X5R VIDEO FILES INVISIBLE - CINELIGHT PROBLEM

[Eagle33331]

We just started shooting with the X5R. Stills on the Oly' 12mm are very, very good in all respects and streets ahead of X3. Footage which we can see on the micro sd card looks similarly very detailed and sharp. Both extremely close to GH4. Some corner and edge drop-off but to be expected on this lens. All excellent. (TB47 battery life, though, is down to around 8/9 mins [100% - 8%] compared to 15 minutes with X3 when performing same tasks - chasing tractors etc.. Our I1 is pre: the new motors. This is a problem for another moment.)

The bigger problem right now - we can't find the video files on the SSD at all.. (The proxy footage is appearing on the micro sd..)

When recording 4k on the camera, the app says 'saving to SSD' and the available space on the SSD reduces, suggesting it is recording to the SSD. When we format the SSD 'in aircraft' the memory space increases. So, I'm pretty certain the footage is writing to the drive.

BUT :

When we plug in the reader/ssd, whilst we see it appear on the desktop, on opening the folder, no image files/folder are visible. our dealer suggests the only way to see the video files is through Cinelight.

BUT :

a) Cinelight will open ONLY if ssd/reader is not plugged into laptop.

b) If we try to open Cinelight with the reader/ssd already plugged in, it crashes. Every time.

c) If we plug in reader/ssd when Cinelight is open, latter can't see former.

My MacBook Pro is running OS X Yosemite with all updates done. 2.2ghz Intel core i7. Memory 4gb 1333mhz DDR3. Intel Graphics 3000 384mb.

We are tearing our hair out. Does anyone know what's going on here? Every lost sunny day is lost income so help gratefully received.

Thanks, Ian

 

[InterMurph]

My understanding is that the files are only accessible through Cinelight. Because you can't get Cinelight to work, you have no access to the files. But I think it's safe to assume that the files are there.

You say that your MacBook has "all updates done". But I think the solution lies in an update. Hopefully Damon Cooper will chime in with his experience, which I recall was similar to yours.

 

[Eagle33331]

Thanks InterMurph. I just checked again - App store says 'No updates available.' There were two which I successfully did this morning before starting out on all this. There is a Microsoft word update which I haven't done but surely it's nowt to do with that?

 

[Kilrah]

If you're on Yosemite you don't have "all updates done"... Not sure if Cinelight is supposed to work pre-El Capitan.

Might want to try another mac first.

 

[Eagle33331]

Thanks for the correct observation Kilrah. I was avoiding El Capitan because upgrading to Yosemite caused several pain-in-the-arse problems - like Yahoo Messenger (my best means of keeping in touch with remote workforce) not working anymore - and because surely Cinelight couldn't have been designed to only work with an OS which only launched in the last few weeks? You could be right but has anyone got Cinelight working with Yosemite?

 

[Brendan]

If you have troubles reading the SSD try rebooting the laptop and it should show up. When I first tried to read the SSD it wouldn't show up as mounted, and I panicked and thought the files weren't there. I quickly verified that they were by looking at the remaining storage on the SSD in the GO APP when connected to the inspire and it had defiantly written.

I'm using the latest MacBook Pro 15 inch retina maxed out (i7, 1tb SSD, 16Gig Ram etc). Also, download as CinemaDNG, and it rips it off the SSD very quickly as there is minimal processing, which helps a lot in the field. If you transcode to ProRes on the MacBook, you will be waiting a long time to get the files off the drive.

 

[Brendan]

I'm on El-Capitan also with all updates done. CinemaDNG imports into adobe premiere pro CC fine also, you just drag the first DNG from the sequence. The quality of the footage in CinemaDNG is absolutely awesome.

 

[Richard Hurst]

Yes it only works with El Captitan 10.11. onwards I believe

 

[Eagle33331]

Thanks folks. Re-booting doesn't work. Cinelight should work on 10.10.5/Yosemite according to the DJI manual. See here - https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/zenmuse_x5s/en/DJI_Cinelight_User_Manual_en_160324.pdf.

 

[Sunscreen]

Thanks folks. Re-booting doesn't work. Cinelight should work on 10.10.5/Yosemite according to the DJI manual. See here - https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/zenmuse_x5s/en/DJI_Cinelight_User_Manual_en_160324.pdf.

How unfortunate. I was really hoping that Cinelight would work on Yosemite. Sounds like it doesn't despite DJI stating it does. =( Which version of Cinelight are you running?

 

[damoncooper]

We just started shooting with the X5R. Stills on the Oly' 12mm are very, very good in all respects and streets ahead of X3. Footage which we can see on the micro sd card looks similarly very detailed and sharp. Both extremely close to GH4. Some corner and edge drop-off but to be expected on this lens. All excellent. (TB47 battery life, though, is down to around 8/9 mins [100% - 8%] compared to 15 minutes with X3 when performing same tasks - chasing tractors etc.. Our I1 is pre: the new motors. This is a problem for another moment.)

The bigger problem right now - we can't find the video files on the SSD at all.. (The proxy footage is appearing on the micro sd..)

