5D3 14-bit, 4k upload, grade and edit in Resolve 14

[allemyr]

Hi Magic Lantern members,

I get better at grading raw footage all the time I think. Started to upload to Youtube 4k instead of Vimeo since i like the quality of youtube now a bit more.

Just did a quick edit from some clips during some months, nothing special maybe but quite awesome quailty this camera with ML has to offer.

Have followed Juan Melaras in colorgrading some years and I really appriciate his blog and grading tips tried to use them here.

Think the footage looks good even though it's upscaled in Davinci Resolve from 1080p to UHD

Best Regards

Karl

[manoj.palanivelu]

fantastic!

I could not get 4k working in 5d3.

I am new to magic lantern and can you share your work flow starting from camera settings?

I downloaded crop_rec build from https://builds.magiclantern.fm/experiments.html and tried using crop rec with mlv_lt.


Appreciate your help!

Thanks,
Manoj

[allemyr]

Hi!

Thanks for your reply.

This footage is just upscaled to 4k, it's shot in 1080p 14-bit.

The reason I upscale it, is because of Youtube compresseion differences between 4k and 1080p. The 4k does have more! then 4 times the bitrate i suspect compared to 1080p. And even if you watch it at 1080p the 4k upload, the footage looks better then a 1080p upload watched in 1080p. But I think Davinci Resolve does an excellent job at upscaling, ofcourse you see it in some parts in the image that it's upscaled but its looking so much better then 1080p at Youtube. Why I don't bother with Vimeo anymore is that you have to pay a lot for large file uploads, I think the only plan that suits me is business and its crazy expensive. Even the Pro is limited, I'am a plus member right now just to have my old videos there.

Sorry to say, but I'am maybe the wrong person to answer the in camera 4k feature, in my opinion it isn't worth it. Upscaled 1080p looks fine!

1080p at 14-bit in 5D3 RAW is around 800mbit/s the A7sII i guess is 50mbit/s so the size is enough for me. 4k 14-bit would be 3200mbit/s in a camera which for me is too much to store.

4k is nice ofcourse, but a big hype mainly. 1080p is fine if it wasn't for the compression on youtube and vimeo that they produce...

Happy ML RAW shooting!

[Filipe Samora]

Superb! Couldn't tell it was upscaled, the detail is so crisp. Do you use any third-party plug-in for upscaling?

[manoj.palanivelu]

Sorry to say, but I'am maybe the wrong person to answer the in camera 4k feature, in my opinion it isn't worth it. Upscaled 1080p looks fine!

1080p at 14-bit in 5D3 RAW is around 800mbit/s the A7sII i guess is 50mbit/s so the size is enough for me. 4k 14-bit would be 3200mbit/s in a camera which for me is too much to store.

4k is nice ofcourse, but a big hype mainly. 1080p is fine if it wasn't for the compression on youtube and vimeo that they produce...

Happy ML RAW shooting!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Makes perfect sense. After a week of test I tend to agree with you, Tried 1080p raw @45 fps and up-scaled to 2k. I was not sure how 4K up-scale would like. May be I should try that now.

I don't think 4K will be practical for me in an actual project  huge file size for few mins, compromise in fps  etc.

Thanks,
Manoj

[allemyr]

Hi, sorry for late reply.

No plugin, only Davinci Resolve 14 Studio.

I was thinking of making a tutorial about Davinci Resolve, for ML users since they often unfourtunately use Adobe Camera Raw/Lightroom for processing CDNG. Which is not very good or efficent.

Maybe it won't be popular since many users are using other cameras now.

I know cameras like the Ursa mini and similar BMD cameras, can shoot, 14 bit 4k but the filesize of that scares me off.

[Lars Steenhoff]

Adobe Raw converter is actually very good, its just more steps and slower, thats why I also use resolve.
But if I wanted the best quality I would not hesitate to use after effects with adobe raw converter.

[allemyr]

OK, the debayer quality is good in my opinion from Camera RAW in After Effects, but efficient? Sorry but I don't think so.

In this forum Davinci Resolve has a really bad reputation because how people that doesn't like Resolve use it, to get the image quality they get out from Resolve.

About the efficiency:

I get 0.7 fps when exporting ungraded footage from After Effects with Camera RAW

I get 95 fps when exporting ungraded footage with Davinci Resolve.

Yes both apps is upp to date and timeline resolution in this case is 1080p, Davinci Resolve is 135X faster then AE and Camera RAW in my case.

