GoPro CineForm Studio Premium/Pro Settings for 5D3 RAW Video

[vikado]

i've been using cineform studio premium for several weeks now for a short film we've been working on.
converting 5d mark ii h264 to 10-bit cineform. its great that it gives me much better flexibility in doing aggressive color grading.
and loving the white balance picker. saving me tons of time.

but downsampling from raw to 10-bit cineform isn't as good as raw to dng sequence using after effects.
ACR has a much better control than cineform. and i dont think cineform even has highlight recovery slider.
cineform is great for upconverting from 8-bit to 10-bit color space though.
just my two cents.

[tihon]

Can you tell me please: if i render my DNG file in After Effects to cineform 4-4-4 : it will be raw? or just compressed 12 bit 4-4-4?

[vikado]

Can you tell me please: if i render my DNG file in After Effects to cineform 4-4-4 : it will be raw? or just compressed 12 bit 4-4-4?

i dont know what you mean by raw, but cineform is a losssless (visually lossless) codec.
the only difference is that you'll be working on a 12-bit color space vs 14-bit.
the converted file will be cineform raw.
any changes you make with your footage will be done on cineform studio premium and the beautiful thing is that the meta data is imbedded within the file itself so you can reset or change the meta data within CFSP and the changes will be immediate in video editing program.

[iaremrsir]

i've been using cineform studio premium for several weeks now for a short film we've been working on.
converting 5d mark ii h264 to 10-bit cineform. its great that it gives me much better flexibility in doing aggressive color grading.
and loving the white balance picker. saving me tons of time.

but downsampling from raw to 10-bit cineform isn't as good as raw to dng sequence using after effects.
ACR has a much better control than cineform. and i dont think cineform even has highlight recovery slider.
cineform is great for upconverting from 8-bit to 10-bit color space though.
just my two cents.

Cineform Raw is 12-bit log, which means it can store the same amount of data as 16-bit linear, more than the 14-bit linear that comes from the Canon DSLR sensors. Cineform doesn't need a highlight recovery slider because it automatically restores all the highlights contained in the raw file. For proof look at the default ACR settings vs Protune with no lut. Or set the output curve to Cineon 95-685 or Custom Log 400 to gain back all dynamic range from the file.

[zachnfine]

This workflow looks very promising.

I'm finding it impossible to replicate those settings in the WHITE BALANCE panel. I can type the value for TEMP and TINT, and then as soon as I type the value for RED the TEMP value changes, same goes for BLUE. Is there some way to actually enter the values from that screenshot without other values changing along the way?

[zachnfine]

AHA! It seems one can enter all of those specified values for WHITE BALANCE and not have them cancel/modify each other if one specifies the Protune LUT in the LOOK panel (the LUT is actually named "CStyleLUT" in that panel's drop-down menu and Protune in its thumbnail preview, or at least clicking the "Protune" thumbnail applies the "CStyleLUT", which is confusing enough that I'd call it a bug).

So set that LUT first, then change the WHITE BALANCE values, I guess.

[zachnfine]

So after entering all of those values and finally getting that clip set up properly, is there a way to apply those settings across a set of imported clips? I've got approximately 10 30-second clips that were shot in one session, they're all going to get the same settings. Selecting all of them and then clicking on those panels and setting the settings only seems to have stuck for the first clip in the list. The inability to apply to a batch of clips these input and output curves, demosaic type, white balance, and LUT settings, well that's going to be a bit of a pain.

And beware, double-clicking the "Protune" thumbnail to set the LUT to CStyleLUT also pops the COLOR MATRIX back to 'SOURCE'. So after setting the LUT one has to go back up to the COLOR MATRIX panel and set it back to CUSTOM.

I've given up on setting the RED, GREEN, and BLUE settings in WHITE BALANCE. Setting TEMP and TINT to the values in the screenshot seems to leave the clip looking all right, with RED at 1.7330, GREEN at 1, and BLUE at 1.3179. Changing the individual colors to match the screenshot has had some weird effects on the value of TEMP and TINT and the overall look of the image.

