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Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 1:04 pm
by blacklevite
After through searches online I really am still failing to do simple things which I wish someone may help me with a step by step of:

1. Using SDK's (or whatever they are called) to play Blackmagic Raw on PC

2. Use VLC media (or any other simple player) to play other codecs like Prores;

In other words all I need to do is to be able to review my footage before I begin importing it in Resolve or Premiere.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 5:00 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
I don't think there is anything like simple player for PC to play BM RAW.
There is simple player on Mac, but on PC you need to use Resolve.
The simplest player would be Assimilate Play Pro, but it costs few $.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 5:56 am
by Hendrik Proosa
I started writing a basic braw player for Win, people who are interested can chime in for increased motivation. Also, what kind of functionality would one expect at first, in the basic featureless player?

For a little bit of background, I wrote braw reader plugin for Nuke some time ago when SDK was released, so I have at least mild experience with it. You can check out two small intro videos for Nuke braw decoder on my Vimeo site http://www.vimeo.com/kaldera

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:56 pm
by Robert Baker
Hendrik Proosa wrote:I started writing a basic braw player for Win, people who are interested can chime in for increased motivation. Also, what kind of functionality would one expect at first, in the basic featureless player?

For a little bit of background, I wrote braw reader plugin for Nuke some time ago when SDK was released, so I have at least mild experience with it. You can check out two small intro videos for Nuke braw decoder on my Vimeo site http://www.vimeo.com/kaldera


Can it play audio and video and have the option to scrub through the footage would be the basic requirements I would need [ask for].

Future development could offer the ability to add LUTs to see what the footage would look like graded. While we are on it perhaps the ability to insert In/Out points and save them to metadata that can be imported right into Resolve. And if there is more time how about the option to do quick edits on a file without having to re-render it! Then perhaps the ability to search for key words using the ability to extrapolate text from audio to get to specific moments in the recording.

Ok, maybe that last one is going a bit too far... But the others are do able?

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 10:53 am
by Hendrik Proosa
So I started writing it and something is starting to take shape:
brawplayer.jpg
brawplayer.jpg (192.62 KiB) Viewed 37218 times


I'm not sure about sound, haven't done much sound stuff, but I'll try to get something working. Playback itself works now, and changing settings etc. Currently on CPU only, will look into enabling GPU decoding soon. UI has buttons for trimming and sidecar export but that is something for future too.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 2:53 pm
by MishaEngel
Hendrik, you are the man.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 11:08 pm
by Robert Baker
Hendrik Proosa wrote:So I started writing it and something is starting to take shape:

I'm not sure about sound, haven't done much sound stuff, but I'll try to get something working. Playback itself works now, and changing settings etc. Currently on CPU only, will look into enabling GPU decoding soon. UI has buttons for trimming and sidecar export but that is something for future too.


:) :) :) :)

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 11:58 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
Hendrik Proosa wrote:So I started writing it and something is starting to take shape:
brawplayer.jpg


I'm not sure about sound, haven't done much sound stuff, but I'll try to get something working. Playback itself works now, and changing settings etc. Currently on CPU only, will look into enabling GPU decoding soon. UI has buttons for trimming and sidecar export but that is something for future too.


Looks good.
Maybe an option to hide settings area, but keep simple timeline would be good (as well as full screen).

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Sat Mar 16, 2019 7:28 am
by Hendrik Proosa
Andrew Kolakowski wrote:Looks good.
Maybe an option to hide settings area, but keep simple timeline would be good (as well as full screen).

Yep, already thought about it. I'm currently doing some UI stuff and keyboard shortcuts, will add this too. And then I'll see performance side, at the moment I'm using very simple opengl and it seems that moving frame to gpu texture is kind of slow, but will switch to PBOs for asynchronous data streaming so that only limiting factor will be decoder itself.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Sat Mar 16, 2019 9:46 am
by Norbert Seynhaeve
Hi,
Do you intend to do some stuff for FINAL CUT PRO X - APPE .
THANKS

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Sat Mar 16, 2019 11:24 am
by Andrew Kolakowski
Hendrik Proosa wrote:
Andrew Kolakowski wrote:Looks good.
Maybe an option to hide settings area, but keep simple timeline would be good (as well as full screen).

