Author Topic: FFPMEG: Fastest conversion of DNG to MP4  (Read 9193 times)

clkdiv

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
    • View Profile
FFPMEG: Fastest conversion of DNG to MP4
« on: November 08, 2020, 06:55:21 AM »
Hello! I am shooting in RAW and tried to convert the RAWs to H264/MP4. Now FFMPEG is really fast on that: On my old I7 with 6 cores it converts with 55fps. This is because it uses the GPU.

Unfortunately the output is dark and greenish, but at least I have a fast glance of what happened while recording.

When converting the DNG to TIFF first and then putting them together into a MP4, everything is "normal": White balance, colors, black level.

Does anyone have any experience converting DNGs directly into a video using the GPU?

Thanks! Martin

Nikon1

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 983
    • View Profile
Re: FFPMEG: Fastest conversion of DNG to MP4
« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2020, 09:43:09 AM »
I just did an quick test with my usual setup, assuming you mean Full Resolution 2.1 DNG-Files.
 I used My Adobe After Effects CS6, running on even older Hardware, an 4 Core i7 (i7-4720HQ+GTX960M, Laptop), though i dont really know how much After Effects used the GPU for this operation. I put a 100 DNG-Frame Sequence in, didnt change anything on them, no effects added, no denoise, nothing, just the DNG with untouched Settings, exporting as h.264 with a Setting of 8 MBps Bitrate. Did take 31 Seconds to finish the Render for the 100 Frames, so should be around 3,2fps export speed. Gets quite a bit slower if denoising and or sharpening is added, Whitebalance and general Color adjustments seem to slow it down a bit, but by far not as much as denoise and Sharpening.
 Isnt really that fast, but Image Quality is very good from the Internal Adobe Camera Raw Converter.
 .
 #EDIT: Also, should say, will propably run quite a bit faster on more Recent hardware with the Newest CC Version of After Effects, would at least expect somewhere between 10-30fps or even more on an fast CPU/ GPU combination
« Last Edit: November 08, 2020, 09:58:32 AM by Nikon1 »

clkdiv

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
    • View Profile
Re: FFPMEG: Fastest conversion of DNG to MP4
« Reply #2 on: November 08, 2020, 10:37:37 AM »
Yes, thank you. That's the problem. AE is much slower, I assume this is due to the high-end quality conversion from Adobe RAW converter. However this is really too slow. I have a very old graphics card here which goes for 55fps when converting with FFMPEG. I need the fastest preview available, that's why I am looking for the FFMPEG solution. When it comes to the real editing I will go for Adobe RAW, sure...

If someone stumbles upon this: If you need fast conversion of multiple DNGs to MP4 for preview while having at least "good" quality, try "DCRAW -v -T -w -W -q 0". This will give you TIFF files which then can be merged to a MP4 with FFMPEG. This is also much faster than AE but slower than the direct conversion DNG->FFMEG.

I also tried ImageMagick before, which does the job too, but it also converts to TIFF first and then to MP4. And it is much slower than doing it "manually" with DCRAW and FFMPEG.

Nikon1

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 983
    • View Profile
Re: FFPMEG: Fastest conversion of DNG to MP4
« Reply #3 on: November 08, 2020, 12:12:52 PM »
Interresting would be if someone had an very recent GPU and the Latest CC Version of AE, since i think the older Versions are not that well optimised for GPU use or even just heavy Multicore CPU use. And CS6 is allready pretty old software by now, Hardware has changed a lot since. i guess just propperly using the GPU for this will gain a lot of speed, and dont think AE CS6 does use it well for stuff like that, if at all. if i recall correctly AE CS6 does basically just use GPU for 3D Calcualtions for some Plugins and Shading and stuff. But i dont really have the Hardware or software to test this... What version of AE are you running CS6/older or CC?
 .
 #EDIT: Just tried the same render i did with AE CS6 bevore, the 100 Frames, with The old AE 7.0 aka AE CS2. Render did take 61 Seconds for the 100 frames @ h.264 Quicktime (.mov, only option for h.264 Compression inside AE CS6) @8MBps. Running on the Same Hardware, but with even way older Software with even worse Multicore suport, and propably no GPU support for stuff like that at all. So the Recent CC AE on Powerfull New Hardware should run quite a bit faster i assume.
« Last Edit: November 08, 2020, 12:26:50 PM by Nikon1 »

clkdiv

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
    • View Profile
Re: FFPMEG: Fastest conversion of DNG to MP4
« Reply #4 on: November 08, 2020, 02:08:24 PM »
Yes, that's true. I have a NVIDIA Quattro 4000 installed, and both Adobe Bridge and Lightroom Classic CC cannot use the GPU for Image processing but only for image displaying. You can check if AE uses the GPU or not:

