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Thanks you all for the info   looks like I will be joining the party !

Does it stretch the image at this resolution or is it a true 1280 x 720

Thanks ML team we all really appreciate what you have done !!!

No stretch required.  Stretching the image is only required when in Canon  50/60p mode (1x).

Not crazy about frozen live view Hacked Preview (not practical for me).  But the new memory hack option is a nice help imo.  See https://bitbucket.org/hudson/magic-lantern/commits/6397e112ed41d36795b18c8825ab50a258811f2e#general-comments

By expanding the buffer memory available, I was able to do full 1920x1080, 30p for about 12 seconds. Doesn't sound like much, but for many situations, 12 second takes are sufficient.  Without the new hack, I get only about 5 seconds.  A couple more memory finds like this and full hd at 30p might be possible for much longer takes.  I love 30p for creating subtle slow motion for music videos.  The hack also will make huge difference for any other borderline resolutions.

My thoughts about this, when using the Canon preview option...

You can combine the new "Focus box: snap points: center to x5" with "Force Left" framing, and this will get you quickly to the center of  your recording area when in crop mode by just clicking the joystick.  But you will need to watch out for lens distortion if you are using a wide angle lenses such as the Tokina 11-16 or any focal length which exhibits moderate distortion near the edges. The method I just described is great for run and gun situations where you want to quickly punch into crop mode, click the joystick to center the recording area, and record.  But the focus box is so over to the left side of the frame where distortion lives, that it can ruin your shot.  I conducted a quick test video to illustrate the problems this can cause with your shot.

Ultimately, I've settled on using a different method for crop mode... I use force left framing, with the focus box 5 clicks to the right, 3 up.  It keeps me closer to the center of the lense in a more distortion free zone of the lense.  I just always leave the focus box there and try not  to move it so I'm always ready if I need to quickly enter crop mode.  This location may not work for other cameras so Alex is trying to keep the code related to focus point snap points as portable as possible, thus the current location of the snap point.

I am having a similar problem on my 5D3. I dont know what PP to use to emulate raw footage as close as possible. I was using cinestyle and everything I shot in raw was underexposed.

I think you might have better results by using the ML exposure tools for obtaining proper exposure.  Raw histogram, and/or the new raw zebras.  They are very accurate.  I would choose a picture profile that assists in obtaining focus, especially if you can't utilize focus peaking because you need to turn off global draw in order to sustain continuous raw recording.  Landscape with sharpness all the way up is a lot easier to focus with than cinestyle or neutral prolost for example.

Any way of having an options to not display the crop box? Preferably 1 option to disable it in 1x mode, and another to disable it in 5x crop mode.  In 5x crop mode, options such as force left causes the crop boxes to appear non-symetrical (off to the left) as to be a little distracting and makes it harder to visualize composition.  It's already a small challange visualizing the larger recording area beyond the canon preview.  Similar problem exists when using certain external hdmi monitors (SmallHD DP4, Swift, etc), but in that scenario, both 1x and 5x crop modes show the crop marks incorrectly, so having an option to disable them would solve both problems.

Thanks Platu, I changed my resolution to 1920 x 1080 and allowed frame skipping. It works better, more consistent for longer but still in an avereage 400 frame clip I'm dropping 60 frames Any other possibilities or suggestions as far as settings go?

If you tried mine and Renato's suggestions, and are using the latest build, it's likely down to the card.  Inconsistent write speed drop-offs will cause skipping and there's no solution for this other than getting a more stable fast card.  For what it's worth, I have had to return 2 Komputerbay 64 cards already... 1 dead on arrival, another was too slow.  But still the best bang for the buck.

I get 1728x972 continuous.  1856x1056 get dropped frames after 400 frames.

Hi thanks for the great info all over this blog, its amazing!

I just followed all of the steps to recording raw video on my new MK3, Komputer bay 64GB card, AE, everything works great except for one thing.... It seems like during every recording, a frame is dropped in the first 13-16 frames causing the recording to stop. Originally I had this option on some sort of override to prevent the camera from stopping the recording. Is there any reason why I would have so many frames being dropped? Maybe its some sort of setting on my end? or installation issue?

