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I did 5 clips with the full time color preview (holding shutter halfway).
4 out of 5 had torn frames; they looked no better or worse than the ones I got using grayscale.

Where do I find "full time color preview"? Don't see it under Movie / RAW Video (MLV) / Preview.

No I mean full time color preview from the mlv_rec menus. The canon preview is YUV.

OK, I'll try to check that.

In the meantime, I tried a tighter crop (640x360) and saw no tearing with 6 clips using ml grayscale preview.

Good to know it works this way at least. The LV stays single buffered until its reset so that part isn't causing it, just the high load it seems. Do you have more problems when the color preview is enabled... Its even more taxing than the B/W

You mean the canon preview that isn't framed right in crop mode? That one hasn't caused me any problems.

OK, did another test:

6 clips using same settings as above.
For each one, I started with ml grayscale preview and started recording and about 11 seconds later disabled the preview by pushing the "INFO." button.
In all cases, the frame tearing was there until I disabled the preview after which point the video looked fine.
Based on this, the preview only causes the issue while it is engaged, so using it for framing before recording should not cause the problem.

Yea, it makes the YUV display single buffered. Does it still cut if you turn off the preview while recording?

Turn it off in the middle of a recording you mean?

So global draw + single buffered LV (ML preview) = torn frames?

Is "single buffered LV (ML preview)" the same as the "ML Grayscale" preview for crop mode? If so, then yes.

I did some more testing on the torn frame issue.
It appears to be related to the preview; specifically the ml grayscale preview used in crop mode.

Canon 7D
2/23 TL build
RAW video (MLV)
crop mode
1792x1008
23.976 fps
Global Draw: ON
Preview: Auto
Overlay/Global Draw/LiveView
MLV Sound / separate WAV

I shot the back of a rocking chair, with the vertical struts filling the frame from top to bottom, and panned constantly back and forth to reveal the issue if it was present.

Test 1:
Alternated between using ml preview and Canon (hit "INFO." button to toggle between the two).
Shot 12 clips, 6 with Canon preview and 6 with ml preview.
Clips averaged 33 sec (794 frames) long, ranging from 450 to 1065 frames.
The 6 Canon preview clips were fine.
5 of the 6 ml preview clips had the torn frame issue.

Test 2:
Shot 15 clips with ml preview.
Clips averaged 12 sec (294 frames) long, ranging from 256 to 342 frames.
13 of the 15 ml preview clips had the torn frame issue.

Test 3:
Shot 11 clips with Canon preview (switched from Preview: Auto to Preview: Canon).
Clips averaged 15 sec (356 frames) long, ranging from 304 to 430 frames.
All 11 clips were ok.

Overall stats:
17/17 Canon preview clips were ok.
18/21 ml preview clips had the issue.

Notes:
1. When the clip is bad, it is usually bad all the way through, with alternating good and bad frames. Maybe 3 or 4 times, it was only bad for part of the clip.
2. In all but one of the bad clips, the tear was near the top of the frame, so if there was no motion there (static background) it wouldn't be noticed.

Let me know if you need more info/testing.

Yea, we need to find out whats up with this tearing. Is it only happening in crop mode?

How many frames did it affect? Was it possible to patch by doubling the alternating good frames?

Crop mode: I was only shooting in crop mode that day. I will try to do some testing.
How many frames:  Hard to do an exact count, but substantial, I suspect it is 50%, though not always visible (see symptoms listed below).
Patching: If you fixed it by substitution it would get very jerky, since there were so many.

One thing I notice is that the part of the frame that is torn is leading; in other words it is identical to that portion of the frame in the follwing frame. The tearing is only visible when there is motion, i.e. panning (as in the first sample above) or motion by the subject (girl's head in second sample above). This is why only the girl's head is affected and not the background; really the background is too, but you can't see it because the background is not moving.

So to sum up actual symptoms:
1: Frames alternate between good and bad.
2: Each bad frame contains part of the following (good) frame. These portions seem to consist of a horizontal strip (or strips; in one frame I saw two of them) running across the width of the frame. The strip can vary in height and location.

Yup! I had exactly this problem in crop mode also a couple of days ago. Its weird it only affects the head and a part of the torso while the background is intact. It alternates between frames. Ok/split/ok/split/..etc.

Problem was I can't replicate it as to what triggered it.

Which build?

Using the TL 2/23 build
Crop mode 1795x1008
23.976fps

I shot three clips. The first and the third were flawless. The second was full of these (these are crops):



In the first one the tear goes through the whole frame.
In the second one it only affects the girl's head.

I'm a bit late to the party but I just got the 7D and a Lexar 1000x. Does the nightly build have all the same features as 1%'s latest tl.bot-fly.com build, and which is more stable/free of pink frames? Usually I'd take the time to read the most of the thread but I have a music video shoot in two days that I REALLY want to shoot in MLV with the 7D, so I'm kinda winging it here.

