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Raw video on Canon 5d Mark 3 and other cameras using liveview framebuffer
  • Some of the Devs at Magic Lantern are discussing the ability to write DNG directly from the LiveView Framebuffer, and it seems its in an alpha stage right now...not up to 24 fps, and not for a long duration...

    Could be interesting if nothing else, just the fact that they can make it write DNGs is a pretty crazy start.

    http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=5240.0


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  • @bannedindv

    Last time I checked all they found is ready debug function to dump liveview buffer. No one really talked for sustainable video and all it has is some comment on how cool is make it work in 24fps.

  • 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.

    So, it is really not video.

  • As some people was pointing out on a forum, in the end a canon 5d3 + an external recorder would be about $ 4000. The price of a 4k blackmagic camera which has global shutter.

  • Devil's advocate here - some people already own the Mark 3 for stills, or whatever. If there was a way to unlock Raw-Like 24p i frame recording to CF cards with it, that might be a somewhat interesting feature, right? not using an outboard recorder, or any other wack stuff? not everyone is always in the market to buy something brand new... I mean, I think there is still plenty of life in a GH2, and there may be more that can be achieved there with patches... so, you know... just a point of interest.

  • With the 5D Mark III, there are also dual slots. Assuming that ML can control which card is being used, it should be fairly trivial, since DNG is one file per frame, to span writes across the cards for additional throughput.

  • I think canon 5d, built to take pictures, not video ...

  • Apparently they've got 24 frames a second working at around 1920x800, continuously with a 1000x card.

    http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=5247.msg34019#msg34019

  • And theoretically, they now have 1920x1080p on a 1000x card after figuring out how to use a faster dma cropping routine, but I haven't seen any sample video yet.

    Heh, people got excited without even knowing the big news: g3gg0 just discovered how to use the DMA cropping routines, which just made possible RAW video recording at 1920x1080 at 24fps on 1000x cards.

    Technical: we now know how to copy a cropped version of some image buffer at very high speeds (over 700MB/s), and with this trick we can save the video data the card at full speed, without being slowed down by image borders, for example.

    1920x1080 RAW video now requires 83MB/s at 24fps, so it should work just fine on 1000x cards. I didn't try it.

    http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=5247.msg34074#msg34074

  • Wow. Really great news! I just hope they can get this working on the 7D or 6D... I'd love RAW on a canon DSLR, just don't want to buy a new one. I'd rather just get a Blackmagic and GH3 for over-cranking. Would be really awesome on Canon's cheaper bodies though...

  • It seems in some ways the Canon cameras are a lot more hackable than out Pannys, arent they? :)

  • Is this working on the mkII also? It seems like it from that thread, but I'm not sure. Cool stuff.

  • @Oedipax - Their main porting focus right now is the Mk III, but it will likely work on the Mk II at reduced resolution. I think I saw somewhere on the forum that the III has a faster CF port.

  • They're talking about custom frame sizes for anamorphic, too, and on the MKII, which would be exciting!

  • And all this time the engineers in companies making these cameras very likely have known what is possible with good memory cards.

  • @neokoo

    No reason to blame engineers.

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev

    I'm not, I'm thanking the engineers, the RAW function in Canons was probably left by them knowing it might be found.

    If anything, I'd guess marketing decisions are to blame for lack of RAW video in hybrid cams. Technically it could have been done earlier I think.

  • I think is not useful, if you want RAW than buy a RAW video camera ...

  • I'd guess marketing decisions are to blame for lack of RAW video in hybrid cams. Technically it could have been done earlier I think.

    Issue here is ram spped and flash cards speed. Plus tiny market for raw video.

  • I think RAW video market will expand like RAW stills camera market. It used to be that only expensive DSLRs had RAW, now there are pocket cams under $400 that take RAW stills. People buying $1000+ system cameras probably know the difference by now and won't like 8-bit compressed look after seeing some of those raw videos. So it could become another selling point...

  • Wow, this is insane

  • This is huge news, BUT how long can you record without frying your cam? No in cam playback...

    I am impressed. It sucks that Canon will luck into this one due to Magic Lantern figuring this stuff out for them.

  • It won't over heat any more than it would when shooting H264. The RAW data is always being read off the sensor regarding of the final output codec. They are just bypassing the compression part.

  • Wow, that's just great, if I get this right the 1:1 crop of the 1920 pix on the sensor is about MFT size, so trough MFT to EF :) adapter the MFT wides might come handy. Or did I get something wrong?

  • Well, some of the componenst towards the end of the chain will heat, amoung them the card. Time will tell what this means for the longevity.