it man. It installs lots of stuff because originally it's a software from Linux. But it's the best I found that can convert a tree of folders... anyway, just have a little faith It DOES convert H264 to Prores, the only thing I use it for...

Cinema DNG, cinema DNG !!!!!!!!! How are we focusing on other workflows by now?!

When this gets sorted out it will be amazing!  Working with what I have right now from raw2cdng is very nice in PPro!  Glitch free playback and scrubbing, very smooth on my Toshiba with 7200 rpm HD, 8 gigs ram, GEForce 540M GPU (which I tricked PPro into thinking it's a CUDA card).  Very good work flow and fast.

Thanks to chmee and tonybeccar!   

Lol... please, thank chmee

ah. thats a video with the beta-cdng-importer from cs6 - this one was crushed long ago. i was wondering why/how the gpu-powered cdng-importer in CC actually should use ACR.. nope.

I know it's outdated.. but you think they removed that feature?? Is there a reason? It was a good feature.. :/
I just downloaded the BMCC shots and it's still the same, grayed out. I do not have ACR 8.2 though, only 8.1, I can try and search for it...

Also, I notice that the dngs from the BMCC play faster in premiere.. and also when I play them in 1/4 or 1/2, they don't get that "greenish" look they have with your cdngs.. On full quality they look ok, but as soon as you hit play and quality isn't full the colors shift...

Will research more on that one.. to see if it's possible.

@tony could you give me a link to bmcc-files, where this sequence-seetings are available? i've got some here, but its greyed out. this is a great finding, and would make a huge step for us.

[commandline] please (all) give me the time to primarly reach a first finish line, the magic milestone..  then i'd recode all into a commandline.

@a1ex lOl. ok, i should examine your way with the banding correction and the stucked-sensel correction.

Here I saw it in a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oALUwhZaK4s
I found sample dngs of the pocket camera here (my god how good it is!): https://www.dropbox.com/sh/44bnza1ooi34xqb/6KlnDHKWpy I wonder if they are useful.. gonna test them myself now! But yeah, that workflow is HEAVEN.

EDIT: http://philipbloom.net/2012/08/23/grading-the-blackmagic-cinema-camera-dngs-in-photoshop/
There you have BMCC sequences. For some reason I couldnt import the BMPCC single frames into Premiere.

Have you tested doing the post color in Speedgrade?

And please! Of course, first the MLV support!
Thanks so much and cheers mate!

Tony, now that I have convert to prores working in your app, can you make it also accept h.264 movie files on import (drag n Drop, too ?) to to convert to prores? or, a new second app that does it? I don't have any programming skills, so a nice UI to convert all my H.264 movies to prores (all the different versions to choose from) would be nice to have.

I always use TEncoder.. it's nice interface.. let's you import a tree of folders and converts it straight away.. you have a bunch of codecs available.. though it is very slow to add the files, but then you're good to go..

[UPD:]

Thanks!
Win 8.1, MLV with sound. It seems, like ffmpeg don't do it's work (can't say anything without log file. is there any option for ffmpeg to create debug-log?)
Can it be because it is 50 fps MLV? In queue window it shows like -15.5 fps. May be you pass fps value to ffmpeg and that's why it crashes? (because -15.5 fps is invalid)
Or may be there is restrictions in resolition? Source MLV have 672px height (1920x672)

UPD: yes, fps value or resolution is the reason of proxy creation problem. 25 fps MLV (w/o sound) 1920x1080 converted succesfully

Oh yeah, if it says -15.5fps then it won't work at all! I wonder why! Do you use the "text" and "take" metadata? Does it happens with all the clips? I mean the bad framerate display... If you can please send me a short clip of a bad framerate display so I can look into it... it seems I have to find a better way to read the headers... cause bytes aren't always at the same place.. :/

Hey chmee, one question. I was looking into the awesome workflow of cdngs in premiere.. and the people that have the bmcc import their sequences in premiere, just like us, BUT, in the project panel, when they right click on a cdng sequence and they go to Source Settings, it opens in ACR and they can tweak things in there, close it and it updates on Premiere. Dreamy! Now.. I cannot seem to do it with your cdngs, the option is greyed out (though I haven't tried with others anyway), but I have everything up to date, premiere, phosohop, adobe camera raw (8.1 though, couldnt find the 8.2). Do you have this feature? I saw it and it is truly amazing...