When recording 4k on the camera, the app says 'saving to SSD' and the available space on the SSD reduces, suggesting it is recording to the SSD. When we format the SSD 'in aircraft' the memory space increases. So, I'm pretty certain the footage is writing to the drive.

BUT :

When we plug in the reader/ssd, whilst we see it appear on the desktop, on opening the folder, no image files/folder are visible. our dealer suggests the only way to see the video files is through Cinelight.

BUT :

a) Cinelight will open ONLY if ssd/reader is not plugged into laptop.

b) If we try to open Cinelight with the reader/ssd already plugged in, it crashes. Every time.

c) If we plug in reader/ssd when Cinelight is open, latter can't see former.

My MacBook Pro is running OS X Yosemite with all updates done. 2.2ghz Intel core i7. Memory 4gb 1333mhz DDR3. Intel Graphics 3000 384mb.

We are tearing our hair out. Does anyone know what's going on here? Every lost sunny day is lost income so help gratefully received.

Thanks, Ian

I believe 8GB RAM and El Capitan are minimum requirements

 

[damoncooper]

I also noted CineLight download was updated on 4/22. Give that a try.

Release notes include a reference to an issue of crashing on startup.

 

[Eagle33331]

I also noted CineLight download was updated on 4/22. Give that a try.

Release notes include a reference to an issue of crashing on startup.

Thanks Damon - that sounds very hopeful. One of the machines we were trying on had 10gb RAM/El Cap' and Cinelight d/loaded on 20th Apr and repeated the failures described. Will try this on Monday - on the machine with El Capitan and the one with Yosemite and feed back...

 

[Eagle33331]

UPDATE :

D/loaded last Friday's new Cinelight. It no longer crashes but playing the clips results in nothing but black.

Exporting the clips through Cinelight to Pro Res was set to take 14hrs. We stopped after 4hrs and tried exporting the frames out as DNGs from cinelight (3mins) converted them to TIFFs (30 mins) and then turned that into a ProRes video (20 mins). Much faster but same, black, result. Cinelight's histogram shows different colour ranges in the frames but it's just not reading them properly. This s/ware is still not working. Come on DJI... Time is money..

 

[damoncooper]

UPDATE :

D/loaded last Friday's new Cinelight. It no longer crashes but playing the clips results in nothing but black.

Exporting the clips through Cinelight to Pro Res was set to take 14hrs. We stopped after 4hrs and tried exporting the frames out as DNGs from cinelight (3mins) converted them to TIFFs (30 mins) and then turned that into a ProRes video (20 mins). Much faster but same, black, result. Cinelight's histogram shows different colour ranges in the frames but it's just not reading them properly. This s/ware is still not working. Come on DJI... Time is money..

The default DNG sequence doesn't include a "WhiteLevel" meta tag which makes them appear insanely dark in some apps. It's been reported already. Use the Premiere compatible output DNGs which do have the tag or use SlimRaw on the default DNGs with Premiere compatible box checked. I worked with SlimRaw's author to ft the WhiteLevel tag added when this box is checked.

 

[Eagle33331]

Thanks DC. We managed to export the RAW frames to DNG Premier compatible and can now see them. So it's definitely a Cinelight issue. We'll work around using Premier.

 

[damoncooper]

Thanks DC. We managed to export the RAW frames to DNG Premier compatible and can now see them. So it's definitely a Cinelight issue. We'll work around using Premier.

Glad to help.

Be aware those are huger than huge. Up to 6X the size of the non-Premiere CineLight output. That's why I went the SlimRaw route. It shrinks the standard DNG output by an additional 6% (which is already 6X smaller than the CineLight Premiere DNG output), it fixes the WhiteLevel tag, and it's multithreaded and GPU enabled, so it smashes through the processing with every bit of horsepower available (unlike CineLight).

 

[Richard Hurst]

Glad to help.

Be aware those are higher than huge. Up to 6X the size of the non-Premiere CineLight output. That's why I went the SlimRaw route. It shrinks the standard DNG output by an additional 6% (which is already 6X smaller than the CineLight Premiere DNG output), it fixes the WhiteLevel tag, and it's multithreaded and GPU enabled, so it smashes through the processing with every bit of horsepower available (unlike CineLight).

Yep I'm going to go with your workflow of using SlimRaw and then delete the original files imported

 

[Eagle33331]

Likewise - thanks a lot DC.

 

[Wing Commander Smyth]

Sooooo i've been sitting here now for.......about 83 hours (it feels like) - exporting my X5R clips one......at.......a.......time.

I'm exporting them from cine light as Prores 4444 as thats what the production company asked for. Oh and they want HD not 4K so I'm then going to import into FCPX and then export as HD.....brill.....errrrrr

I have seen the option to export "half size preview" - but when I did that, the footage looked worse than exporting as 4k, and then exporting an HD version from FCPX. I suppose the word "preview" is the clue to that one??

Is there a quicker work flow to export the footage from ShittyLight to ProRess 4444 using .dng.......somewhere?!

If you hadn't gathered this is a new world to me. Normally I hit record, import the media, fiddle, export.

Thanks!