*VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premiere c

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Ron_Mcron

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*VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premiere c

PostTue Sep 04, 2012 9:50 pm

Here is a quick video I put together for anyone having problems importing Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premiere cs6. I know most of you guys have already figured this out, but I hope this video still helps the ones who haven't.

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Rob Burgos

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostTue Sep 04, 2012 9:55 pm

Thanks for posting the video. I'm sure it will be helpful for some.
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Aleksandr_Oleynik

Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostWed Sep 05, 2012 6:55 am

This decision can not be used!
The Importer only supports 8-bit frames. Frames with higher bit-depths are not supported.
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Ron_Mcron

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostWed Sep 05, 2012 11:50 am

Aleksandr_Oleynik wrote:This decision can not be used!
The Importer only supports 8-bit frames. Frames with higher bit-depths are not supported.


What do you mean it wont work?
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Ron_Mcron

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostWed Sep 05, 2012 11:51 am

Rob Burgos wrote:Thanks for posting the video. I'm sure it will be helpful for some.


Thanks...
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Soeren Mueller

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostWed Sep 05, 2012 11:54 am

I think what Aleksandr meant to say was that you're limiting the material to 8bit inside Premiere that way and thus throwing away most of the added information / range.. so there's not that much benefit over directly using Prores/DNxHD for capture... right Aleksandr?
At least you would have to do (or should do) most of your color correction using the raw import settings...

Aleksandr_Oleynik

Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostWed Sep 05, 2012 12:12 pm

Soeren Mueller wrote:I think what Aleksandr meant to say was that you're limiting the material to 8bit inside Premiere that way and thus throwing away most of the added information / range.. so there's not that much benefit over directly using Prores/DNxHD for capture... right Aleksandr?

Yes, that's right.
Moreover -
CinemaDNG Importer for Premiere Pro CS5.5 does not work well in the Premier 6 and and very bad working in the Premier 6 in Mac OS;
does not work at export XML.

We need to wait for the BM agree with Adobe's full support BMCC!

Sorry for my bad English!
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Ron_Mcron

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostWed Sep 05, 2012 12:27 pm

Soeren Mueller wrote:I think what Aleksandr meant to say was that you're limiting the material to 8bit inside Premiere that way and thus throwing away most of the added information / range.. so there's not that much benefit over directly using Prores/DNxHD for capture... right Aleksandr?
At least you would have to do (or should do) most of your color correction using the raw import settings...


Thanks Soeren,

I see what your saying about losing bit depth, going from 12bits to 8bits sucks but like I said in the video, I found a way around that. Try to keep in mind that once the importer is fixed or upgraded, you would still have 12bit raw files ready to go. Plus the 8bit importer is still giving you 2.4k images to work with.

The method I used in the video was really meant as a temporary fix, to be used until Adobe fixes the importer.
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Ron_Mcron

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostWed Sep 05, 2012 12:33 pm

Yes, that's right.
Moreover -
CinemaDNG Importer for Premiere Pro CS5.5 does not work well in the Premier 6 and and very bad working in the Premier 6 in Mac OS;
does not work at export XML.

We need to wait for the BM agree with Adobe's full support BMCC!

Sorry for my bad English![/quote]

Im sorry to hear that it doesnt work on mac, that sucks.

No need to apologize for your english, Im an american, so my english is bad too... :D

Aleksandr_Oleynik

Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostWed Sep 05, 2012 1:03 pm

Ronell_Cross wrote:Im sorry to hear that it doesnt work on mac, that sucks.

Work, but very bad. :(

No need to apologize for your english, Im an american, so my english is bad too... :D

Image
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Soeren Mueller

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostWed Sep 05, 2012 3:09 pm

Ronell_Cross wrote:Try to keep in mind that once the importer is fixed or upgraded, you would still have 12bit raw files ready to go. Plus the 8bit importer is still giving you 2.4k images to work with.

The method I used in the video was really meant as a temporary fix, to be used until Adobe fixes the importer.


Of course.. you're right and it's better than nothing...

Ronell do you have access to Cineform? Over at DV-Info they posted links to their newest builds and it's really great working with the DNGs "through" it - I just tried. Of course it's a little hassle to first convert the DNGs to Cineform RAW AVI using their Import/Convert tool but then... it's just wow!

The total file size even with "Film Scan 2" (their best quality mode) is just a fraction of the original DNGs... playback and postpro performance is so much better (most of the time realtime) and using their "First Light" on the fly (pre)grading tool you can do a really nice realtime (rough) grading of your material. (it's just saved as metadata in addition to the original AVI so nothing is permanently changed)

And because it's still saved as the raw non-debayered data you can even chose between several different debayering methods on the fly, all the time.