On the previous page of this thread there is a rundown according to one tester (ted ramasola):
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=7503.2425

The other thing is that, if you are shooting H264/mov (as opposed to raw) your image will suffer if it has too much information in it, i.e. a wide shot with a lot of detail, such as tree foliage. The camera's encoder can only handle so much detail per frame before it starts breaking down. That's why a shallow dof close-up looks nice and sharp and your landscapes look less so.

I need 23.976 fps to get continuous recording at near hi def (1792 or something), but ml for 7D is giving me 29.97 fps with no override that I can find.
So ml for 7D doesn't have fps override right now, but tl does?

If you're filming a projection on a screen, won't you have difficulty syncing the camera's frame rate with the projector's?
I wonder if you could do some kind of macro setup with a slow frame rate and crank the film through a frame at a time?

Get a faster lens
OR
use more light
OR
use noise reduction software in post

VisionLog is for flat the image. Using a LUT is a good start for start to grading and with this the image will look more sharp/details/contrast...

Yes, I usually do a curve or levels or something, but I ended up liking the look as it was in this case. Another reason it's low contrast is I was shooting through a (not very clean) glass door.
One thing I've been thinking about recently is how the medium we work in can't match the dynamic range our eyes can cover looking at the real world, so to simulate a similar amount of information we can make the image flat. It's not to every taste but it's one approach.

Shot on the 7D with mlv crop mode in 1856 upped to 1920.
Used visionlog in acr and did no further grading. Looks a bit pale but I think it fits the material.

Sorry if this is something I should have read about somewhere (I tried to find it) but I just downloaded the latest (magiclantern-v2.3.NEXT.2014Feb14.7D203) and it's missing a bunch of modules, including the mlv ones. Is that normal?

OK, so all the rest of the mlvs processed to dng no problem.

I tried the problematic mlv in 1.8.2 again and got the same error message again.

As I said, when I use mlv2dng by itself it will process the mlv, just not when called by your app.

Hi Tony,

Trying 1.8.2.

Got an error "mlv2dng.exe has stopped working"
It had finished two mlvs and was starting a third when it crashed. No dngs were produced for the third file before the crash. The third file was the first spanned file of the bunch (.MLV, .M00). The first two files were not spanned.

Full text of error in case it helps:

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:   APPCRASH
  Application Name:   mlv2dng.exe
  Application Version:   0.0.0.0
  Application Timestamp:   521e7f97
  Fault Module Name:   mlv2dng.exe
  Fault Module Version:   0.0.0.0
  Fault Module Timestamp:   521e7f97
  Exception Code:   c0000005
  Exception Offset:   0000aef0
  OS Version:   6.0.6002.2.2.0.768.3
  Locale ID:   1033
  Additional Information 1:   fd00
  Additional Information 2:   ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160
  Additional Information 3:   fd00
  Additional Information 4:   ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160

I'll try running mlv2dng standalone in case that clarifies the issue.

Update: dropping the mlv on mlv2dng standalone worked fine. When my other files are done processing I'll try 1.8.2 on it again.

hey guys, i'm having some trouble with at least two mlv files, once they output the .raw or the .dng and the .wav file, the dngs are ok, they last about 1405 frames wich is about 58.6 seconds in 23.976, but the wav file that mlv dump outputs only lasts 37 seconds, any idea why this is happening? do you think i'm doing something wrong? or mlv dump has some kind of bug?

Did you fill up your card? If so, you may have lost the audio that was in the buffer that hadn't been written to the card yet (at least, that is my understanding of what can happen in some cases).

Are you able to use dynamic link with your After Effects/Premiere (like with Production Premium)?
If so, you can work with proxies in Premiere and then substitute dng image sequences in After Effects for grading and final output.

Ey! Thanks for all the work.
One thing, that maybe it's my fault, when I try to load a multiple file MLV (mlv, ml0...) is just loads the first one and the other files, please check the screenshoot attached.

Is there anything I could to so all the files are loaded?

ps - I also have problems with the WAV extraction, because I'm with a 50D....

Best,

Xermán

That is normal behavior. All files will be processed, but it only shows you the .MLV files in the window. The M00, M01 etc. get merged with the .MLV as part of the extraction process.

With the latest version:

-I have full fill a 8GB card and it produce 2 files, .MLV and .M00  Wend i convert  and arrives to 100%  he will pass from it and then it show a error message... if i click "continues"  the progress bar will continuous above 100% and showing the same error. If i quit he ask me if i really want to quiet, i chose no and then after a few seconds the app shut down. 

The folder here are the dng's are only with 4,5GB... i think is not merging correct the split MLV files.

I just ran a .MLV and a .M00 through it and they merged with no problem.