MLV to CinemaDNG

[ThomasMcNaught]

Hello community,

I recently shot a short film using Magic Lantern on my 5D Mark III, and I thought I'd do a full tutorial of my workflow – since I'm usually lurking on here, I typically see the same questions come up and wanted to share my input.

One question I have been ignoring, however, is the conversion of MLV to DNG sequences. I've ignored it for the simple fact that the software I run works flawlessly, so I've never been curious to check out anything else... until last night. Whilst typing up the workflow and trying to find relating links here on the forum, I found out that the software I used is in violation of ML's GPL license.

Of course, I no longer feel comfortable using it, and certainly do not want to talk about it in my workflow write-up.

I've been trying to find different software that works just as well, however I keep running into the same issues; the footage comes out a lot darker than how the license-violation software processed it.

The only tool I've found that gives me the same results as the unmentionable software is the original mlv_dump script, however I'm struggling to figure out how I can make this script output to /SUBFOLDER/SEQUENCE.DNG - it simply adds the subfolder name to the sequence filename.

Can anybody advise a way to use mlv_dump recursively, whilst simultaneously placing the sequence into a subfolder? Ideally, it could be incorporated into Automator.

Alternatively, if anyone can recommend an up-to-date tool for batch MLV to DNG conversion, it would be much appreciated. I can operate on both macOS and Windows.

Thank you in advanced.

Best Wishes,
Thomas

[Kharak]

I think you should try Switch (formerly known as CR2HDR) or MLVFS. Both designed and optimized for Mac computers and much more capable than your former software.

Good Luck!