I think for the time being this will be my preferred workflow at least on the PC side...
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jpmulligan

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostWed Sep 05, 2012 8:08 pm

So from your posting, you are saying that Cinema DNG is one of the ingestion formats supported by Cineform Studio products? I don't see any mention on their product spec page, but I have been looking at upgrading to their newest stuff. This would pretty much be a deciding factor ...
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Soeren Mueller

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostWed Sep 05, 2012 10:13 pm

jpmulligan wrote:So from your posting, you are saying that Cinema DNG is one of the ingestion formats supported by Cineform Studio products? I don't see any mention on their product spec page, but I have been looking at upgrading to their newest stuff. This would pretty much be a deciding factor ...


Yes.. I think it's a pretty new feature from what I understand. They added support for other single-frame-file-sequence RAW formats too, not only DNG. The current beta seems quite stable and works really well.

And the conversion was really fast (I guess because it's not debayering and "raw to raw") .. current workflow is that you select Import in the Cineform Studio app and select the first DNG file in a folder and it's added as a whole sequence to the batch. From what I understand drag & drop etc. should be possible too.
Then you can use all the usual Cineform features on it - edit it's look (white balance, primary CC, LUTs, debayering algorithm etc etc yadda yadda) and just use it.

Aleksandr_Oleynik

Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostThu Sep 06, 2012 5:55 am

Cineform has a RAW format? As far as I know - it lossless.
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Soeren Mueller

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostThu Sep 06, 2012 7:46 am

Well all their different compression schemes are called "visually lossless" but of course allways to a certain degree. But they have a special scheme/mode called "RAW" as well where the data out of DNG (or RED footage) isn't debayered first but directly transformed/compressed to their format. So debayering is done by their codec once you play back and use the files.

Thus you always have the freedom at any point in time to chose another debayering algorithm/setting... which I think is really neat. I tried it with the Brawley DNGs and it really makes a difference especially with fine details like hair... so you can sort of chose different debayering methods on a shot by shot basis!
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Ron_Mcron

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostFri Sep 07, 2012 4:59 am

Soeren Mueller wrote:
Ronell_Cross wrote:Try to keep in mind that once the importer is fixed or upgraded, you would still have 12bit raw files ready to go. Plus the 8bit importer is still giving you 2.4k images to work with.

The method I used in the video was really meant as a temporary fix, to be used until Adobe fixes the importer.


Of course.. you're right and it's better than nothing...

Ronell do you have access to Cineform? Over at DV-Info they posted links to their newest builds and it's really great working with the DNGs "through" it - I just tried. Of course it's a little hassle to first convert the DNGs to Cineform RAW AVI using their Import/Convert tool but then... it's just wow!

The total file size even with "Film Scan 2" (their best quality mode) is just a fraction of the original DNGs... playback and postpro performance is so much better (most of the time realtime) and using their "First Light" on the fly (pre)grading tool you can do a really nice realtime (rough) grading of your material. (it's just saved as metadata in addition to the original AVI so nothing is permanently changed)

And because it's still saved as the raw non-debayered data you can even chose between several different debayering methods on the fly, all the time.

I think for the time being this will be my preferred workflow at least on the PC side...



Soeren,

Yes I have GoPro Cineform Studio and yes, personally I would love to use cineform. Its the best avi experience I've had in a while, it looks great, the file size is small and plays back smooth as butter. Unfortunately the version of gopro cineform studio I have will not import DNGs or output 2.5k, and I have no intention on paying for codecs (none at all)... I'll check the new version and see whats going on.

Imagine how great it would be if this camera recorded in Cineform FilmScan2 ;)
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Alex Primes

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostTue Oct 22, 2013 5:48 am

Ron_Mcron wrote:Imagine how great it would be if this camera recorded in Cineform FilmScan2 ;)


+1 - I'd take CineformRAW in Filmscan2 quality any day instead of ProRes or DNxHD on BMCC.

Alas currently it is not an option.

To convert DNG (and other raw formats, even still camera timelapses) to CineformRAW, check this: RAW 2 CF RAW
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Aaron Scheiner

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostTue Oct 22, 2013 7:15 am

Not sure if this helps; my company primarily uses Adobe products for editing and what we do is this :

We shoot raw.
The raw clips are bulk converted to BMD Film ProRes at 2400x1350.
The files are imported into Premiere Pro/After Effects.
A combination of curves are applied using Magic Bullet tools.

And that's it. Using this combination we get excellent results and the process is efficient enough that we can edit these clips in real time on an i7 extreme-series 12-core machine with 64GB of RAM and an Nvidia GTX 660 Ti GPU.