Yep, already thought about it. I'm currently doing some UI stuff and keyboard shortcuts, will add this too. And then I'll see performance side, at the moment I'm using very simple opengl and it seems that moving frame to gpu texture is kind of slow, but will switch to PBOs for asynchronous data streaming so that only limiting factor will be decoder itself.


Don't know much about it, but SDI cards do use PBOs, so it sounds like the way to go.
Is there timecode in BM RAW? Maybe another option would be to switch from frames to TC for timeline.
Also to make GUI clean- maybe it's enough to have "Update Sidecar" and "Trim and Export". I think this is descriptive enough.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Sat Mar 16, 2019 1:35 pm
by Li Chenghan
Hendrik Proosa wrote:So I started writing it and something is starting to take shape:
brawplayer.jpg


I'm not sure about sound, haven't done much sound stuff, but I'll try to get something working. Playback itself works now, and changing settings etc. Currently on CPU only, will look into enabling GPU decoding soon. UI has buttons for trimming and sidecar export but that is something for future too.



I am very much looking forward to it, it looks very functional. :D

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Sat Mar 16, 2019 5:32 pm
by deezid
Hendrik Proosa wrote:So I started writing it and something is starting to take shape:
brawplayer.jpg


I'm not sure about sound, haven't done much sound stuff, but I'll try to get something working. Playback itself works now, and changing settings etc. Currently on CPU only, will look into enabling GPU decoding soon. UI has buttons for trimming and sidecar export but that is something for future too.


Looks great!
Does it use Direct3D or OpenGL or Vulkan for video acceleration?
So I could use it on Linux via Wine with fluid playback. :)

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 10:46 am
by Hendrik Proosa
Render surface uses opengl, it should be as universal as it gets. PBOs will somewhat raise the profile version but any computer functional today should have no problems with it.

Braw files have quite a lot of metadata in them, TC included, so I'll try to get switching between TC and frames going soon.

I'll move those button actions to menu instead, they don't need screen space at all. I'll probably use that space for some other, more relevant functions (viewer gain, gamma, LUT etc) or just give settings sliders more space.

About FCX and Apple, I don't know anything about macs so most probably not.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 7:25 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
I've just noticed "worrying" situation.
BM RAW SDK in Resolve is at v 1.3, but public one is at 1.1 (or I can't find 1.3)
Does it mean that some (shot today on updated cameras) BM RAW files won't work with app which is based on SDK 1.1?
If this is the case then it's very bad for any integration. If I have eg. Scratch or other tool with BM RAW support I won't be able to work with BM RAW until BM finally releases SDK 1.3? This doesn't forecast big love for BM RAW in general audience.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 9:27 pm
by Hendrik Proosa
Unless they are deliberately breaking compatibility, minor version changes shouldn't in theory affect decoding, probably you just can't access some newer functionality. But I haven't looked into it in detail. Given that Resolve itself is in constant beta state and people are beta testers, braw probably is in volatile state also.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 9:57 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
This is the hope, but I've seen reports about broken BM RAW playback and BM asking to use latest Resolve.
Maybe someone can post few samples from cameras with latest firmware, so you can have reference files.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 7:49 am
by Hendrik Proosa
Andrew Kolakowski wrote:This is the hope, but I've seen reports about broken BM RAW playback and BM asking to use latest Resolve.
Maybe someone can post few samples from cameras with latest firmware, so you can have reference files.

This is very good idea! Braw samples from different cameras and firmware versions could be great source for other tests and tinkering also. They could be gathered in separate (pinned) thread maybe, I believe there is no such thread at the moment?