I really appreciate the responses in advance! Thanks!

The option to skip frames still exists under Raw Video... Frame Skipping... Allow.   Most folks with this card can easily record 1928x1080 and even 1920x1152 continuously (myself included).  First thing would be to check that it is not defaulting to saving to the SD card.  Next thing to check would be to run the built-in benchmark utility for the card.  You'll find this under Debug... Benchmarks... Card R/W benchmark.  Write speed will likely vary a bit but you should be seeing write speeds anywhere from 70-90s MB/s.  If you get substantially slower speeds, than you should try to return your card if possible for another one.

I have the same camera and card as you do.

Renato, I have an important question, I was looking for hours in the posts and I can´t find an answer: when you shoot Raw in 5D III, the settings in the camera, like Presets, WB, etc, has any influence in the RAW files? I know appear easy but I cannot find any difference shooting in Neutral or Standard, or changing WB. Please tell me if I am wrong with this. Thanks a lot and sorry if this is not a post to this.

One of the advantages of raw is being able to define these type of things later in post.  Picture styles such as neutral have no effect on the final recorded raw file.  So things like, contrast, color, sharpness, etc, are not baked into the raw file.  You will essentially be defining your own look when grading in post.  White balance is another thing you can choose later after shooting.  At the moment, the white balance you are shooting at does not get saved correctly to the raw metadata so you will always have to select it later in post.  That may change with future development but at the moment, if you bring your raw dng's into Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), and select "As Shot" for white balance, it will not correctly reflect the white balance you shot at. 

However, you may want to use a certain picture style which can assist you in focusing, such as landscape with the sharpness turned all the way up.  This is just for preview and will not have an effect on the final raw file.

I hope that helps a little.

I agree... It makes for quite a streamlined workflow.  Thank you for doing this... much appreciated. 

The position is computed on the fly; you may want to use the left position or the right one or whatever. It's also hopefully portable, because it's not hardcoded.

If I would hardcode it, I don't see anyone fine-tuning these offsets for every single camera supported by ML.

When the box is perfectly centered, Canon chooses the left half of the sensor. Move 2 clicks to the right, zoom in, center, and you get the right half.

I get it... thanks.

When using frame left, go in 5x mode and click on joystick again. In 1x it just goes to the last position, in 5x it recalibrates itself.

I understand how it works now.   Is there any reason not to make the snap point move just 5 right, 3 up?  I ask because this would prevent the majority of the lens distortion one would experience using the current snap point (especially on wider angle lenses).

The difference in distortion is quite significant.   I created a short test below to illustrate (simple up/down panning on a tripod)...

Brilliant 

Thanks for everyone exploring the demosaicing options.  While it is assumed our current filters where selected for performance, that is not entirely true.  While there are some performance options, bi-linear and matrix 5x5, the others where the render grade filters of their day, finishing films from My Bloody Valentine to Slumdog Millionaire.  As computer power has increased even more advanced algorithms are being used. 

The problem we have is GoPro CineForm codec is not open source, while we are working on a SMPTE standard version of CineForm as VC-5, we can't use any GPL code -- although LGPL (lesser GPL v2.1 is fine as a dynamically linked library.)  Several of the offered links point to GPL code, which sadly prevents its use.  Stuck again.

One of the reasons the CineForm RAW workflow is so much easier than everything else, is the controllable demosaic is built into the decoder, effective making every tool RAW capable.  So I still look for a friendly license (MIT & LGPL) or an inexpensive commercial license that could be included in a free decoder distribution.

I'm glad to hear you are actively looking into enhancing this solution with other demosaicing options.  I am quite happy with this workflow... I'm able to get my final footage looking very close to what ACR can produce, it's just fine detail that is somewhat lacking. Highlight recovery is not as good and noise reduction would be nice.  Keep at it because if these things are solved, I can't envision a quicker or more space efficient workflow.

[When setting snap points to "Center to x5 RAW"...]

Huh? the preset is exactly for Canon preview. Just zoom and click the joystick.

