Magic Lantern discover 2K raw DNG stream in live view on the 5D Mark III

[Andrew Reid]

Andrew, what is your source for the following statement: "At the moment it doesn’t record video but it is expected to be capable of 24fps"? I don't think that the 5DMkII, with its ancient processor, can write 24*5 MB=120 MB/s to a CF card.

 

SD cards already do 120MB/s.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Speed-Professional-120MB-Memory/dp/B005026D7C

 

Magic Lantern say they are hopeful of 24fps, that is the source. Nobody knows for sure yet if it will be possible because it is still early days.

[Wild Ranger]

This is amazing. But to be honest, even if they can (and i hope so) capture 24 fps on cards, it will take a LOT of space, you will need a LOT of very expensive cards (the fastest ones) and maybe cant even record enough for doing anything... Sorry for been so pessimist.

 

Maybe this discovery will be more useful if they find a way to make the camera process the raw image in a better way and compress it in a video file with better quality than the actual way is doing.

 

I hope they find something amazing soon.

[Will Turner]

This is the craziest damn thing I have ever heard!

[Mr. Blah]

Luke Neumann commented on the Nofilmschool article that he thinks there's roughly two stops more exposure latitude possible with the DNG files. Crazy stuff.

[Andrew Benton]

Luke Neumann commented on the Nofilmschool article that he thinks there's roughly two stops more exposure latitude possible with the DNG files. Crazy stuff.

Now if only the 5DIII actually had DR to boast about as even the little GH3 is higher, but RAW really does make a difference in actually working with it!

[ScreensPro]

Would be a great feature.

 

Not sure why people are crying that Canon "held back" this feature. We might just have the CF cards to pull it off now, but even last year, when the 5DIII was launched, it would be difficult/impossible. That's without even thinking about buffer issues.

 

Fingers crossed that ML can breath even more life into these cameras.

[ScreensPro]

btw - if this happens, and is solid.... I'm dropping my BMCC 4K order

 

a 2K raw 5DIII would be plenty... a dream camera really, if it holds the DR, resolution and low light of it's stills.

[cantsin]

SD cards already do 120MB/s.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Speed-Professional-120MB-Memory/dp/B005026D7C

 

In theory, if you dump raw bits onto the unformatted card. In practice, you have to calculate in file system overhead. In order to reliably write real 120MB/s onto a card (and that would exclude audio!), you would need a card specified for 180MB/s or more.

[cantsin]

btw - if this happens, and is solid.... I'm dropping my BMCC 4K order

 

While the excitement is understandable, people need to put this into perspective. This "raw video" feature is the same as on the Nikon V1/V2 - high speed burst mode stills with no audio, and limited by the camera's buffer size and bus speeds. Take this as an experimental feature, not as something stable and reliable for a production camera.

[kabuto1138]

I hope the ML guys can pull this off, but it just got "discovered".  We should give these guys at least a few months see what they can do before we throw a parade.

 

... btw, the magic lantern site been down for more than hour. Weird, now is re-directing to google.com

[ScreensPro]

While the excitement is understandable, people need to put this into perspective. This "raw video" feature is the same as on the Nikon V1/V2 - high speed burst mode stills with no audio, and limited by the camera's buffer size and bus speeds. Take this as an experimental feature, not as something stable and reliable for a production camera.

 

Fair enough, but i am not a narrative film maker. 10-20 seconds of burst would be fine for my work (and i would still have the video mode, for the occasional narrative/advertising work i do).

[cantsin]

I hope the ML guys can pull this off, but it just got "discovered".  We should give these guys at least a few months see what they can do before we throw a parade.

 

Yes, and in the discussion thread on their Facebook page, they unmistakably say: "This is not RAW video. It is RAW silent-pics."

[cantsin]

Fair enough, but i am not a narrative film maker. 10-20 seconds of burst would be fine for my work (and i would still have the video mode, for the occasional narrative/advertising work i do).

