ARW-Files

Hi,

I want to edit a hyperlapse out of .arw-Files. I created a compound clip out of them and want to stabilize that clip via CoreMelt Advanced Tracking. The plugin wants me to optimize the compound clip but this is not possible.

I think it doesn't work because of the .arw-Files? Any chance to fix it?

Many thanks!

.ARW are Sony raw stills. You must convert those to a video sequence. That can be done directly with Compressor, but you lose the ability to manipulate the raw data. I have never tried to import and use raw stills directly in FCPX.

In general I'd recommend doing any raw color manipulation you need in a program like Lightroom, export them as a .jpg sequence, then import to Compressor and convert to a ProRes video file at full camera resolution then import to FCPX at In FCPX. In FCPX you can pan/zoom, speed ramp, etc.

If you don't need the extra flexibility that raw stills provide it would be better to shoot time lapse in .jpg. It saves a lot of space and conversion time.

The best time lapse app is probably LRTimelapse, but it can be complicated to use: lrtimelapse.com/

MacBreak Studio episode #353 covered time lapse workflow using Compressor. There was a former procedure using Quicktime 7 Pro but that software is obsolete and increasingly does not work well on recent versions of macOS.

If you have After Effects, you can bring in your stills as an Image Sequence (something FCPX STILL CAN'T DO PROPERLY). Then you can use the Adobe Camera Raw controls under Interpret Footage/Main/More Options. This will be similar to Photoshop or Lightroom, but will give you the ability to scale the sequence, do camera movement, or just output the full scale photography as a ProRes or other mezzanine codec.

You could also try Davinci Resolve, but I don't know if it reads ARW. It does Canon .CRW files, so it might.


You could also try bring the stills into Motion, but I don't think there are raw controls there, so it treats them as a JPEG sequence with the raw data not accessible.

Timelapse and hyperlapse should show off a bit always. They are about visual brilliance and imo should be planned and executed with HDR in mind. So I would opt for RAW.

Did you know? With certain cameras which have a fast burst mode and a sufficiently big buffer, you can even shoot "realtime "videos (for instance with the A6500 in 6000 x 4000 RAW with 14bits @11fps and a duration of 13 seconds). This with the GH5 (that's what PaulG was referring to):

... and, believe it or not, slomos and even extreme slomos - given your motion phases are changing continously (not like the wet dog shaking it's head) and that you can choose a shutter short enough to virtually stop motion blur (means: no hummingbirds).

The After Effects workflow above looks quite cumbersome, even with the scripts. And some don't have AAE.

PaulG wrote: You could also try Davinci Resolve, but I don't know if it reads ARW. It does Canon .CRW files, so it might.

It doesn't (at least not my free version). But it imports DNGs. The solution was to install the free Adobe DNG converter and batch-convert the ARWs to DNGs - you best create a new folder for the converted files, one for each video clip.

What does all this have to do with FCP X?

Let me speculate on the HDR of the upcoming 10.4. The expensive new iMacPros (afaik the 2017 5k iMacs as well) have 500 nits monitor brightness, not enough for HDR10 (> 1000 nits) or DolbyVision (at least 600 nits, goes up to 10.000 nits).

Maybe all the hysteria and confusion of current HDR "standards" will finally calm down and the easiest approach - HLG - is to become de-facto standard. It's like "HDRready" or "enhanced SDR", easily downward-compatible, even bypassing the "10bit or more" requirements of rec_2020. A further hint at this development is that Sony labels some of it's new 8-bit cameras HDR (and it's just HLG).

It could be worth waiting how this FCP feature will be received. You can grade HDR within Resolve now, but you won't find two TV sets of different brands or HDR smartphones that will show it as intended.