GH2 Holy sweetness... has anybody else tried out FilmConvert?

dustylense said:
Why make such a big deal out of Laforet's review? Read the review, see what you get out of it.
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It's not a review, it's a promotional advertisement. It's shameless to ask for donations to watch a commercial.

As for the plugin itself, it's an automated color corrector that claims to remap a camera's digital sensor to simulate the color balance of a collection of film stocks. It can also add digital grain to a video. It offers a few sliders to adjust exposure and color temperature, but is in no way a substitute for a color correction suite.

In order for something like this to produce authentic results, it needs an accurate profile of each camera's RAW sensor output, and must be applied before any other type of image processing. FilmConvert accordingly provides selectable RAW profiles for Red One, MX, and Epic M cameras. But for DSLR's, it only provides two profiles labeled "Canon DSLR" and "Generic sRGB". As a result, the conversions for DSLR's can only be vague approximations of a film stock's color balance.

In principle, sensor (and lens) modeling can be done with a high degree of accuracy, but it requires a database of precise measurements of RAW sensor data. Here's one example of such a system for still photography by DxOMark:

http://www.dxo.com/us/photo/dxo_optics_pro/introduction
 
It only supports RED and Canon at the moment but there is generic SRGB setting that you can use, which is what I have tested out so far. Despite it working best for specific cameras / sensors like it was designed to do, it looks friggin great on the GH2 footage. If it ends up getting specific GH2 customized filters etc, that will be great; hard to imagine how much more they could improve on what it already does though.
 
I think it looks neat, but they need more camera profiles, need to list those camera profiles on their website and they definitely need to list the differences between pro and non-pro versions on their websites. Marketing this software with 5DmkII and Red MX is also a little old. Not that they aren't still good and used, but maybe they should update for GH2/3, Scarlet, BMCC, 5DmkIII/6D, D800/600 and Sony cameras.
 
Lpowell, I love your hack, but you're coming off like you have a chip on your shoulder regarding this plugin. If people like the result why are you freaking out so bad?
 
roxics said:
I think it looks neat, but they need more camera profiles, need to list those camera profiles on their website and they definitely need to list the differences between pro and non-pro versions on their websites. Marketing this software with 5DmkII and Red MX is also a little old. Not that they aren't still good and used, but maybe they should update for GH2/3, Scarlet, BMCC, 5DmkIII/6D, D800/600 and Sony cameras.
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No need for Blackmagic: already looks close enough. =D
 
Kholi said:
No need for Blackmagic: already looks close enough. =D
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I know right. They tell me that the BMC filter is on the way for the GH2; transforming all our footage to 2.5k raw and adding 5 stops of DR. Cannot wait! And to think, I almost spent 3k on the BMC.
 
Here is what Rubber Monkey was kind enough to e-mail me in response to some questions.


1) What cameras are currently supported in the current software? Our
footage is shot with a variety that includes everything from a Scarlet
to GH2 to an old HV30 and I was curious as to what footage could
benefit.
​


We currently have sensor data for RED cameras and Canon DSLRs.
We are in the process of matching sensor data for additional cameras. This will be an ongoing process.
The software still works for other cameras, provided they are giving you an sRGB style image. The only difference is that the emulation isn't quite as accurate without exact sensor data.

2) Is there an estimated timeline for a PC version at this point?
​


We have built the main pipeline for PC and tested it. We still need to build the front-end though. This is a very big piece of work and you are probably looking at least 9 months away for a fully polished product.

3) Does the software benefit from/require any particular GPU?
​


The stand-alone products are OpenGL based. The faster your graphics card, the faster you can decode and process.
However, with RED footage, the R3D SDK is the bottleneck (debayer is a bit slow) and often writing out to disk is a bottleneck as well, so a faster graphics card won't necessarily give faster renders.


The plugins are all software-based, so don't really use the GPU at all.


We do offer a windows plugin for After Effects / Premiere.
We also have an OFX plugin in the pipeline for Scratch/Nuke/Vegas etc.
If you are interested in checking this out and have a CS5.5/6.0 install I suggest you download the plugin.
 
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Also, regarding the price.

It is exactly the same as the MSRP for Alien Skin Exposure 4 (another film grain/color plug-in for stills), though Exposure does not use models of user cameras for more accurate conversion from the film stocks.
 
I think the combination of the thread and the e-mail(s) they received would be good motivation.

Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with. :)
 
I just gave it try and think its awesome. Its so fast!

I love the way they did the histogram in the program. I see big things from this company, they obviously know what they are doing. $250 is a steal, I would take this over MB looks any-day.
 
Yeah, at first I was unsure if it was worth 250, but after spending some time with it- I can say with ease that it's definitely a steal at that price. Each stock feels very unique, and it doesn't appear to be an overlay in any regard; it's like my digital footage went through a magic filmizing machine and transformed into celluloid.
 
L1N3ARX said:
Yeah, at first I was unsure if it was worth 250, but after spending some time with it- I can say with ease that it's definitely a steal at that price. Each stock feels very unique, and it doesn't appear to be an overlay in any regard; it's like my digital footage went through a magic filmizing machine and transformed into celluloid.
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I agree. This product is amazing. Works with XML as well. It's a nice finishing program.
 
Has anyone bought it yet?

I'm going to do some testing today on my footage - properly lit stuff and outside playful stuff, and make up my mind.
 
Odd that people are comparing this to MB Looks. To me, this product would be the very last tool employed in the Post pipeline, after noise reduction, balancing the image, and thoughtful grade. I was planning on overlaying an appropriate film grain at that point in the pipeline, but this product might be a better fit.

I guess for a cat video you can just shove the raw footage straight through something like this. Though if you do that, this would become nothing more than a nice looking preset. It won't make you a better filmmaker. Are we going to start seeing filmic cat videos that all look the same?

This plugin doesn't/shouldn't absolve the filmmaker of any of the hard work.
 
I'm sure we’ll be seeing all the usual lens flare and shallow focus stuff as before, but now with added film sheen!
 
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