We finish off the process, once we know the BMD Film clips are good, by dumping the raw footage onto LTO5 (1.5TB) tapes.

We primarily use this process for chroma keying.
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Alex Primes

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostTue Oct 22, 2013 3:03 pm

Aaron, this is a bit surprising to me. I found it's best to stay with the original DNGs in one particular case - and that's green screen chroma keying.

In all other cases yes, I tend to convert DNGs to CineformRAW using RAW 2 CF RAW utility (link in above post) - because the results are very close.

This is because the resulting video file is still raw - not debayered, so there's no baked-in look. Applying curves in post is fine, but takes processing time. With CineformRAW, you just apply a LUT non-destructively as metadata, and then all programs (AE, PPro, media players) see the changes instantly without any processing required. Very cool :)
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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostTue Oct 22, 2013 3:25 pm

Hey mo7ies

That's the process we're currently using. Both my editor and I are very new to working with raw. The curves we apply aren't destructive and can be changed easily (they're just effects). The BMD Film profile is baked in, but as far as I'm aware one can't key based on raw data? It has to be debayered. So we work from the flat BMD Film footage and once the keying is done we apply our curves. The un-rendered footage, with keying and curves can be played back in real time on the machine mentioned above.

With regard to CFRaw, how are you applying the LUT in Premiere ? So far our experience with LUTs in Adobe products hasn't been great because most of them are very slow (I think one of the tools we tried was LUTBuddy).

We also gave FilmConvert a try but it appears to degrade the quality of the footage too much.

I must admit I'm mostly a camera operator/IT guy, I do very little in the way of editing, so any advice would be great :) .
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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostTue Oct 22, 2013 3:55 pm

Aaron Scheiner wrote:We also gave FilmConvert a try but it appears to degrade the quality of the footage too much.


LOL just yesterday I couldn't hold it back anymore and posted a negative comment about FilmConvert :) Just because Philip Bloom seems to like it, people started applying it everywhere. With all due respect to Mr Bloom, I effing hate the look, it dilutes and undermines the footage so much aesthetically with very little advantage. It looks utterly fake as a vintage attempt, IMHO. Anyway... :))

LUT: on ho, you don't want to do it in NLE or compositor if you can avoid it! With CineformRAW, you can apply LUT as metadata - sort of attach it to the file programmatically. Then, when you open such file in AE or PPro, the LUT is already applied without any processing or rendering.

RAW 2 CF RAW does let you apply a LUT at the time of conversion. (Of course you can change that LUT metadata later with Cineform tools like FirstLight etc.)
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Aaron Scheiner

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostTue Oct 22, 2013 4:08 pm

Hey mo7ies

Well I'll certainly have a closer look at CFRaw.

I couldn't hold it back anymore and posted a negative comment about FilmConvert :) Just because Philip Bloom seems to like it, people started applying it everywhere. With all due respect to Mr Bloom, I effing hate the look, it dilutes and undermines the footage so much aesthetically with very little advantage.

I'm not a fan boy for anything :P except perhaps of Android (and maybe a bit of Linux). The FilmConvert plugin, to me, looks like Instagram... and Instagram is very popular these days, so it doesn't surprise me that FC is also popular.

Amongst other things, I found the output of FC to be very compressed... and if you look at the RGB Parade in Premiere you can clearly see the issue. From memory I think FC's minimum values started at around 20IRE and ended at around 80IRE... people love compressed blacks. I find it illogical that one would wait so long for a camera like the BMCC which captures so much fidelity only to throw that data away and/or degrade it.
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Alex Primes

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostTue Oct 22, 2013 4:47 pm

Agreed 100%.

Also there's a free Time Slate that works everywhere - smartphones, tablets, laptops... Android, MS, iOS... and it looks good and remembers your settings.

Link:

TimeSlater.com

No need to download or install anything, it just works.
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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostTue Oct 22, 2013 5:40 pm

mo7ies wrote:Agreed 100%.

Also there's a free Time Slate that works everywhere - smartphones, tablets, laptops... Android, MS, iOS... and it looks good and remembers your settings.

Link:

TimeSlater.com

No need to download or install anything, it just works.


That is just freaking brilliant!

Shawn
Corporate Video Producer | Independent Filmmaker | Editor | VFX Generalist
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Alex Primes

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Re: *VIDEO* How to import Cinema DNG files into Adobe Premie

PostMon Nov 25, 2013 1:52 am

Shawn :))

BTW, converting DNGs from BMCC or BMPCC to CineformRAW: last day of the Kickstarter, check out RAW 2 CF RAW program.
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