 

10 seconds burst at 24fps, with 5 MB/frame, would be 1.2 GB data. The camera's buffer holds about 16-17 raw full resolution pictures, each weighing about 32 MB; that amounts to a likely 512 MB SDRAM buffer memory. And the question still is whether the live view signal can be written, purely via a software hack, into that buffer at all. So I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Andrew Reid]

In theory, if you dump raw bits onto the unformatted card. In practice, you have to calculate in file system overhead. In order to reliably write real 120MB/s onto a card (and that would exclude audio!), you would need a card specified for 180MB/s.

 

The CF card I used in the 1D C does 150MB/s so not far off, but the write speeds are probably a lot lower than that.

 

Alex of Magic Lantern says he has got burst mode working - it can write 30 frames in 1 second at whatever the live-view FPS is (24-50fps) but flushing the buffer to the card takes half a minute for those 30 frames!

 

So yes it is a bit like the Nikon V1 burst mode.

 

In continuous mode the FPS is much lower. I've heard various reports between 4fps and 14fps.

 

For video I think the 2K would need to be cropped significantly (720p or pseudo 2x anamorphic 2048x540) or compressed. The internal processor might not be able to handle the data rate at 24fps even if the sensor can output that fast.

 

In Alex's latest update he seems quite pessimistic on the chances of raw video:

 

Don't hold your breath for raw video. 24fps at 1080p is unlikely IMO, even on 1000x cards.

- HDMI out doesn't help. Here's why: raw image buffer vs recorded with hyperdeck shuttle uncompressed. Ignore the overlays.

- In continuous mode I've got 4fps of raw data (not DNG, just the raw image buffer) on a 266x card. G3gg0 got 12.5fps of YUV422 video on the Lexar 1000x card.

- I was able to record around 30 frames in burst mode, at LiveView FPS (24, 25, 30, 50, whatever). It takes roughly 1 second of "recording" to RAM and then half a minute of saving the DNGs to card.

[HurtinMinorKey]

10 seconds burst at 24fps, with 5 MB/frame, would be 1.2 GB data. The camera's buffer holds about 16-17 raw full resolution pictures, each weighing about 32 MB; that amounts to a likely 512 MB SDRAM buffer memory. And the question still is whether the live view signal can be written, purely via a software hack, into that buffer at all. So I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

This.

[Bruno]

But the thing that amazes me is why they don't just try putting a camera together from scratch - if they did a Kickstarter project, they'd get the cash soo quickly based on their track record alone!

As far as we know they never built a single camera, all their experience is with software/firmware, so would that really be a good idea?

[cantsin]

As far as we know they never built a single camera, all their experience is with software/firmware, so would that really be a good idea?

 

The Digital Bolex project should be a warning example. (I personally doubt that its Kickstarter backers will ever get what they expected.) And Digital Bolex even had/has some corporate backing, too. Hardware is a completely different beast than software, and orders of magnitude more complex to get right (and shipped in numbers). Besides, it is very hard if not impossible to build a camera as an Open Source community project and not run into serious patent/IP trouble.

 

But these projects do exist. Just have a look at the Apertus camera project.

[Bruno]

I know about Apertus, but it just kind of proves my point, their project and feature set looks less and less groundbreaking every day, and things are moving very slowly, compared to the rest of the industry.

 

The Digital Bolex backers will probably get much more than they expected, since there's been over 100 significant improvements to the camera since it went on kickstarter...

[P337]

Fair enough, but i am not a narrative film maker. 10-20 seconds of burst would be fine for my work (and i would still have the video mode, for the occasional narrative/advertising work i do).

 

If this ever gets to 24fps its obviously going to have bandwidth and storage issues, its only use would be for quick "b-roll"/"cut away" shots for any type of filming, I doubt it would be as useful as a BlackMagic for any other situation.

 

I wonder if this would work better on a camera with a bigger buffer, like the 7D or 1D mk4.

[Chrad]

The Digital Bolex backers will probably get much more than they expected, since there's been over 100 significant improvements to the camera since it went on kickstarter...

None of which include the ability to see live picture being displayed on a working model, 13 months later.