Is there any reason NOT to get ML?

[fabre8]

Hello, I am still very new in the ML community and I would like some things cleared up before I make up my mind:

I have been working with the 5d MKIII professionally for about a year now, I produce about a film a week, all on 'out the box' settings on the camera. (recording at H264, 23.976 fps, all that jazz) I have considered getting Magic Lantern to start shooting in that sweet RAW format, I am extremely confident in MkIII operation and I could do it with my eyes closed, and to be honest, when I am grading that H264 footage it's starting to make my eyes hurt with all that quality just being lost to correction. I know that RAW is the solution to my eyesore, but I also need a system in which I can record an hour of footage on the fly without having to worry about write speeds. Would I be able to alternate between RAW and .H264 easily on ML? If it is the case that I can switch between the two easily, is there any reason NOT to get ML? Also, The camera I use belongs to the company I work for, so would I be able to remove ML as easily as I put it on? (I am the only person to use it, so it IS my baby).

I currently have 2 CF cards with 32Gb of memory, write speed of 60MB/s (sanDisk Extreme); they seem a bit lacking, would they be able to write RAW recording easily? (Otherwise what would you, season veterans of the ML world, recommend?)

I know I am asking a lot, and that with the right research I can find out all I need, but working full time and always on the field, I don't have much time to look at all the options; which is why I decided to condense it all in this questionnaire.

[walter_schulz]

is there any reason NOT to get ML?

Yes. One reason is documented.
The other not so well and I will try to explain: You need a lot of time to work out ML's various options and might require some reading and some effort. And documentation is IMO one point ML has left some room for improvement. And you will find the community to react rather sloppy (or not at all) to questions covered in FAQ, User Guide and sticky threads.

[fabre8]

You need a lot of time to work out ML's various options and might require some reading and some effort.

Thanks for the reply! So am I right in assuming that it's not an exact science and that I'll have to find out for myself by just playing around with it? I think it'll just be a case of taking the camera home over the weekend and playing around with the different options available. My main concern being that it will let me down whilst filming someone important. (in those cases I have veeeeery little time for setups)

Is it also the case with the CF situation? would my CF setup be suitable for such recordings, or is there absolutely no way to tell because of the open source-ness of the whole thing?

Thanks!

[Datadogie]

You can if you want only put ML on one card for experimenting  with  any other card without will function as normal.

[Walter Schulz]

Please tell the whole story ...

[fabre8]

You can if you want only put ML on one card for experimenting

Can I not just boot/unboot ML from the camera itself instead of switching cards?

Also, is there any option to choose the codec on ML? You know, switching between recording formats like .Mov H264 and RAW?

[pv25pv]

if i wanna write raw i insert the sd(with ml files inside)...if i wanna write mov. i take out the sd..simple as that

[fabre8]

if i wanna write raw i insert the sd(with ml files inside)...if i wanna write mov. i take out the sd..simple as that

Oh wow, I never thought of that! Can I put ML on an SD card AND record RAW on the SD? I though it was limited to CF cards.

Might I ask what is the capacity and write speed of your SD card?

[dmilligan]

He means use both an SD and CF card. Record raw to the CF card, and the SD card just basically contains ML. Just use a slow, small, cheap SD card for ML.
Other alternatives:
- you can hold SET on startup to not load ML
- toggle raw video on/off from the ML menu
- use different config presets by holding specific buttons down on startup

[fabre8]

Thanks for this, dmiligan, I am pretty much sold on using ML, I don't see why I wouldnt use it!

On the last thing I need cleared up though, would my current CF setup be fast enough to record RAW?

I currently have 2 CF cards with 32Gb of memory, write speed of 60MB/s (sanDisk Extreme)

[dmilligan]

You probably need to be more specific about "fast enough to record RAW". To answer your question literally, yes, pretty much any speed is fast enough to "record" raw (for at least a couple of seconds). However, you probably mean: "fast enough to record 1080p continuously", and that answer is no. Required speed for continuous recording is:
W * H * FPS * 14 / 8 / (2^20) MB/s

so for 1080p 24fps, that would be:
1920 * 1080 * 24 * 14 / 8 / (2^20) = 83 MB/s

With 60MB/s you won't be able to record 1080p continuously, but you would be able to record until the internal buffer fills up (so maybe around a minute or two), or you can record a lower resolution (it will be a crop though, and not the full FOV).

[fabre8]

Oh wow! Thanks for that, yep, I meant continuous.

Completely solved all my questions, thank you! Never realized such as thing as this amazing formula existed!

One quick question regarding the formula though, just so I understand:

the 14/8/(2^20) part of this forumla, what do the numbers represent? I can speculate that the 14 is the Bit Depth and the 8 is the number of Bytes in a bit, but what is the 2^20 representing?

I may be off the mark, but I would love to know!!!

[Rewind]

what is the 2^20 representing?

Bits converted to megabytes (2^20 = 1024*1024)