I'll check if I need a new graphics card. However, AE ist not that good for automated processing. AERENDER is too clumsy, imho.
« Last Edit: November 08, 2020, 02:27:58 PM by clkdiv »

Nikon1

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 983
    • View Profile
Re: FFPMEG: Fastest conversion of DNG to MP4
« Reply #5 on: November 08, 2020, 02:09:37 PM »
Yes, that's true. I have a NVIDIA Quattro 4000 installed, and both Adobe Bridge and Lightroom Classic CC cannot use the GPU for Image processing but only for image displaying.

I'll check if I need a new graphics card. However, AE ist not that good for automated processing. AERENDER is too clumsy, imho.
Have you tried Premiere Pro CC?

clkdiv

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
    • View Profile
Re: FFPMEG: Fastest conversion of DNG to MP4
« Reply #6 on: November 08, 2020, 02:28:32 PM »
Premiere cannot be automated at all. No way.

Nikon1

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 983
    • View Profile
Re: FFPMEG: Fastest conversion of DNG to MP4
« Reply #7 on: November 08, 2020, 02:30:43 PM »
Yes, that's true. I have a NVIDIA Quattro 4000 installed, and both Adobe Bridge and Lightroom Classic CC cannot use the GPU for Image processing but only for image displaying.

I'll check if I need a new graphics card. However, AE ist not that good for automated processing. AERENDER is too clumsy, imho.
Also i dont work with Resolve, but that could be quite a bit faster than AE and the Other Adobe stuff for this. Havent really worked with Resolve, since i just like AE better, but there are quite a few people even here on the Forum, that prefer Resolve, so maybe one of the Resolve-Users can share some Rendertimes for DNG?
 Also, depending on whatever CPU you are running, it might make sense to upgrade that first. I would go for a CPU with a fairly high Clockspeed and Single-Core-Performance, since even today not all software can make best use of a lot of cores/threads on an CPU, so having a bunch of fast ones is most of the time better for editing than Having a ton of rather slow ones (for most software). Just looked up the Quattro 4000, and it actually seems a bit old, but i would reccomend to look up the Support for GPU accelrated DNG-Conversion /-Processing (also support for the Particular GPU you think about upgrading to...) bevore blowing a load of money into an expensive GPU, for the Adobe Software stuff it might not be worth it for just DNG, since it might not even make it any faster, CPU Upgrade might be better here. For software that can actually make good use of a powerfull GPU for this, its propably worth to upgrade the GPU, as long as the rest of the System can keep up with it (Memory speed and Bandwith, both RAM and HDD/SSD, CPU, ect.)

Nikon1

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 983
    • View Profile
Re: FFPMEG: Fastest conversion of DNG to MP4
« Reply #8 on: November 08, 2020, 02:33:31 PM »
Premiere cannot be automated at all. No way.
Ok, just tried, and you are actually correct about that. I am a bit surprised.
 Have not used Premiere too much in the Past, but knew it could import PNG and other Image Sequences, and assumed it would be able to Deal with DNG also, but it actually cant open DNG at all...
 Premiere Should be able to Use GPU better for rendering faster in General, but that is indeed worthless, if it cant even open DNG...

clkdiv

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
    • View Profile
Re: FFPMEG: Fastest conversion of DNG to MP4
« Reply #9 on: November 08, 2020, 02:41:03 PM »
Premiere not only cannot import DNG, it also cannot be automated. However, for the moment I'll stick to FFMPEG, that CAN make use of the GPU. It's weird that Adobe can't do that, since it is proven it is possible.

Bian

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 58
    • View Profile
Re: FFPMEG: Fastest conversion of DNG to MP4
« Reply #10 on: November 09, 2020, 10:57:30 AM »
Hi, I use Davinci Reseolve 16.
It needs for an imported picture sequence
20 seconds tiff (1000 frames 640x360)  to 1920x1080 50p h264 mp4: 14 seconds
20 seconds dng (1000 frames 1027x576) to 1920x1080 50p h264 mp4: 23 seconds

I5, 32GB RAM, NVIDA 2060S 8GB

Hope this helps  ;)