I am basing the following on the yesterday's commit... https://bitbucket.org/hudson/magic-lantern/commits/9ccae1db2b9a29dae4d52362382956d18b393470.  Didn't yet try the new commits you added today.


When setting snap points to "Center to x5 RAW"...

The snap points only work for the setting... Framing "Center".   When using Framing "Left", the focus box needs to be moved 5 right, 3 up.

Also, if you manually move or accidentally bump the joystick with snap points set, snap points ceases to function.
EDIT: This only happens when Focus Box settings "Speed = Normal".  When set to "Fast", manually moving the joystick does not cause any problems.

Reproduced the issue and solved. Also added 23.976 as preset.

https://bitbucket.org/hudson/magic-lantern/commits/69af0a2d23e6
https://bitbucket.org/hudson/magic-lantern/commits/815173794142

That's awesome. . So now we can just set it and forget about it.

FYI. The new preset in LV Focus Box Snap doesn't work when raw preview is set to Canon LV.  Also, I'm not sure if your newest commits today related to the focus box and crop marks have considered Canon LV preview since I haven't had the chance to test that yet.

At this stage of development, greyscale preview, while clearly improving, is still only practical under limited controlled conditions where maintaining focus is not a major concern.  For crop mode, I have found regular Canon preview, even with its framing limitations, to be necessary in practice.   I'm moving the focus box 5 right, 3 up as Renato had mentioned... this method will likely be used the most imo.

For 23.976 it needs an exact FPS preset. Or maybe a fine-tuning option for the FPS.

About hitting the zoom buttons quickly... this is tricky, ML and Canon code get in a race condition that I don't know how to solve. ML is trying to detect passively when Canon code is not changing video mode, but it's impossible to detect what you are going to press in the middle of FPS changing.

Understood.  Will be mindful about quick button presses from now on.  Regarding 23.976, would be nice to lock it down but will use 24.000 for now.  Thanks.

No, 23.976 to 23.977

I just discovered that switching to Canon 1920 30fps as you described seems allow for exact 24.000 fps via override.   And it does seem to maintain this exact fps when toggling crop modes.  What's more, if you set exposure override and set shutter to 149.3 (1x mode), the shutter will stay close to 180 shutter when switching to 5x mode (147.3).

So to summarize, using the above method, it turns out that it is possible to maintain fps and close to 180 degree shutter for exactly 24.000 fps.  If you need 23.976, it will alternate between 23.976 and 23.977 at least for now unless another solution is discovered.  You may wish to update your thread on this as I think many might benefit.  Thank you Renato and Alex for you help.

Set the Canon video to 1920 30 fps.  You can do this when you are in video mode in canon menu.

For some reason this allows better fix the FPS override = 24 so that when you switch from zoom to normal you get no variation in fps.

Just tried your method to maintain FPS and it's definitely an improvement, the fps switches between 23.976 and 23.977 as Alex noted above.  Does it remain constant for you?

Can't reproduce the 20.848, here it switches between 23.976 (5x) and 23.977 (1x), with Renato's settings.

I just tried for while and it happens most often (but not always if I click quickly through 1x, 5x, 10x.. it sometimes ends up at 20.848.  When it does end up at 20.848, the shutter becomes 1/56, rather than the typical 20.003 and 1/37.   Also, when it happens, the screen seems to struggle to switch modes and displays pink static like noise trying to switch, and ends up at 20.848 everytime that happens.  I can take a video of this if it helps.

I'll try Renato's settings now.  Being off by .001 would certainly be an improvement.

[24]

I am not sure how to control the shutter or why it switches when going from std to crop.

The fps i set with FPS Override to:
Desired FPS to 24
Optimize for Exact FPS

then go to the advanced tab

Timer A and/or B adjust to match FPS=29.976

Now when you switch between 5X and normal mode I dont have any changes if FPS.

also more info here:
How to record: -- RAW Digital Cropped Video on 5D3 --
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=5441.0

Specially check the latest post on how to record on the center of the lens!

I've been following your posts there, thank you for doing that.   The new force left, close to center crop is great.  That's what I'm doing now (5 to the right, 3 up) as it's the most practical use by far for crop mode imo.  Regarding the FPS override settings, did you mean to say 24 fps  instead of 29.976 fps?

