MLV App 1.14 - All in one MLV Video Post Processing App [Windows, Mac and Linux]

[Macke1]

i have tried to record a time-lapse today, 3 fps and mlv raw movie, when I import it to mlv app the movie is shifting from frame 1-2-1-3-1-4-1-5 and so on. I can't post movie in the forum to show you (don't know how)

[Macke1]

https://youtu.be/2vdMywoZ9oY

[masc]

Could you please upload a shortend version of this MLV for analysis? Maybe 10 frames or so? The frame counter counts the frames up, so I would think the MLV itself has a problem. Have you tried to export to DNG via mlv_dump or MLVFS?

[Macke1]

how do I do that?' it works perfect without mlv raw

[masc]

Set CutIn & CutOut to 1 and e.g. 10, export as MLV.

[Macke1]

https://youtu.be/s6Z9QWf0tLc

[Macke1]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=17Cwk49UzOonwycr1rL9KVAFMAnEfbxAN

[ilia3101]

Ah this must be a magic lantern bug. I had this on my 5D2 a few years ago, I was also trying to shoot a timelapse at low fps in video mode. Why? I don't know. Much better to shoot timelapse with intervalometer.

[Skinny]

But in video mode you can use 360-degree shutter speed, and this will give you a very smooth and good-looking timelapse. With intervalometer, there is a time when the frame is being saved, and the camera basically waits, so it is not perfect.. at least I think so.

[heder]

Hi
Question to the MLVApp@devs. Im working on mlv_lite for 40d, but in currently stuck. The frame order in my files are incorrect, this can happen to all cameras, but how is MLVApp Sorting the frames, by timestamp ?.i use mlv_ dump to covert the mlv so I can load the files into MLVApp, but no matter what i do, the frame order is incorrect so i suspect i bug in my source.

[masc]

@Macke1: thanks for the upload. I checked in MLVApp and in MLVFS (which uses mlv_dump):
both apps show the identical frames, so it is very sure there was something wrong when recording in camera. This could be a 5D2 ML bug, as Ilia also told.

[masc]

Hi
Question to the MLVApp@devs. Im working on mlv_lite for 40d, but in currently stuck. The frame order in my files are incorrect, this can happen to all cameras, but how is MLVApp Sorting the frames, by timestamp ?.i use mlv_ dump to covert the mlv so I can load the files into MLVApp, but no matter what i do, the frame order is incorrect so i suspect i bug in my source.

I'll try to answer and hope the info is correct... @bouncyball could correct me, because he implemented it to MLVApp.
I think MLVApp uses the variable timestamp in struct mlv_vers_hdr_t to sort the frames. See video_mlv.c line 1771 and following, and 1834.
BTW: great work @heder!

[adrjork]

Hi everybody and MANY congras to the author of this wonderful piece of software. MLV App is definitively in my workflow.
My question: I work on RAW files from 5D3, and I'm using MLV App to obtain Prores Proxy files to make a preliminary/sketchy grade in Davinci. I tried 3 Profiles: Alexa, Cineon and BMDfilm. My first impression is that with a bit of patience, you can achieve the same result with the 3 profiles. But since I'd convert a big bunch of RAWs with a single profile – for convenience – I'm try to understand which is the "good-enough-for-every-shot" profile that is possibly also a "less-nodes-for-a-good-grade" profile!
In short, my question is: which profile do you recommend (to be graded after in Davinci)?
I try to elaborate (forgive the non-technical terms):
A) Cineon seems to compress the histogram slightly pushing it towards the right (that should be good because it "saves" informations in a no-noise area);
B) Alexa does a similar thing but toward the left (theoretically not good because it's a noisy area, right?);
C) BMDfilm instead stretches the histogram with blacks starting on the very left.
It seems to me that BMD gives the fastest "couple-of-clics" good result (after Davinci grading) because of its contrasty histogram and "filmy" tone, BUT (for my taste) it's more difficult to obtain a less-contrasted look, and grass-greens seem to be flattened into a single unnatural color (even in Davinci...)
For my taste, Cineon and Alexa logs give the most pleasant results (always after Davinci grading): Alexa is faster for grading dark shots without great contrast (where Cineon adds always a bit of "halo"), whilst Cineon wins hands down in highly contrasted shots, also thanks to a creamy/screeny/gaussian rendition of lights when near to clipping.
For these first-and-rapid impressions, I'd decide go for Cineon for converting all my shots into proxies, but I'd like to know what you think about. Any advice?
Thanks a lot.

[Luther]

I just use Reinhardt with AP1 matrix. Increase saturation and play with curves. This is the fastest way of processing.
I used to use Log-C, but skin midtones gets trashed for some reason.

[adrjork]

I just use Reinhardt with AP1 matrix. Increase saturation and play with curves. This is the fastest way of processing.
I used to use Log-C, but skin midtones gets trashed for some reason.

Thanks a lot, Luther. But I understand that your advice refers to grading directly into MLV App, right? My bad: I didn't specify correctly my former question: actually my question is «Which profile do you recommend (to be graded after in Davinci)?» (Now I correct the question also in my former message.)
i.e. my idea is to find which log profile outputs the best "log-proxy-for-room-grading-in-davinci-with-few-nodes" file (so that once I'll finish grading in prores, I should be able to replace the proxies with the DNGs having the possibility of obtaining a very similar – or even the same – result.)