PS: Please command line command line! I was thinking, with your app, then this is the way to go.. so when you have the command line ready i'll focus more on the interface than anything else.. drop the common dngs, ffmpeg proxies, they are no use really, slow and low quality and tedious.. but instead just make a neat interface that interlaces with your magic software.. I can put my efforts on that...

Anyway, does the premiere feature work for you?
Cheers!!!

Hey guys! Sorry, I have to be off a few days cause I have to finish an editing work.. And on Sunday I'm leaving for a 3-week-vacation.. so I'll try to leave you guys with the least bugs possible..

Anyway here is a version with the pop-up message fixed (v1.8.2): https://www.dropbox.com/s/l79ijxaqjsmjcx4/MLV%20Converter%201.8.2.zip

Sorry for the trouble haha... stupid thing of mine.. I will fix the audio support before sunday of course..

Hey Rush, which OS do you have? Did you record the MLV with sound? If not, can you try with? It seems there are still a few bugs with it :S, hope they'll be fixed by sunday, but you gotta help me narrow them down!

Cheers!

okj i got it, you can export from premiere cc in windows IF you install mediareactor, then a lot more codecs will appear, including prores, i've already donde this but actually i can export to prores with no problems! 

Lol, yes installed it and uninstalled it.. another victim of the mediareactor greatness..

I think an option to skip the WAV file extraction would be good for those that use the 50D . . . for some reason it tries to extract a wav file even if there isn't one.

Yes, will add support for that in the next release!

?? ProRes on Windows in Premiere Pro CC 
Where are you seeing this. I have been working in there and don't see this.
The only way to encode prores on windows it though FFmeg in a standalone program
like "Cinemartin" or 5DtoRGB (I use that for all my h264)

Yeah, it IS true! I'm running 7.2.1 (4).. the file formats are all different now.. I have a lot of image sequences for example.. and inside Quicktime MOV I have this:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eicb6qmz1aya7pl/prores.jpg

But whenever I hit export I get a compiler error... maybe I screwed things up myself.. but it IS there!

@Tony: my os : win7 64bit
MLV without sound.

I don't think it is really, but if you could try with sound it'll be great. Another question, do you have aero enabled?

@chmee, holly molly I didnt see your new version yesterday.. will try it now! Abd oh, too bad then, but good advice, will try the 32bit filters then..

I wonder what news about mlv_dump we'll be seeing... And also I hope you make the command line a priority!!!

Thanks SO much chmee!!! NOW we have a workflow!

@ tonybeccar, I have encoutered them a few times with my 7d. Especially when using ETTR, expose to the right and  stuff.
If you raise your lumincance a lot they are easily seen and ugly.

Maybe there could be a checkbox and user can decide if he wants to use mlv_dump or mlv2dng.

@chmee
good to know man! I think your app(with the vertical stripes correction and native mlv support) is the way to go about raw on any workflow(premiere, davicni, you name it)

Ok will make that happen then. Yes, chmee IS the way to go in ML RAW. Definitely.

bug report : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2478549/error.txt
MLV converter just pop up an error when I hit convert, and nothing happens after I clic continue, v1.8.1

:S

OS? MLV with or withour sound?

Tony, I just updated to your latest and [am getting proxies now. I am also not getting some pop up windows waiting for my OK when doing more than one file. I sit here wondering why it is taking so long and I then find one of your pop up windows buried underneath my open winnows waiting for me to click OK, meanwhile holding up progress.

Jeez... what does it say?? Must have been very stupid yesterday.. I use them for testing..

Hey chmee, so I finally tried your program, your workflow, AND IT IS AWESOME!!!! Amazing, simply amazing... the quality you get inside premiere pro with its rudimentary color correction tools it's the same as ACR, suuuuuper cool!

So was doing color correction and encounters pink edges on the picture, when you push the colors and add sharpen especially, here are 2 frame grabs, original cdng and after the grade:

Before: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5oy8fyl6bhsycnf/Before.tif
After: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ecrznjbfu1p7puk/After.tif

Do you know what's happening? I did cDNG 12 bit linear, tiff header thingy and partymode gamma 1.0.
Thanks and awesome work mate!