To be honest, when I let the color matrix setting go back to 'SOURCE', but keep all the other settings specified in the thread, the resulting image looks a lot more like the sort of flat log curve that I'm used to working with. How were the set of color matrix settings for that screenshot derived, what was the intent?

This workflow has promise, but the software seems to want to fight me. Maybe I'll get used to it and figure out the workflow.

[vikado]

Cineform Raw is 12-bit log, which means it can store the same amount of data as 16-bit linear, more than the 14-bit linear that comes from the Canon DSLR sensors. Cineform doesn't need a highlight recovery slider because it automatically restores all the highlights contained in the raw file. For proof look at the default ACR settings vs Protune with no lut. Or set the output curve to Cineon 95-685 or Custom Log 400 to gain back all dynamic range from the file.

i've read to leave it to protunes.
what are the pros cons on protunes vs cineon?
coming from 8-bit to 10bit?

So after entering all of those values and finally getting that clip set up properly, is there a way to apply those settings across a set of imported clips?

in the "step 2" or "EDIT" panel. load the clip you want to copy the settings from as well as all the clips you want to paste the settings to.
first you select the source clip and selecting “Copy” or "ctrl + C" from the Edit menu and then selecting your destination clips and selecting “Paste" or  "ctrl + v"

[iaremrsir]

i've read to leave it to protunes.
what are the pros cons on protunes vs cineon?
coming from 8-bit to 10bit?

You don't have to leave it on Protune. Protune set as the output curve will give you a "finished" look. When working in 10-bit and 12-bit, especially for color grading, cineon (logarithmic gamma curve), compresses all of the data into a range where each stop of light in the file gets around the same number of code words (bits of data for detail). This is why film is scanned to cineon log files. The entire dynamic range of the film frame can be captured and stored in the log file. Same principle applies to raw. That's why ARRI, Red, Sony, Blackmagic Design, etc. have there own versions of cineon log designed specifically for the sensors of their cameras. If you compare Alexa Log-C, RedLogFilm, and BMD Film (I actually did a post on BMCUser about using Cineon 95-685 to get extremely close to this curve with CF) , you'll see that they are all fairly similar looking with differences mainly in color science. With Cineform we can take a raw file and basically transform it to a mathematically correct cineon file, Log-C file, S-Log, or whichever curve you choose file. However, when compositing or editing, I'd work with the Protune output curve so you don't have to create proxies and you can stay with the CF raw file until you actually have to render an intermediate composite or something like that.

For up-converting the 8-bit to 10-bit, it depends largely on which profile you shot with. If you used Cinestyle, there is a preset in CF Studio to set the i/o curve to CStyle. For any other profile I'd say leave it at Video Gamma because in the H.264 file there's only about 6-8 stops of usable dynamic range depending on the ISO setting you shot with.

[vikado]

You don't have to leave it on Protune. Protune set as the output curve will give you a "finished" look. When working in 10-bit and 12-bit, especially for color grading, cineon (logarithmic gamma curve), compresses the all of the data into a range where each stop of light in the file gets around the same number of code words (bits of data for detail). This is why film is scanned to cineon log files. The entire dynamic range of the film frame can be captured and stored in the log file. Same principle applies to raw. That's why ARRI, Red, Sony, Blackmagic Design, etc. have there own versions of cineon log designed specifically for the sensors of their cameras. If you compare Alexa Log-C, RedLogFilm, and BMD Film (I actually did a post on BMCUser about using Cineon 95-685 to get extremely close to this curve with CF) , you'll see that they are all fairly similar looking with differences mainly in color science. With Cineform we can take a raw file and basically transform it to a mathematically correct cineon file, Log-C file, S-Log, or whichever curve you choose file. However, when compositing or editing, I'd work with the Protune output curve so you don't have to create proxies and you can stay with the CF raw file until you actually have to render an intermediate composite or something like that.

