Desktop software to playback chronos videos

[rdemyan]

I'm a complete newbie with video.  I just shot my first video with my Chronos 1.4.

I'm looking for easy to use desktop software which will playback the videos that I shoot.  I'm not sure how this works since there are many individual files in each of the folders.  So software which maybe allows me to select a folder and then the software will "play" all of the files at a selected speed?

[Nikon1]

There is plenty of options.
 Simplest would propably be to save the footage you shot as a video file right out of the Camera and then use your usual VLC or whatever to play it back.
 This is of course not an option if you want to use RAW format (unless you just save the Shot twice, once as RAW individual files, then another time as Video file), then you need some sort of Video editing software.
I personally would use Adobe After Effects for this, but Adobe Premiere Pro or any other Serious Video Editing or Animation Software will allow you to import an Image Sequence from a Series of Numbered in order files as a Video Clip. Framerate will usualy be set at whatever default your Software is set at (for my After Effects its 25fps), since the Software itself has usualy no info what the framerate is based just of simple image files. You can easily change the Framerate however to adjust playback speed.
Most of those pieces of Software are usualy not free, but a free alternative would be Blender for example.
Let me know if you need any instructions for Blender Converting Image Sequences into Video.

[Nikon1]

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=blender+image+sequence+to+video

[rdemyan]

Like I said I have zero experience with video.  Is VLC an acronym for VLC Media Player?

[Nikon1]

Like I said I have zero experience with video.  Is VLC an acronym for VLC Media Player?

Yes, thats what i use for general playback of video files.

[rdemyan]

Thank you, but it looks like VLC does not work with .dng files.

[Nikon1]

no, obviously not, since DNG is just a type of image file. You cant playback that in a video player.
 The whole image Sequence thing goes back to the first beginnings Of moviemaking, the first movie was just a bunch of photographs with individual cameras, and today its sometimes not that mutch different, just that one camera takes all the images.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film#/media/File:Muybridge_race_horse_animated.gif
 This is and also was used in Animation, where a lot of indivudal frames where drawn by them selfs and then put together to a movie.
 So think of the DNGs on your Media like single frames on a piece of film. You need to put them together to an Movie to play them back. This is not an File Format an typical Consumer would use, its for Production use, thats because why normal MOVIE playback software (at least any i know of...) wont be able to play this format back.
IF you want to get Movie Files to directly play back, again, just save the Stuff you shot on the Chronos as A MOVIE FILE DIRECTLY, not as RAW. RAW will always need at least some form of processing to really do anything with (but also allows for better possible image quality because you have more freedom of editing it, at the cost of no easy playback without specialized software/ actual editing taking place)....

[rdemyan]

Well, I'm still pretty confused.

I looked at the files that VLC can open.  The Chronos allows one to save in the following formats:

H.264
Raw 16bit
Raw 12bit
CinemaDNG
TIFF
TIFF Raw

When opening a file in VLC, I don't see any of these formats as options for Media Files or Video Files.

An article I read stated that .MP4 as a video container and H.264 as a codec are a good choice.

As I understand it, the Chronos only sets the codec not the video container.  Or am I not understanding something. 

[ExperimentalPerception]

If you do not want to do post processing (merging frames into a video file, etc) save your video as H.264. The camera will automatically merge frames into a .mp4 video file that you can play with any video player VLC included.

[rdemyan]

Thank you.  I just discovered that myself and was about to post.

Would you mind sharing how you create videos when you do want to do post processing?  Guidance on which format to save the video on the Chronos, which post processing software you use, etc. would be greatly appreciated.  I just need some guidance to get me started so that I can better understand the entire process on what needs to be done.

Thanks.

[chrissie_c]

DaVinci Resolve (free download from BlackMagic) can open the CinemaDNG folders that the Chronos creates, and you can edit them as video. It's not an easy piece of software to get the know if you're new to video editting but it is VERY powerful.

[CircleOfConfusion]

H.264 files will be able to be played back on most computers easily.  VLC is a great option to play back H.264 files.  CinemaDNG will save as a folder as individual DNG files and you will require some kind of software to play back these files.

As already stated by chrissie_c, Davinci Resolve is a great option.  The free version is very robust and the paid version has some great additional features.  Lightworks also has a free version as well but the free version is more limited than Resolves free software.

Another option to playback your files is to use Fast CinemaDNG. 

Please note that both Fast CinemaDNG and Davinci Resolve can be GPU hungry.

H.264 files are easier to work with and are much smaller than CinemaDNG.  They also transfer faster on the Chronos camera than CinemaDNG files.  The trade off is image quality as H.264 files are compressed.

Saving files as CinemaDNG will also increase the amount of hard drive space that you will need since these files are much larger than H.264 files.

If you are just starting, H.264 is a great format to work with until you are setup with your post production workflow and colour management workflow to handle the more robust CinemaDNG file format.