Magic Lantern workflow question as of 03/2015

Omar N

Omar N

Active member
Hello community,

I had a question about the current Magic Lantern raw workflow as of 03/2015. I have looked this up online and spent quite a bit searching for answers, but as the hack is always changing, its hard to pinpoint what the current workflow is. My current understanding is that you shoot raw in either a .mlv or .raw file, and then you convert that file to something editable. My questions are as follows:

1). Upon converting the .mlv or .raw files, can you use rawmagic and/or son of a batch to do this?
2). After converting, do you have to convert straight to cinemaDNG, or can you convert straight to prores or DNxHD?
3). If you convert to cinemaDNG, is the cinemaDNG clip one file, or is each clip a single folder that contains a bunch of dng frame grabs that have to again be processed?
4). Is cinemaDNG essentialy the same thing as raw, and if so, is it OK to delete the .mlv and/or .raw originals to save space?
5). Are dropped frames still an issue when using a super fast 1066x card?

Sorry for the flurry of questions! I just want to make sure I know what I am getting my self into before making any purchasing decisions.

Thank you!
Omar
 
Omar N said:
Hello community,

I had a question about the current Magic Lantern raw workflow as of 03/2015. I have looked this up online and spent quite a bit searching for answers, but as the hack is always changing, its hard to pinpoint what the current workflow is. My current understanding is that you shoot raw in either a .mlv or .raw file, and then you convert that file to something editable. My questions are as follows:

1). Upon converting the .mlv or .raw files, can you use rawmagic and/or son of a batch to do this?
2). After converting, do you have to convert straight to cinemaDNG, or can you convert straight to prores or DNxHD?
3). If you convert to cinemaDNG, is the cinemaDNG clip one file, or is each clip a single folder that contains a bunch of dng frame grabs that have to again be processed?
4). Is cinemaDNG essentialy the same thing as raw, and if so, is it OK to delete the .mlv and/or .raw originals to save space?
5). Are dropped frames still an issue when using a super fast 1066x card?

Sorry for the flurry of questions! I just want to make sure I know what I am getting my self into before making any purchasing decisions.

Thank you!
Omar
Click to expand...

1) Yes
2) You can convert straight to ProRes/DNxHD but this pretty much defeats the benefits of shooting raw.
3) Each clip becomes a sequence of one frame dng files.
4) Yes.
5) Probably depends on fps and frame size. Should be fine if you follow the guidelines.
 
Check out mlrawviewer- you can convert directly to ProRes 10-bit 444 with CLog after setting exposure and white balance.
Also check out mlvfs- you can mount as a file system which provides DNGs on the fly.
 
If you're gonna go throught the trouble of shooting RAW, you might as well get the benefits of doing so and color and grade in RAW...before converting to ProRes or DNxHD. DaVinci Resolve has wonderful support for RAW files. Otherwise, if your footage is coming out of your camera more or less the way you want it, then you might as well just shoot 10bit 422...which I think ML supports.
 
sorry for vearing slightly off topic but are you saying you can now record 10 bit 422 internally, I had not heard this before - what size files can you expect compared to the RAW?
 
Hi Ade4all,

I thought I remembered seeing on this forum, not too long ago, someone saying that ML had 10bit 422 capabilities, but now that I'm looking for confirmation, I can't seem to find it. In fact, most of the info I'm finding suggests it doesn't. You may want to look into it for yourself, or others can chime in here.

Sorry if if this is misleading. In any case, if you have to record in RAW, and offload this media, you might as well get a grade in before you transcode to a codec. Just my two cents :)
 
Hey guys, thanks so much for the replies. Regarding MLVFS, is that able to do what rawmagic does as well, in other words, color grade, and convert to cinemaDNG? I looked it up but didnt find a clear answer. If so, is there one you guys recommend between rawmagic and MLVFS? Thanks for the help!
 
You must be thinking of MLRawViewer. RawMagic doesn't do any color correction. RawMagic just takes in MLV files and churns out DNG sequences with synced audio. MLVFS allows you to mount the MLVs temporarily and grade them in Resolve, allowing you to skip the DNG conversion. The other benefit is that it preserves metadata, like color temperature.

Here is a video that someone made about MLVFS:

https://vimeo.com/116507525
 
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