For up-converting the 8-bit to 10-bit, it depends largely on which profile you shot with. If you used Cinestyle, there is a preset in CF Studio to set the i/o curve to CStyle. For any other profile I'd say leave it at Video Gamma because in the H.264 file there's only about 6-8 stops of usable dynamic range depending on the ISO setting you shot with.

very useful information. thanks!
so basically if you're shooting raw, use cineon.
if you're upconverting, leave it at video gamma.
as for picture styles, i've been using visioncolor and lightform

[iaremrsir]

Can you tell me please: if i render my DNG file in After Effects to cineform 4-4-4 : it will be raw? or just compressed 12 bit 4-4-4?

It'll be 444 if it's coming out of After Effects, not raw. The only way to get CF Raw at the moment is through Studio Premium/Pro or the command line tool dpx2cf that's included with CF.

[iaremrsir]

very useful information. thanks!
so basically if you're shooting raw, use cineon.
if you're upconverting, leave it at video gamma.
as for picture styles, i've been using visioncolor and lightform

Glad to help! Not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but for raw you could use the CF databases to have a preset look to help for editing and a cineon database for grading after the edit is finished. And yeah since you're using regular video gamma profiles, stick to video gamma.

[DANewman]

I'm working on a Windows shell tool to convert .RAW directly to CineForm RAW .AVI or .MOV files.  My current test tool is working and converting to CineForm RAW at over 100 frames per second (old 2.6GHz i7 920 -- probably disk limited -- converting directly from CF Card will be as fast as you can read.)  The problem is I haven't yet set up my 5D3, and I only have one .RAW clip to test with.  Please provide links to hosted .RAW files for my testing before I post the tool.

[DANewman]

Any links for .RAW? I don't want to post the tool without testing a range of clips.

[mnteddy]

I've got 3 short shots uploaded here.

These are Tungsten, 1920x1080, ISO 500. Unfortunately, I've nuked all of my daylight RAWs I shot earlier today. Let me know if you'd like to see something specifically.

Any chance we'll see a shell tool for Mac to take RAWs to Cineform RAW MOVs? Thanks!

[Northernlight]

Ok.. here are my thoughts about this workflow...

I have been playing around with CineForm Studio Premium for the last few days.  This has potential to be a much faster workflow than any other methods I have seen discussed.  One of the advantages that jumps out at me immediately is that importing a large number is DNGs into your product is very quick (almost immediate) and this allows you to play the raw sequence in your video player right away.  Other workflows take much longer to get to this point so this is a good way to be able to play through all your footage to see what you have shot, discard any bad sequences and not waste any time converting sequences you won't be using.  It's also pretty amazing how the raw workflow extends right into Premiere... when you import the converted Cineform Raw files into Premiere and still can update the files live from Cineform Studio and have those changes reflected immediately in your Premiere timeline... very nice.

However, there are a couple of things that give me pause about this workflow.  I think a large number of people will ending up liking the Adobe Camera Raw interface for getting their image into a very usable state quickly.  Besides very intuitive exposure controls, ACR includes time saving features such as decent noise reduction. This could eliminate the need for more render intensive noise reduction plugins later.  In my test footage of a fairly bright window in a dim room, ACR let me bring the highlights down and adjust overall exposure much more easily than in Cineform Studio.  Other than a white balance correction, minor tint shift, and a bit of noise reduction, it only took minutes to get my footage looking beautiful.  In contrast, using Cineform Studio, I found that I needed to play around for quite a bit longer to get the the point where the footage was acceptable, and it still didn't look as good as what I had achieved using ACR.  Highlight preservation was especially problematic.  I'm not a professional colorist by any means but that is the point... I feel this experience I described will be repeated by many like me.  Another observation...I had initially opened my DNG sequence in ACR, made my adjustments, synchronized these changes to all my files, and then imported those files into Cineform Studio.  I was expecting (or hoping rather) that my changes might have been preserved in Cineform Studio but alas they weren't.  I'm sure there is a reason for this but it would be useful to be able to do this.  Cineform Studio still to me has the advantage of non-destructive raw editing which extends to the NLE, small edit-friendly files, not to mention the ability to preview your footage very quickly in your video player before any conversion or rendering takes place. 