When I set FPS override to exactly 24.000 when in crop mode, it switches to 24.006 when in normal mode.  Alex has already written that 24.000 is currently not possible on the 5d3 in normal mode.  Apparently 24.000 works on some other models but for some reason not the 5d3.  I prefer 23.976 anyway to be able to stay consistent when mixing footage from other cameras which typically are shot using 23.976.

If you set fps override to 23.976 when in normal mode, switching to crop mode switches the fps to either 20.848 or 24.003 (depending on it's mood that moment).  Now there may be a combination of fps override settings that I have not hit upon yet via my own testing which maintains 23.976, so if anyone can figure that out please let me know.

The following is the only way I have been able to maintain 23.976 when switching crop modes...

1.  When in normal mode, do not use the override feature so it defaults to 23.976 (shutter at 1/47)
2.  When switching to crop mode...
      - turn on fps override
      - set desired fps to 24
      - set timer A to 500
      - set timer B to 2002
      - actual fps now shows 23.976
      - change shutter to 1/49
3.  When switching back to normal (non-crop) mode....
      - turn OFF fps override (otherwise, fps will automatically change to 23.980)
      - change shutter to 1/47 (since it has changed to 1/78 for some reason)
4.  Now shoot.
5.  Rinse and repeat every time you switch modes.

Another oddity is when you do have fps override set properly to 23.976 when in crop mode, if you toggle back to normal then crop mode, it sometime switches to 21.080.  Toggling to normal then crop again, will switch it back to 23.976 however.

As you can see, punching in and out requires a constant awareness of the above steps and oddities to maintain consistent settings.  I've shot for 2 complete days with approx 100 clips each day, and although I know how to do the above steps to maintain my fps and shutter, each day I always ended up with a number of clips where off, the worst being when I end up with 21.xxx fps.  I do realize that Alex implemented fps override to solve different problems, so I'm not surprised about the behavior...  thus my feature request. 

[23.976]

I have been using 1:1 crop mode extensively and it works great.  But when switching back and forth between crop mode and regular mode, I would like to be able to maintain my fps at 23.976 and shutter to more or less (180 degree).... but especially fps.   In practice, it is very cumbersome to switch back and forth if you use crop mode a lot.  FPS override does not maintain my fps when switching modes, and the shutter value always changes as well.   Being able to punch in 3x is an amazing feature, but the constant trips to the menu to adjust everything to maintain my frame rate and shutter is leading to mistakes.  So when I shot 100 clips yesterday, I ended up with a handful of clips where the fps were 20.xxx or 24.xxx.  This would be a very helpful addition.  Thank you for listening.

P.S.  I posted something similar in the following thread but realized it would be better placed here for consideration.  http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=5413.msg43437#msg43437

In the meantime, I need feedback on the current tool.

The first thing that I would say is that it is very FAST.  I spent practically a full day working through the typical Raw2dng -> ACR -> After Effects workflow on 100+ GB of raw footage I shot this weekend.   It was enough to really turn me off to the adobe workflow.  I decided to spend a bit more time with Cineform Studio once I noticed you posted a new conversion tool.  Initially, I did find ACR to be easier to work with and still do, but the time savings of using your new tool makes it worth the extra effort in my opinion.   I mean, let's face it, using RAW2GPCF  is magnitudes faster if  your goal is to get your footage into your NLE quickly, not to mention the benefits and flexibility you gain by keeping everything as raw files.  The ACR/After Effects workflow may be fine for those doing personal projects with limited amounts of footage to process, but completely inadequate for most paid work if time is at all a factor.  Batch processing is desperately needed still but I realize that you are looking for feedback first.

At the moment, when using the silent pictures option and post deflicker, sidecar files are not created.  Is it possible to create sidecar files for the silent pictures DNGs?  Or are there technical differences from CR2s that would make this a more difficult prospect?

If you want to save shutter actuations, wouldn't it be better to just turn on the silent pictures option combined with the intervalometer?  That should essentially give you the same hight quality DNGs as the raw video option.  I recently did a timelapse that way for the same reason of wanting to save my shutter.