[Danne]

One way of thinking is to closely match the rec709 starting point in resolve and the do all further grading in resolve. Hard to match logs and color spaces between these programs.
See Reply #4144

[Luther]

Which profile do you recommend (to be graded after in Davinci)?

You're better off just converting to CDNG and processing directly on Resolve using ACES.
If you don't want to do that, I'd go with Alexa Log-C.

[adrjork]

Thanks Danne and Luther!

I'd go with Alexa Log-C.

Ah, that's interesting: is yours a genuine preference, or is there some reason to prefer Alexa Log over Cineon Log (with Alexa gamut)?

@Danne: Thanks again for your replay. Your advice is perfect, but actually I don't try to match the "proxy-grade" with the following "DNG-grade", I simply (and perhaps naively) try to have a "good-to-grade" proxy that gives me as room as possible to be graded in Davinci, and at the same time is as easy as possible to be graded. Rec.709 doesn't give to me the same room as a log profile. (Obviously, once I'll replace the proxies with the DNGs I'll have to remake all the grading... But I can image that DNGs will give me "at least" the same room as the proxies – naturally a much more large room.)

[Danne]

I would grade the proxies directly in resolve. Rec709 - to whatever in resolve using nodes. In the end attach the full dng stream.
On a sidenote I don't see why you won't export proxies directly from resolve if you still gonna use dng files in the end. Mixing programs will be far from correct imo.

[adrjork]

I would grade the proxies directly in resolve. Rec709 - to whatever in resolve using nodes.

Thanks as always, Danne.

On a sidenote I don't see why you won't export proxies directly from resolve if you still gonna use dng files in the end. Mixing programs will be far from correct imo.

You are right, Danne, it's not a strictly correct workflow. The reason is that MLVs are stored in an old external RAID that for "safety" reason I'd like to keep turned off during the long time of the proxy-editing (so, no MLVFS). If I had enought space I would have converted directly MLVs into DNGs, but I haven't (I'll have only the space to convert into DNGs those MLVs I'll verify – with the proxies – they will be actually used in the final editing). So the only thing I can do now is converting all the MLVs into small Prores Proxies, then trying an editing "hypothesis", then re-converting the fewer corresponding shots from MLVs to DNGs to remake both the editing and the grading.
For me, at the moment, it's important that the Prores Proxies give me simply an "idea" of the DNG-grading, not a strict method for replacing the proxies with the DNGs.

[Danne]

Well, good luck solving your issues. Whatever proxy export chosen you need to match starting point as close as possible in resolve, color space, gamma etc.

[adrjork]

Well, good luck solving your issues.

Psychiatrically speaking? Ahahah...

Whatever proxy export chosen you need to match starting point as close as possible in resolve, color space, gamma etc.

Perfect! I'll do so. Thanks a lot.

[adrjork]

Some limit in number of MLVs uploadable into MLV-App?
That's what happened to me: I tried to upload about 400 MLVs (about 3.3 TB) into a single MLV App. The App uploads correctly all the MLVs, then I select all them and clic the export button (prores code). The exporting bar appears saying something like "in preparation", and I can see the Cut in/out panel changing rapidly the "out" number (because the App is rapidly reading the MLVs durations, clip by clip, as expected). After passing about 200 MLVs, suddenly the App slows down dramatically (i.e. the Cut out numbers changes, but VERY slowly), the computer's processors seem not working anymore (iStat menus), instead the external RAID (with the MLVs) is still noisy but the App seems dead.
If I open another parallel instance of MLV-App, and I upload a single MLV to be converted (just for test), this parallel instance works without problems.
My question: is it possible that a single MLV-App has a limit of 200 uploadable MLVs?
Thanks.

[masc]

@adrjork: yes there is a limit, but it should be 2^31 or something, so much more than 200. Myself I have often projects with 500+ MLV files.
When you start to export, MLVApp has to open each MLV file to get the number of frames and sum them up, just to make ETR working. If you enable MAPP files, and created them before, this will be very fast, if not then it will be very slow. You could check "Create MAPP files" and trigger the acion "Create all MAPP files now" from the menu before exporting. Have you activated each file once before exporting (just to see all is fine)?
Anyway: the app should never stop working. You are on OSX?

[adrjork]

Hi masc, thanks for your kind reply.
I'm on OSX.
I have a total of 3400 mlvs (much less than 2^31). My initial idea was to open 10 instances of MLV-App, each one with 340 loaded mlvs, and let all the 10 instances working in parallel. Up to now, it works only if the total amount of the MLVs is 200 (i.e. 200 for a single running App, or a total of 200 distributed between the parallel running Apps).
Up to now I never used MAPP, but now I'll test it.
I've just tried to create MAPP files for all the mlvs uploaded: I uploaded 348 mlvs in a single App, then "Create all MAPP...": all went rapidly until 200th/250th mlv, then the App slowed down dramatically...