My PC spec are, some GPUs, a standard clock 6850k processor 128gb ram and a sata SSD 850 EVO

I think the image quality from both might be same but Resolve has easy editing possiblities and the grading possiblitites is far superior in Resolve.

I know people use Camera RAW, for ML raw video, it wasn't my point to be mean, but Davinci Resolve 14 is 135X faster then camera raw on a PC that costs way less then an Imac Pro or something.

[allemyr]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Makes perfect sense. After a week of test I tend to agree with you, Tried 1080p raw @45 fps and up-scaled to 2k. I was not sure how 4K up-scale would like. May be I should try that now.

I don't think 4K will be practical for me in an actual project  huge file size for few mins, compromise in fps  etc.

Thanks,
Manoj

To clear it out, I upscale to 4k since Youtube it gives you higher quality of the stream that way. 2k and 1080p is almost identical in the amount of pixel, so I don't really understand. Maybe you could get worse quality upscale with 2k because you stretch all pixels just a tiny bit and create new ones. 4k or better UHD, is exactly twice the amount of pixels then 1080p.

You can just compare to my example uploaded to youtube image quality wise.

I think it looks great and prefer the 14-bit files to grade then anything else. You see that the image is upscaled in some parts of the image, on a 4k display. But its way better quality then a uploaded 1080p video which is streamed at 1080p on Youtube.

[timbytheriver]

I was thinking of making a tutorial about Davinci Resolve, for ML users …
Maybe it won't be popular since many users are using other cameras now.

Yes please! I'd certainly be interested to see your '4k' workflow.

[IDA_ML]

I was thinking of making a tutorial about Davinci Resolve, for ML users since they often unfourtunately use Adobe Camera Raw/Lightroom for processing CDNG. Which is not very good or efficent.

I have also been agonizing on the best and efficient workflow using Resolve.  I would be particularly interested in how to archive my MLV files (ProRes 444, ProresFast 4444, 422, NHxDR ? ? ?) in such manner that, on one hand, file size is significantly reduced, on the other hand, files open and play fast in Resolve and stand serious corrections and grading without noticeable quality degradation.  Now that we have 12 and 14-bit losslessly compressed MLV-files right out of the camera and such wonderful tools for cDNG conversion and basic adjustments (MLVFS, MLVP, MLVApp, etc.) a video tutorial on how to use this arsenal of tools with Resolve would be more than welcome and greatly appreciated.

[allemyr]

Yes, might be cool to make a tutorial, I'am not an expert for shure but some people might find it helpful. And we can helt each other out, even thought this camera with ML RAW is getting seriously old, but holds up

I would only go for a LOG "look" contrast for saving space after shooting and transferred to PC for storage over longer time. I think the best thing to edit will always be the CDNG files. I know that Prores is some sort of standard, but Apple isn't giving the codec away to Windows users and I think its only a few very expensive apps that have support for it, one is BMD Fusion. So I use Windows and there fore use DNxHR which works on Mac OS aswell, and also works on Youtube/Vimeo thought I only see DNxHD on this page. https://ffmpeg.org/general.html

For storage saving and backup on computer I would go for a codec like DNxHR UHD HQX 422, which is 12-bit and takes a lot less space then 16-bit cdng files. Don't know if DNxHR has 10-bit availible, can't find it right now. Wouldn't bother with 8-bit codec anything for grading purpose only as a deliever format. I know how A7s 2 footage shot in LOG has problem with "banding" because of 8-bit, so its quite much harder to grade even though the A7s I/II sensor is superb.

I often use Smart Render Cache in Davinci Resolve to get the realtime playback after some grading in Resolve. And yes without grading Davinci Resolve plays a 4k/UHD timeline from CDNG files at realtime playback. So if you don't have that now, you could add parts to your PC for better playback, like a better GPU and a SSD.

I think that those apps is cool like the MLVApp, but the only thing I need is a basic MLV to CNDG and audio conversion tool, the raw2cdng app has mostly worked flawlessly, and for now I use the way old version from Chmee. It's the raw2cdng 1.5.0 Beta7 I work for now. and before that I was using 1.6.1 which stopped working on latest update on Windows 10 Pro and Windows 8.1 Pro.

Happy ML RAW shooting

/ Karl

[timbytheriver]

I'm on mac here – but thanks for sharing your tips anyhow!

Tim

[allemyr]

Yes the only thing thats different with Mac is the MLV conversionand that you can't add parts that easily.

In Davinci Resolve the workflow is the same, and I think Prores and DNxHD is very similiar.

But yes its late (2018) so I maybe won't do a tutorial.