PS: Changing topic.. as I installed the new premiere pro, I noticed that there is an option to encode prores in windows, WOW? It doesnt work for me as I had to downgrade quicktime because it didnt let me import image sequences in ae. But oh my, is it really?!

@panz, do you think the vertical stripes are a dealbreaker? Didnt see anything YET on my dngs.. though I read about it on the thread... is it abandoned? :/ I hope not... I was so amazed by the speed improvement. And chmee's program is awesome! Sometime soon we'll be able to use his program inside mine.. but right now that's not a possibility. Just installed the latest premiere so I wanna get to try those cdngs

trying out 1.8.1 Tony,

when i select one of the clips it gives "cannot find FORMAT.DLL" . I have reinstalled the plugins from irfanview but still the same error. no thumbnail is generated. am i missing something?

It is faster though than previous versions.

You have to install irfan view, latest version and point the MLV Converter to the folder in program files, don't point it to the Tools folder.. forgot to remove i_view32 from there.. After that it should be fine!

It works good now, thanks Tony.

One thing that i notice is wend it start to convert, the first thing the app do is to extract audio... In my laptop for 300 frames it take kind of 37 seconds for extract the audio and then start the conversion from MLV to DNG... In the end i don't have any audio file in the folder of the DNG's (i think i didn't have recorded audio with this MLV files that im testing)

Ok, so I have to disable for non-audio mlv files.. I wonder if I can :S. BUT, do you think it's faster than extracting everything with mlv_dump still? mlv2dng does it in the blink of an eye...

Most common argument is, dont do that with 8bit-videodata - 10, 12 or 16bit is not only because of highlight-recovery or shadow-pushing, but mainly because of more headroom for these postpro-work.

regards chmee

Well yeah that's my point. It's ok for the highlight recovery of course.. but that headroom, really kills the color richness.. anyway, maybe it's not the thread to talk about it.. Just to try and push the colors to the same level, one is great and the other one is crap :S

v1.8.1

- bugfix for my stupidnessss!!! please excuse!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4gi53lf8ic2hc3x/MLV%20Converter%201.8.1.zip

Version 1.8 start to extract audio and then it say finish but only extract 1 file in the folder, no dng's... and i think this MLV file i haven't recorded with  audio.

my god! sorry!!forgot to unpack mlv2dng... uploading now

v1.8!!

- DRAMATIC increase in speed while extracting DNGs. Using mlv2dng, and it is like 10 or 20 times faster... amazing stuff. BUT, the audio is still extracting with mlv_dump... and the basterd (with all due respect g33g0) takes forever to extract only the audio! :S But overall the process IS much faster. If anyone has any ideas on how to extract the audio another way, awesome, share.
- Ffmpeg is faster too! Changed the version. Last one was 4-6fps for me, this one is 15-20fps. Using threads:8 by default.
- Proxies should be rendering PERFECTLY. No drop frames, no duplicate frames, etc. SYnc sync sync.
- Changed to ufraw, and no, it's not faster at all. But managed to get the colors looking ok, neutral for now, next version gonna add the "Lut" selection, so the user can input their own ufraw preset. Right now is just a curve I made.
- Fixed BUGs related with proxy creation, for all the users that were skipping, this should fix it!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vp61d1urllc3we7/MLV%20Converter%201.8.zip

I think it's all. Been researching for the proxies... and well it seems that they will NEVER be the same as the dngs processed by ACR in AE. NEVER. Above all if we create a flat looking proxy, then you wont be able to push the colors as much.

Changing the topic, can someone OBJECTIVELY explain me WHY is it better to have a FLAT (lifeless) looking video? Seriously, I understand all the theories about the retained dynamic range, shadows and highlights.. but everytime I do a test, it's logical.. in order to achieve a normal level of saturation, (or a little more), you have to reeeally push the colors.. and in the end you have artifacts and the image breaks. That doesnt happen AT ALL if you do that color correction with the inicial file.. so, am I missing something? (BTW, I tried with prores HQ)

Anyway, I think the proxy thing with ffmpeg will ONLY be useful for its word, proxy. You'll have to go back to the original dngs for a final output. Let's hope AME comes out with something good.

Cheers!