Chronos 1.4 RAW conversion tool - pyraw2dng

[tesla500]

For those of you itching to shoot RAW on your Chronos, you can now use the raw saving feature in the latest beta software v0.2.5 along with this new conversion tool to make DNG sequences. This method of saving raw is only recommended for legacy workflows, the CinemaDNG saving option should be uses in most cases.

pyraw2dng converts the .raw files saved by Chronos to standard Adobe DNG files.

The pyraw2dng utility is open source, you can view the source code on Github:
https://github.com/krontech/chronos-utils/tree/master/python_raw2dng

Requirements

Python 2.7, available here: https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-278/
This might work in Python 3 as well, but it has not been tested.

During the Windows Python 2.7 installation, ‘install’ "Add Python.exe to Path" as shown below:



Usage

Save your video using the RAW16bit format on the camera. Raw16RJ works, but the images are dark and need to be fixed in post.

Download the script (see link above)

Copy the script file, pyraw2dng.py and the raw 16 bit format video into the same directory.

Open a terminal (command prompt), then navigate to the folder with your videos and script

Execute the script as shown in the example below. You will need to update the -w and -l switches with your actual frame size.
pyraw2dng.py -w (width) -l (length) (filename)

Where:
(width) is the horizontal resolution of your recording
(length) is the vertical resolution of your recording
(filename) is the .raw file you want to convert

An example of a complete command is shown below:
pyraw2dng.py -w 1280 -l 1024 vid.raw

The raw video will be converted and saved as a DNG sequence in a folder of the same name as the .raw file.

Let us know how this works for you!

[John Delonghi]

It might be useful if you could post here the advantages of shooting RAW with the Chronos...

[tesla500]

It might be useful if you could post here the advantages of shooting RAW with the Chronos...

I'll let this comparison speak for itself:



Advantages of RAW are far greater control of the image processing pipeline, better color correction, better demosaic, etc. This ultimately results in far sharper and more accurate images than the current in-camera processing provides.

Better in-camera processing is on the way, eventually you should expect in-camera to be almost as good as the raw samples.

You can also find the full scenes, and dng attached.

[John Delonghi]

Well that's very dramatic. Much more so that I'd see with a jpg/RAW comparison from a DSLR.
Needless to say, I'll be shooting RAW from now on!

Is there any chance of posting a road map of the various key firmware improvements you're working on so we'd get an idea of which will be available when?

[JamesB]

Wonder if it would be possible to save both RAW data and H.264 of the same clip automatically in a future firmware. Without having to change settings and save each one separately. That way it will be like RAW + JPG on still cameras.   The detail improvement with RAW is like getting a new camera.   Will test in the next few days.   

[Jeffism]

Wow, the difference is much greater than I expected. The details on the stick of RAM and the colours of the cables 

[gyppor]

Wow, that's dramatic. Really dramatic. I've never shot raw before but I'm going to take the plunge, 100%.

[patrickrebstock]

wow those differences are dramatic!

[John Delonghi]

This is going to help a lot when lighting conditions are not as good as we'd like them to be.

I've done a couple of quick tests and this is the workflow I've used for them as it may help you if you want to try recording in RAW mode.

1. Generate .raw file as David outlines above
2. In Adobe Bridge, open the first .DNG file as a Camera Raw file and tweak exposure, sharpness, colour etc. As the DNG is a raw file format you can do a lot here to improve the overall look and quality of each frame
3. Apply changes to all the DNG files and save them. I save them as .JPGs for the next step
4. In Photoshop, Open As... Image sequence and pull in all the JPGs
5. Export... Render Video and save whatever video format and quality you want to use. I've used Adobe H264 max. quality for these test.

The light was really dull when I took these, so the processed RAW version does have quite a lot of noise, but it's a massive improvement from the original and a much better result than I achieved tweaking the brightness, contrast and colour in my edit software.

Here's an original untouched frame from the Chronos H264 version of the clip I saved:

Here's a frame from the final video I rendered from PS:


Here are the links to the videos:

Original from Chronos:
https://youtu.be/6JMfVIYYci0

Original tweaked in edit software:
https://youtu.be/upStvyZh9U0

RAW version tweaked in PS:
https://youtu.be/Dk1ShX0J8WI

[patrickrebstock]

so i tried my first save a raw file today and it froze and stoped pretty early on i looked at the file on the card and its 4.29 gb do you know why it may have stoped saving and froze? it saved  the h264 just fine before that

[tesla500]

so i tried my first save a raw file today and it froze and stoped pretty early on i looked at the file on the card and its 4.29 gb do you know why it may have stoped saving and froze? it saved  the h264 just fine before that

How long did it take to freeze approximately? There's currently a limitation with FAT32 formatted cards, they can't handle files over 4GB, if the file you saved was larger that would explain the problem. You can try an EXT3 formatted card if you want to save larger files. exFAT and NTFS support is in the works so this will be solved.

[jasonfish]

Here are the links to the videos:

Original from Chronos:
https://youtu.be/6JMfVIYYci0

Original tweaked in edit software:
https://youtu.be/upStvyZh9U0

RAW version tweaked in PS:
https://youtu.be/Dk1ShX0J8WI

That's just extraordinary.

[John Delonghi]

The 4GB limit is going to be an issue when saving in RAW mode, so I'm hoping you can solve it soon!

I tried EXT3 formatting, but I couldn't get it to work.

[patrickrebstock]

so i tried my first save a raw file today and it froze and stoped pretty early on i looked at the file on the card and its 4.29 gb do you know why it may have stoped saving and froze? it saved  the h264 just fine before that

How long did it take to freeze approximately? There's currently a limitation with FAT32 formatted cards, they can't handle files over 4GB, if the file you saved was larger that would explain the problem. You can try an EXT3 formatted card if you want to save larger files. exFAT and NTFS support is in the works so this will be solved.

At least 5-10minutes it was saving at 3-5fps I think

[tesla500]

At least 5-10minutes it was saving at 3-5fps I think

That lines up with the 4GB limit. The camera should warn you about this, this was added between v0.2.3 and 0.2.5, which version are you on?