H.264 on set "review proxy" for RAW recording

[sergiocamara93]

Hi there,

I'm going to use the RAW recording on a 5D Mark III in a videoclip soon and I've been talking with the director about the new format, that I love, and the creative possibilities it opens both in production and in post. The only reservations we have is that we cannot check the files on camera, I've shown her the playback option currently available and we agreed we cannot check-review the performances with that.

I'm not asking for a better RAW playback option since it's already a miracle the one we have but maybe there's a better-easier option for this kind of use. In earlier versions, before the start/stop button implementation for RAW recording (which I like a lot) there was the "possibility" of recording RAW and H.264 at the same time. In fact, I evaluated the option for my project and it worked pretty well in 1920x840 for example. The problem is that in that early versions (17th May, I believe) there was not the option to stop before skipping frames and I'm worried I might have unintended jump cuts without noticing.

So the request is if there could be an option for recording h.264 simultaneously in the SD card or, if thats a code nightmare, to the CF card (even at low bitrate/low res in VGA, though the framing would change on that one) so it can be used as a on set review option for production.

I'll completely understand a "won't fix" on this one but I wanted to submit the suggestion. In any case, once ML is ported to 1.2.1 we could use the regular on set monitor option, or even something as the ninja; so this would be a temporary "fix".

[a1ex]

Technically it's possible to have real-time playback, but it will still be black and white (unless someone like "d" makes an ultra fast color raw developer in ASM )

What you ask is also technically possible, though it feels quite dirty to code something like this. Do you have an idea how much H.264 will slow down the raw recording?

[ozcancelik]

I think mysterious "d" was a canon engineer

Technically it's possible to have real-time playback, but it will still be black and white (unless someone like "d" makes an ultra fast color raw developer in ASM )

[sergiocamara93]

What you ask is also technically possible, though it feels quite dirty to code something like this. Do you have an idea how much H.264 will slow down the raw recording?

That's why I was mentioning the 17th build example. I'm able to record 1920x840 and 1080p IPB H.264 at the same time without getting skipped frames for a long time, though sometimes it does skip a single frame from time to time (Transcend 64gb 1000x).

Anyway, regarding the real-time playback, the black and white wouldn't be a problem, performances can be checked without color 

[sergiocamara93]

It's not part of the request by itself but I though I should update this topic in case someone reads it looking for a solution.

I've tried monitoring with a laptop and EOSUtility while raw-recording in previous builds (19th) but when I hit record the screen froze. I'm happy to report that with the build I'm currently using (28th - 7fdfc08) I'm able to monitor and raw-record simultaneously. The writing performances goes down but I can record 1920x960 2:1 continuously without any problems.

[squig]

I'm shooting a short film next week, realtime B&W playback would be a huge help. 

[Jakobmen]

yes.... please... realtime B&W playback

[romeus]

Technically it's possible to have real-time playback, but it will still be black and white (unless someone like "d" makes an ultra fast color raw developer in ASM )

What you ask is also technically possible, though it feels quite dirty to code something like this. Do you have an idea how much H.264 will slow down the raw recording?

is there any solution except H.264,something lighter with low resolution black& white 8bits, that will be ok it's just for checking performances so the quality doesnt really matter
the biggest problem I think is having audio in playbacks 

[mnteddy]

If they were frame-for-frame duplicates, having an H264 copy for immediate offline edits would be fantastic. Obviously the roundtrip might be a bit of a headache to reconnect everything in Resolve to the CDNGs, but as long as we could figure out a way to get the filenames/reel names to line up, I'd see this as a major workflow boost.

Plus, having something to play back on set with sound would be HUGE for performance reviews.

[Danne]

If they were frame-for-frame duplicates, having an H264 copy for immediate offline edits would be fantastic. Obviously the roundtrip might be a bit of a headache to reconnect everything in Resolve to the CDNGs, but as long as we could figure out a way to get the filenames/reel names to line up, I'd see this as a major workflow boost.

Plus, having something to play back on set with sound would be HUGE for performance reviews.

I think if we could get something lik 640x480 h.264 recorded to sd while recording 1920x1080 raw would would be awesome. Tried this route on my cf-card a couple of days ago but it stopped after a few seconds. Don,t know if recording on separate cards would help. If the h.264 would enable audio recording as well we should have both proxy and audio to the raw files.

Even if only a couple of seconds with h.264 material with audio is recorded together with the rawfile we would have a really good audio reference for external audio.

Realtime playback black and white would definitely be sufficient for most of my needs.

Thanks a lot!
//D

[dlrpgmsvc]

A 70 Euro android tablet, the "DSLR Controller" app, a USB cable, and I solved with very few bucks: near-realtime monitoring & movie save function, with instant replay as you wish ! Don't fuse your head searching for what else exotic solution ! 

PS: you have also focus peaking and histogram offboard ! Just use "Canon" preview mode in ML and you are done ! 

[mnteddy]

I would hardly call that solved. An on camera solution like we had in the early builds would be the ticket.

[aaphotog]

A 70 Euro android tablet, the "DSLR Controller" app, a USB cable, and I solved with very few bucks: near-realtime monitoring & movie save function, with instant replay as you wish ! Don't fuse your head searching for what else exotic solution ! 

PS: you have also focus peaking and histogram offboard ! Just use "Canon" preview mode in ML and you are done ! 

can we see a video in action?
I was thinking of buying a smallhd, but if I see a 200 dollar tablet showing liveview in real time, I wont need to

[dlrpgmsvc]

can we see a video in action?
I was thinking of buying a smallhd, but if I see a 200 dollar tablet showing liveview in real time, I wont need to

I can arrange one video but keep in mind your mileage vary with the power of the tablet. My cheap tablet 8" Majestic 208 is doing a decent 15fps preview: for me is more than enough but for others is not. Seeing it written as 15fps everybody thinks it is insufficient, but when you see it in action, someone changes his mind. It is hard to know beforehand which tablet is right for video monitoring without phisycally  testing it. For example a powerful processor may be coupled with a poor video chip or a bad bus speed implementation, and these infos are not written into the public specs.

[Malex]

A 70 Euro android tablet, the "DSLR Controller" app, a USB cable, and I solved with very few bucks: near-realtime monitoring & movie save function, with instant replay as you wish ! Don't fuse your head searching for what else exotic solution !

Does the tablet records audio with the video?

[Redrocks]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ms.screencast&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5tcy5zY3JlZW5jYXN0Il0.

I can't try this right now, would love to see how this works on the new Nexus.

[StefanKeller.AC]

an old thread but a good idea,
but with current ML and TL on 7D there is no image in DSLR controller...