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 11:14 am
by Hendrik Proosa
A quick illustration about what kind of metadata is available from braw file:
brawplayer_v02.jpg
brawplayer_v02.jpg (182.38 KiB) Viewed 36977 times

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 3:26 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
Keep it like this with shortcut key to toggle on/off :)
Maybe remove the ones which are in the GUI?

Just for info. MTI Film had just added support fro BM RAW and ProRes RAW into latest Cortex version. So both RAW new formats are starting to be rolled out to more tools. Looks like ProRes RAW (silly) exclusive time is gone (update: apparently this is not the case and it's not that easy to get ProRes RAW SDK).

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 1:08 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
Got some information that new files should work with old SDK engines (you just don't have access to LUT as you mentioned). Companies involved in BM RAW integration do have access to SDK 1.3. I would prefer if it would be publicly available, but not end of the world.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 1:17 pm
by Hendrik Proosa
So much for open standard and whatnot.

Anyway, I made a short demo of current version, goes through most working features. No audio (I don't have microphone at hand), so choose music to your liking:

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 1:29 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
Looking very good.
Some suggestions:
Braw tools is somehow misleading name- maybe "Player options"? Some of those setting may go to Preference tab as well.
Viewer bit depth - I assume this is beta, but end user wants to rather see 8bit/16bit/Float (Unit16 doesn't tell much for most people).
Some setting for 25%/50%/100% size would be nice.
Great work. Nice and simple.
I assume you're planning to sell it?

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 1:37 pm
by Hendrik Proosa
Good ideas, I'll put them in. Bit depth setting currently mirrors braw sdk resource formats, which is the internal format it gives out, but I'll change the names.

I'm not too sure what to do with it, maybe I'll put the basic version up for free and accept donations and add some bells and whistles to it for a small charge.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 3:25 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
Up to you :)

Actually Viewer bit depth is misleading as well as it suggest preview surface quality. I assume this is processing pipe quality, so should be re-named to eg. "Decoding/Processing precision".

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 3:53 pm
by Hendrik Proosa
It actually changes the opengl texture format also, so it isn't that wrong. I added it to test if changing decode buffer format would make texture uploads and updates faster, but haven't really tested it.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 3:59 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
Ok- this is different case then, but this still won't work on all GPUs. 10bit OpenGL surface is supported only on pro cards as far as I know, no? In order to say that preview is actually 10bit whole chain must be properly configured (up to proper 10bit monitor).

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 4:12 pm
by Hendrik Proosa
You won't get anything beyond 8bit out of monitor on most machines, but what render surface bit depth gives is for example precision of pixel sampling (for possible pixel/area sampler tool etc). But yes, I understand what you mean, someone might think their monitor magically turns into high bit depth hdri display :D

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 4:19 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
This is why better to call it processing/decoding precision :) (and keep possible 10bit OpenGL surface as separate option/thing). Assimilate Scratch allows for 10bit preview surface on pro cards for example.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:48 am
by Ola Haldor Voll
As far as I know, 10-bit is available on GTX 10-series and RTX 20-series too, not only pro cards?
When I got my 1080 I was surprised, and happy, to see I could output 10-bit to my computer monitor. :)

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 12:32 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
GTX series has no 10bit support for OpenGL surface, only DirectX.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Mon Apr 15, 2019 12:19 pm
by Hendrik Proosa
I haven't had time to do something with my small player for a few weeks but now I took a few hours to port it to SDK version 1.3. This change brought some new options for gamma and gamut, for example it is now possible to ask ACES and DCI gamuts and also pure CIE XYZ data. Highlight recovery option also came somewhere between version 1.0 and 1.3 but I don't really understand what it does, setting it on does not change anything in image. There are also black and white level settings and "use video black level", but what that does, don't know yet (possibly I have a bug in handling checkbox values).