Just some food for thought...

Agree 100% with everything you write!

[Northernlight]

Playing around with this workflow. Although the controls are not very intuituve from my starting point as primarily a timelapse/still photographer and Adobe user, I realize diving into the world of RAW video editing is, well, a brand new world, that may require a lot training and reading/learning to be done.

However, I am having a really annoying issue with Cineform Studio (1.3.2.170). And I know this is something should be adressed with Cineform, but I just wanted to know if anyone experience the same, and or has a suggestions for solution/workaround. The program (CFSP) crashes the second I try to set framerate to 23.976 (GoProImport has stopped working). I can choose 24fps, or 15fps, but when I select 23.976 it crashes! It even crashes before I add the files to the import, so it has nothing to do with the DNG files, but the program it self it seem. In adition the greenish and flat look of the 5D3 files are far from the way my eyes perceived the scene and the way the files should look (as in ACR after a slight adjustment of hue of -40)

And why is my footage detected as default to 29.970fps in Cinefrom Studio ?? I can not find anywhere to define default values.

I am on a very powerful computer, so should not be the reason: win7x64 / Adobe CS6 / dual Xenon 2387 3.1Ghz 32cores / 128GBRAM / 30TB SAS RAID 30 (1.8GByte/sec sustained). All Windows updates installed.

Edit: I have found that a much better approach for me is starting with ACR, doing the initial adjustments, and a very good noise reduction if needed, then importing to AE as 23.976 without the annoying problems with CFSP crashing, and most importantly I get the colors CORRECT as they should be, as my eyes perceived the scene, much quicker, with better and more intuitive control of lifting shadows and lowering highlights. And from here I can export the file in Cineform Filmscan1 if I choose. And then I can again open the exported AVI file in Cineform Firstlight again and have the same Cineform controls as when importing with CFSP, should I want to, with the AVI file updating in my NLE / PP / AE.

So by doing it this way; DNG->ACR->AE->Cineform RAW AVI (Filmscan etc.), the colors get a MUCH better and more correct starting point than if I start the import in CFSP, as well as the controls in ACR (in my opinion) are better and more intuitive.

[DANewman]

I've got 3 short shots uploaded here.

These are Tungsten, 1920x1080, ISO 500. Unfortunately, I've nuked all of my daylight RAWs I shot earlier today. Let me know if you'd like to see something specifically.

Any chance we'll see a shell tool for Mac to take RAWs to Cineform RAW MOVs? Thanks!

Thank you, these samples are prefect and working without any code changes.

[mnteddy]

Awesome! Can't wait to try out your tool! 

[DANewman]

Here is version 1.0.

To run this tool you will need the Windows verison for GoPro CineForm Studio Premium or Professional installed -- either activated or working with a full 15-day trial (only need Premium, Pro is for 3D.)  The trials are downloaded from here: http://cineform.com/downloads

Direct download for RAW2GPCF:  http://miscdata.com/ML/RAW2GPCF.zip

Unzip are install here: C:\Program Files (x86)\CineForm\Tools

To run:

