MLVFS - a FUSE based, "on the fly" MLV to CDNG converter

[slowlearner28]

I have a much older version of MLVFS.workflow which didn't spit out virtual files with the extra MLV part. I'm going to try opening that in Xcode and find the same section of code that Dan pointed out, and copy and replace into the latest version. Will post back hopefully with a successful result!

And if you're thinking, why don't I just use this older version of MLVFS, unfortunately it has a bug that makes the number of the month one month earlier. So I'm still back to square one with the virtual file names not matching the Windows version.

[dmilligan]

The MLV is supposed to be in the name, the surprising thing is that it reportedly isn't on Windows, unfortunately I can't even verify the claim that that's the behavior on Windows, much less debug it.

[johannsebastianbach]

Hey guys

I wanted to open my MLVFS virtual drive (OSX) in Davinci Resolve, but when I do Resolve "hangs" and by looking on the Activity Monitor MLVFS reads bytes very slowly, it would take ages. It's no problem when I import cDNGs, so I´m guessing it wants to read/playback all the data (200 GB) trough before just open the clips in the media pool. (I think the AE workflow shows the same behavior, but its way faster)

I just wanted to have a space friendly workflow and only open the MLV and render it out in Resolve to ProRes without doubling the size with export to cDNGs!

[EDIT]
Never mind, I tried it again and resolve was stuck for like a minute but afterwards it went on and showed the clips

[bouncyball]

The MLV is supposed to be in the name, the surprising thing is that it reportedly isn't on Windows, unfortunately I can't even verify the claim that that's the behavior on Windows, much less debug it.

The windows shows "M05-1725MLV_1_2016-12-05_0001_C0000_000000.dng" as expected. Latest MLVFS with latest dokan.

bb

[slowlearner28]

@bouncyball: Can you tell me how you got the latest version of Dokan to work with MLVFS? I've installed Dokan 1.0.2 but nothing happens when I enter the usual commands in the Command Prompt. Thanks!

[togg]

A couple of things:

1) It doesn't work while targetting the same drive. Expected behaviour right?

2) How does fixed pattern noise works? What about chroma smoothing?

3) Is the latest release from 1 years ago?

thanks for the nice development

[dmilligan]

1. I'm not sure what you mean

2. https://bitbucket.org/dmilligan/mlvfs/src/9f8191808407bb49112b9ab14c27053ae5022749/mlvfs/patternnoise.c?at=master
https://bitbucket.org/dmilligan/mlvfs/src/9f8191808407bb49112b9ab14c27053ae5022749/mlvfs/chroma_smooth.c?at=master

3. 2016-5-31

[Danne]

1) It doesn't work while targetting the same drive. Expected behaviour right?

I,m pretty sure he refers to when first selecting a folder with MLV files and then select the very same folder which should be the empty one(not MLV file folder again). Causes MLVFS to freeze(loop?). Maybe put in a bash/apple script notification when this mistake takes place and exit automator?

[togg]

On the same drive, not even the same folder. Everything starts to go wrong yes.

[bouncyball]

On the same drive, not even the same folder. Everything starts to go wrong yes.

Assuming you are on windows, mounting MLVFS to existing drive is _wrong_. Choose unused drive letter. Z: is very safe choice.

[reddeercity]

On PC you can use 2 systems to mount mlv's , one uses the method of Virtual Drive , that's run on a simple cmd prompt here is the setup for PC with the web gui ,
I made a short video tutorial about how to install and run it's about halfway down the page.
The other way is to "quick mount" with Prismo , It was dropped in favor of the MAC Style Web GUI where you can have a B/W preview and adjust different raw features.
I made a old video tutorial about Quick Mount Prismo , watch it here -->

With the quick mount Yes you can mount mlv's anywhere on the PC from CF/SD Cards to Local or external drives even will works on Net storage drives e.g. "freenas" boxes etc... .
Great right ! will the only problem no way to access the mlvfs options easy like the web gui , but if options are not needed , Quick Mount is very useful works very well with resolve A.E. etc... .
I should mention thou that if you use a "NAS" for storage of mlv's and are thinking of quick mounting then it is a "must" to have very fast drives, e.g. raid "0" or "5" and not to mention
a least a 1Gb/s (1000Mb/s) Network , which mean about 80-120 MB/s R/W and of course lots of ram(16GB Min. in the nas) .
In my case I have a ZFS configured 3.5 TB with LZ4 compression raid 5 (5-1tb 7200rpm drives) (similar to mac's journaled format)
and I can't tell any different between locally or on the nas . I should also mention that you can map to your Network drive for mlvfs web gui version just like you would locally to a
internally HD or SSD .
Related information to install Pismo quick mount
Download and install PFMAP, and then register the MLV formatter DLL:

Code: [Select]

pfm register mlvfs.dllhttps://bitbucket.org/dmilligan/mlvfs/downloads/mlvfs.dll
http://pismotec.com/download/archive/pfm-171-testing-win.exe

I have Pismo ver.171 installed on my pc/win7pro , you could use newer ones I think never tried thou.

I recommend PC Ver. MLVFS Web GUI , as Pismo does have problems on large volume of mlv's and will lockup.
In my opinion it's great to quickly check a few files here and there but as a main pipeline no way . 