Anyway, some illustrative images of new settings and UI:
brawplayer_v04_gamma.jpg
brawplayer_v04_gamma.jpg (21.9 KiB) Viewed 36339 times

brawplayer_v04_gamut.jpg
brawplayer_v04_gamut.jpg (18.96 KiB) Viewed 36339 times

brawplayer_v04.jpg
brawplayer_v04.jpg (206.36 KiB) Viewed 36339 times

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2019 8:08 am
by Hendrik Proosa
For fun I added a gamut diagram yesterday evening. Work in progress, doesn't do much else than just plots all frame pixels. I should make it semitransparent or separate window and add some background graphics like axis and horseshoe line. GPU accelerated, realtime, very innovative!

brawplayer_v05_gamutviewer.jpg
brawplayer_v05_gamutviewer.jpg (138.71 KiB) Viewed 36292 times

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2019 8:13 am
by Andrew Kolakowski
If you play with those overlays then other scopes are more useful, eg. Parade.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2019 9:05 am
by Hendrik Proosa
Andrew Kolakowski wrote:If you play with those overlays then other scopes are more useful, eg. Parade.

Yes, I could add others too, it is pretty easy to create a scope once data is in expected format. If I get the transforms part working, I can do other scopes aswell. RGB parades etc don't need transforms at all, so they are easier than gamut plot. Plotting itself is done in glsl shader which is fed with image pixel data through VBO directly so it is pretty fast. My test footage has 10M+ pixels so gamut plot displays 10+ million points in realtime.

But I should get gpu decoding and audio working first, these are a bit more relevant than some random plot :)

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2019 9:59 am
by RealSting
Andrew Kolakowski wrote:If you play with those overlays then other scopes are more useful, eg. Parade.


Why do you think they are more useful?


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Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2019 10:53 am
by Andrew Kolakowski
How useful is gamut plot preview compared to Parade?

Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2019 11:30 am
by RealSting
Andrew Kolakowski wrote:How useful is gamut plot preview compared to Parade?


You tell me.. (i’m not criticising you I’m just asking a simple question because I’m new to da Vinci resolve and not used this gamut tool).

Thanks.


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Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2019 11:35 am
by RealSting
MishaEngel wrote:Hendrik, you are the man.


Jimi Hendrix was definitely the man!!


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Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2019 12:05 pm
by Hendrik Proosa
Gamut plot isn't very useful unless you have some specific interest in where your data lies on chromaticity diagram. As it is now in Resolve also, I think it could be helpful in toppling some pretty common misunderstandings about gamut. For example that changing exposure changes your gamut (I have heard that a lot of times) or that any random operation on your image (shifting hues or whatnot) can push it outside working space gamut. Unless one has negative values in their image data (or produces them), one can not go beyond its working space gamut with any image operation.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 10:47 am
by Joshua_G
Hendrik Proosa wrote:I haven't had time to do something with my small player for a few weeks but now I took a few hours to port it to SDK version 1.3.
...
Great job, Hendrik. Any downloadable for v 1.3?

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 12:16 pm
by Hendrik Proosa
Joshua_G wrote:Great job, Hendrik. Any downloadable for v 1.3?

I haven't put it up because I don't have GPU decoding working yet and without it playback at full res is kind of slow (depends on cpu ofcourse and one can always use lower res decode) but when I get that working, I'll upload version somewhere. It will be "if it breaks, you get to keep the pieces" kind of version ofcourse, but maybe it will be useful for someone as it is.

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue Apr 23, 2019 11:12 pm
by Cameron Porter
This is awesome, Hendrik. I would love to know when there's a downloadable version. Thanks!

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2019 11:54 am
by Mark Vanderpol
Any news on how this program is coming along?

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2019 10:47 pm
by Exile1981
Ive been using

Braw viewer, found it through youtube
.youtube.com/watch?v=YfJnSErTaqQ

It's very basic, no full screen, no audio but good enough for review.

Hope this helps!

Greetings,
John

Re: Braw on Windows / Using VLC to review footage

PostPosted: Fri Jul 12, 2019 6:15 pm
by Hendrik Proosa
You might want to take a look at this thread too, my Braw Player project:
https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=92559