open a shell, and RAW2GPCF at the prompt

M:\cameras\CanonMagicLantern>RAW2GPCF
Usage: raw2gpcf inputfile.raw output.mov|avi [switches]
       -c  - use Cineon curve (black 95, white 685)
       -cbX- use Cineon curve with 'X' black point (default 95.)
       -cwX- use Cineon curve with 'X' white point (default 685.)
       -dX - use debayer type 1-softest thru 4-sharpest (default auto)
       -fX - the framerate override for AVI|MOV media.
       -gX - use gamma curve
       -iX - in point, start processing on frame X (default 0, disables audio.)
       -lX - use log curve of power X (GoPro Protune.)
       -oX - out point, e.g. -o10 would precess 0 thru 9 (default infinite.)
       -qX - the encoding quality for AVI|MOV (default 4, range 1-5.)
       -sX - skip every 'x' frames (default 0).
       -(x1,y1,x2,y2)  - window source Top Left (x,y) to Bottom Right (x2,y2)
  usage: raw2gpcf M00000004.raw New5.avi (using current paths)
         raw2gpcf V:\Conversions\newRAW.AVI E:\M0000052.RAW -l400 -d2 -q5
  RAW2GPCF version: 1.00, (c)2013 GoPro.


I was going to add batch conversion, but I thought I should get some feedback first.

The current tool extracts the RAW XYZ colormatrix data, and converts that into CineForm Active Metadata as the "Source" color matrix, and the white balance gains will auto correct for the sensor's sensitivity differences.  The highlight recovery (which many users can't find) is defaulted to 0.5 (seems to correct many highlight issues.)  The tool is very fast as no demosaic is required to produce CineForm RAW files.  If you convert from your Compact Flash source, the conversion will be at read speed with very little CPU usage (a on set ultrabook could do it.)

For a fast decode speed, I defaulted to be using the automode demosaicing which is a fast debayer (crappy bilinear) when decoding to 8-bit (QuickTime, Window Media Player) but reverts to a nicer image when there 10-bit or greater decodes requested (AE and Premiere float modes, etc.) You can set the demosaic in CineForm Studio Premium after conversion, just as you can with all the RAW parameters (the whole point of RAW.)  You can also default the demosaic to any setting you like (-dX switch) again this is not baked.

Here are mnteddy sample clips (thank you) encoded with the defaults (Filmscan 1, RAW, auto debayer.)  These are 10:1 compressed (images have lots of shallow depth of field which helps CineForm compression.) http://miscdata.com/ML/M0SamplesQ4.zip I also repeated these highly compressable images at Filmscan 2, yielding 6:1. http://miscdata.com/ML/M0SamplesQ5.zip  I did these both in MOV files so users from both platforms can try them out.

[iaremrsir]

So by doing it this way; DNG->ACR->AE->Cineform RAW AVI (Filmscan etc.), the colors get a MUCH better and more correct starting point than if I start the import in CFSP, as well as the controls in ACR (in my opinion) are better and more intuitive.

Not CF Raw. The best you can get out of AE is a debayered 4:4:4 file at the moment.

[DANewman]

Not CF Raw. The best you can get out of AE is a debayered 4:4:4 file at the moment.

Yes, the resulting images will have baked color. Not a bad thing if you have all of the information you need to do your finish, but RAW in my opinion requires you to be able to restore back to everything the sensor read, giving you the greatest flexibility.   

I don't consider applying the demosaic as a necesary part of RAW. Consider the Protune CAM_RAW mode on GoPro HERO3 Black Edition (something I worked on,) that is about as raw as you can get in an H.264 file.  All the demosaic is applied in camera, but color matrix and white balance are applied in post, just like classic uncompressed RAW.

If there is enough interest, I will enable YUV or 444 development, without baking the color.  The only reason you might like 4:2:2 RAW, is that could run on the freely distributed GoPro CineForm Studio, just like Protune CAM_RAW works for GoPro users today.

[squig]

Hey Dan, is there a mac solution in the works?

ACR/AE is rendering exposure shifts http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=5710.msg41052;topicseen#msg41052
 ATM there is no real workable mac post workflow, we're drowning here. 

Unbaked is good.

[iaremrsir]

If there is enough interest, I will enable YUV or 444 development, without baking the color.  The only reason you might like 4:2:2 RAW, is that could run on the freely distributed GoPro CineForm Studio, just like Protune CAM_RAW works for GoPro users today.

That would be beyond awesome! If you need a crash test dummy, you got one 

[DANewman]

In the meantime, I need feedback on the current tool.