[togg]

I'm on mac! I'll come back to this when I'll get my hands on a 5D III

[dmilligan]

There's no problem having the target directory and the mount directory on the same logical or physical drive (I develop MLVFS almost exclusively this way). What could be problematic would be having the the mount directory somewhere inside the target directory.

You'll have to be much more specific than simply "everything starts to go wrong".

[togg]

I will in 3-4 days, promise! Thanks for the help so far. I just wanted to understand globally what new options there are now.

[arboldeconfianza]

Hi! in this last time i try with differents workflows and scripts in linux, today i running MLVFS and is amazing, but i cant use the webGUI, that is the problem! --->


webgui: scanning /home/tushita/MLV//...
webgui.c:120:load_resource(): fopen error: 'html_template.html': No such file or directory
webgui: scanning /home/tushita/MLV//favicon.ico...
webgui.c:120:load_resource(): fopen error: 'html_template.html': No such file or directory

maybe somebody can  help me!, and other question is, what is the best way to copy this DNG to other folder, i have windows too and can use lightroom or adobe after effects with this DNG, but take to much time in copy!, i try the make my workflow in linux  with MLVFS and MLVCONV, buy i need resolve change the DNG to NEUTRAL for this i have dependecies with LIGHTROOM,thank you for the attention..


PD:sorry for my english!

[dmilligan]

The files in the mlvfs/data folder must be in the current working directory when you launch mlvfs.

Code: [Select]

make
cd data
../mlvfs <options>


but take to much time in copy!

What kind of speed are you getting? How fast is the drive? Are you copying to the same drive the MLVs are on? What processing options turned on? What's CPU usage of MLVFS like?

[arboldeconfianza]

@dmilligan perfect i can use the webgui now, but i dont see changes with give differents values, the changs is in the metadata?

(linux)
Sincerely my computer is the laptop i5 6gb ram and sata disk, is not the really computer prepared for render, but i try the see what a i can make, but in windows i cant use mlvfs for i cant install dokany to much problems of dependecys, maybe is more easy have mlvfs running in windows and i don need copy the archives, the velocity of copy es 768kb/s and i have only one sata in my computer,  CPU usage is 25% i try put more priority but nothing happen, in my terminal mlvfs open one by one dngs when copy, proccess dual-iso, i wish that information help!, thank you for the attention!


(windows)
mlvfs run good with PFM but i dont know where is the place for changes values and proccess DUAL-ISO!

[dmilligan]

Dual ISO processing is very slow, not much you can do about that, the algorithm is very complex. MLVFS uses basically the same code as cr2hdr and performance is about the same. You can change some of the dual ISO options to make things a little faster, but quality will be reduced. There's a preview mode that is very fast, but quality is very low.

[tweak]

I tried out MLVFS on my old Macbook 2013 in Resolve but it was too slow so gave it a miss. Now I've come back to it with a brand new 15inch MBP and Resolve and although it plays back fine, in Reslove all the clips have a blue cast to them... Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

[ZakWestbrook]

When I right click and click MLVFS it puts them into "New (MLVFS Mount)" application. It also opens the web browser but nothing comes up. Any thoughts on why they're opening directly in the app and not on the browser window?

[dmilligan]

I don't know what you mean by "them", "they're" or "app". Maybe post a screenshot(s) or video.

[mattcraigthomas]

Hi dmilligan,

I love MLVFS, been using it with total reliably for the past two years or so. Absolutely fantastic tool, thank you very much for all your hard work.

I'm particularly fond of the automatic (5÷3)x vertical scale of slow motion footage when processed through ACR; that was a brilliant discovery.

I'm as yet undecided about the merits of upscaling to UHD (there are arguments for and against that I won't go into here), but if we were to do it, it would best be done at the debayering stage, just as with the (5÷3)x desqueeze.

Would you please consider adding a 200% scale toggle to the options in the web GUI?

For those of us always shooting 1920 pixels across, this would (probably, maybe) give us the best possible 3840 pixel wide image for when mixing with natively shot higher resolution footage and/or finishing in UHD.

Much appreciated, thank you!

[dmilligan]

it would best be done at the debayering stage, just as with the (5÷3)x

The vertical scale thing is just metadata (and not all raw processors even honor it).
As far as scaling goes, there's no reason to do it before debayering. It could be done as part of debayering, but MLVFS does not do debayering, and I have no intention of implementing anything like that. The only way I can even think of to upscale bayered data is to is to debayer, upscale it, then "re-bayer" it, which would be kind of silly.

[mattcraigthomas]

With respect, I think you’ve misunderstood me, dmilligan.

All I’m asking you to implement is an option to include the Adobe 200% scale metadata in the virtual CDNGs that MLVFS creates, so that the scaling can be done automatically as part of debayering with ACR, just as you have already done so with the (5÷3)x vertical scale applied to slow motion footage, although obviously that is not optional.

I really don’t think what I’m proposing is silly. If you need or want to scale from 1920 wide to 3840 wide, and you debayer with ACR through After Effects, surely this would be the best time of the post processing pipeline to do so, while you still have access to all the raw data?

[DeafEyeJedi]

...I really don’t think what I’m proposing is silly. If you need or want to scale from 1920 wide to 3840 wide, and you debayer with ACR through After Effects, surely this would be the best time of the post processing pipeline to do so, while you still have access to all the raw data?

+1