D Cinelike to HLG / HDR?

[Prime12]

Can someone suggest a good way to convert 10 bit D Cinelike video from Mini 3 Pro into proper HLG PQ / HDR format?

By saying HDR I mean the type that requires HDR display or TV to play.

I know D Cinelike isn't an optimal format for this but I've seen some breathtaking end results on here and Youtube.

What's the secret?

 

[Filmarik]

Can someone suggest a good way to convert 10 bit D Cinelike video from Mini 3 Pro into proper HLG PQ / HDR format?

By saying HDR I mean the type that requires HDR display or TV to play.

I know D Cinelike isn't an optimal format for this but I've seen some breathtaking end results on here and Youtube.

What's the secret?

Can you post a few links to some of the breathtaking results? Not trying to hijack this thread but I am always for a treat and learning from watching what other people can achieve with this drone

 

[Prime12]

Can you post a few links to some of the breathtaking results? Not trying to hijack this thread but I am always for a treat and learning from watching what other people can achieve with this drone

Sure. Here is a few I found:

 

[Filmarik]

Sure. Here is a few I found:

Thank you. I am not a video expert and all this HDR lingo is pretty new to me but I put together a short cinematic video recently and shared it on this forum "Cinematic landscape video". It was shot with Mavic 3 ( not Mini) in DJI Dlog and edited and graded in DaVinci Resolve. Applied the DJI LUT and tweaked from there. I do not have a HDR display but when I watched these videos on my TV I could not see any difference in quality between the videos you provided link to and the one I created. Someone with HDR display might have different experience.

 

[SmilingOgre]

Thank you. I am not a video expert and all this HDR lingo is pretty new to me but I put together a short cinematic video recently and shared it on this forum "Cinematic landscape video". It was shot with Mavic 3 ( not Mini) in DJI Dlog and edited and graded in DaVinci Resolve. Applied the DJI LUT and tweaked from there. I do not have a HDR display but when I watched these videos on my TV I could not see any difference in quality between the videos you provided link to and the one I created. Someone with HDR display might have different experience.

I don't have a mini 3 P so I can't say too much. I see on the interweb where the m3p will produce an HLG video. This is a "canned" type of HDR. Think of it as color corrected out of the box. It can be tweaked some. Getting into the bag of worms of rec.2020 or HDR with an extended color space is a quantom leap. Entirely different profile than the Rec.709 that has been standard forever. When you start getting into video produced by Red or Black Magic cameras then you start talking about raw data from the sensor. That's where the Rec.2020 really starts to come into play. Much greater dynamic range and color space. Personally, of all the containers offered by DJI, I like d-log the best. It is the closest to raw that they offer. Their normal, d-cinelike, prores 4.2.2, and HLG are all more limited in post. I have to quit with that said. There's a plathora of approaches and proccesses that are used out there.

 

[Prime12]

I don't have a mini 3 P so I can't say too much. I see on the interweb where the m3p will produce an HLG video. This is a "canned" type of HDR. Think of it as color corrected out of the box. It can be tweaked some. Getting into the bag of worms of rec.2020 or HDR with an extended color space is a quantom leap. Entirely different profile than the Rec.709 that has been standard forever. When you start getting into video produced by Red or Black Magic cameras then you start talking about raw data from the sensor. That's where the Rec.2020 really starts to come into play. Much greater dynamic range and color space. Personally, of all the containers offered by DJI, I like d-log the best. It is the closest to raw that they offer. Their normal, d-cinelike, prores 4.2.2, and HLG are all more limited in post. I have to quit with that said. There's a plathora of approaches and proccesses that are used out there.

Mini 3 Pro can't record in HLG . Only D Cinelike, which I imagine is Rec 709.

Any suggestions as to what approach / process I can use? I've tried using ACES with Resolve yesterday and that seemed to work ok, but curious to try other methods.

 

[SmilingOgre]

Mini 3 Pro can't record in HLG . Only D Cinelike, which I imagine is Rec 709.

Any suggestions as to what approach / process I can use? I've tried using ACES with Resolve yesterday and that seemed to work ok, but curious to try other methods.

Wow, sorry to hear that. I haven't used cinelike for a very long time now and don't think I can help much. And, yes cinelike is rec 709.

 

[brett8883]

Mini 3 Pro can't record in HLG . Only D Cinelike, which I imagine is Rec 709.

Any suggestions as to what approach / process I can use? I've tried using ACES with Resolve yesterday and that seemed to work ok, but curious to try other methods.

You have the right idea. Colorspaces are just color spaces. Rec 709 can easily be converted to rec 2020. You can do this with an ACES workflow but you can also any kind of color management. Really the main prerequisite for HDR is 10 bit. You can even technically use 8 bit footage and make it HDR footage there just usually isn’t enough gradation to make it look good.

In resolve you can use color management to do this for you or you can use colorspace transforms to do it. Colorspaces are just languages and you can translate between them. Bit depth is far more important than colorspace.

 

[Prime12]

You have the right idea. Colorspaces are just color spaces. Rec 709 can easily be converted to rec 2020. You can do this with an ACES workflow but you can also any kind of color management. Really the main prerequisite for HDR is 10 bit. You can even technically use 8 bit footage and make it HDR footage there just usually isn’t enough gradation to make it look good.

In resolve you can use color management to do this for you or you can use colorspace transforms to do it. Colorspaces are just languages and you can translate between them. Bit depth is far more important than colorspace.

Thank you.
Question - if a footage is recorded in Rec.709 like D-Cinelike, wouldn't most of the highlights / shadow info required for proper HDR conversion be missing? I was under impression HLG / D-Log videos do contain this data but not Rec. 709.

 

[Filmarik]

I don't have a mini 3 P so I can't say too much. I see on the interweb where the m3p will produce an HLG video. This is a "canned" type of HDR. Think of it as color corrected out of the box. It can be tweaked some. Getting into the bag of worms of rec.2020 or HDR with an extended color space is a quantom leap. Entirely different profile than the Rec.709 that has been standard forever. When you start getting into video produced by Red or Black Magic cameras then you start talking about raw data from the sensor. That's where the Rec.2020 really starts to come into play. Much greater dynamic range and color space. Personally, of all the containers offered by DJI, I like d-log the best. It is the closest to raw that they offer. Their normal, d-cinelike, prores 4.2.2, and HLG are all more limited in post. I have to quit with that said. There's a plathora of approaches and proccesses that are used out there.

I personally find the HLG at ISO 100 delivering better results than D-log, to my layman's eyes at least. Coming from photography background keeping the ISO at low levels delivers better results than from higher ISO and also DR is usually greatest at low ISO. D-log base ISO on M3 is 400. It looks like there is some serious noise reduction baked into the pipeline causing posterization in skies when shadows and highlights are pushed a bit and some sharpening is applied in post. And boy oooh boy, the M3 videos do need sharpening otherwise they look too soft for my liking. I do not see that posterization happening on HLG footage as easily as on d-log footage.. The HLG files seem a bit sharper, less noisy. Someone did a test comparing HLG with M3's night modes and his findings were favouring HLG over the nightmodes and also over the files shot in d-log.
So, I used to shoot everything in D-log but I am now a HLG convert

 

[brett8883]

Thank you.
Question - if a footage is recorded in Rec.709 like D-Cinelike, wouldn't most of the highlights / shadow info required for proper HDR conversion be missing? I was under impression HLG / D-Log videos do contain this data but not Rec. 709.

You’ll be fine using D-Cinelike for HDR. If you had the option to use HLG it would of course be easier since it’s already done for you and D-log in theory has more highlight roll off but 10bit D-Cinelike will work just fine. You of course will need to set this up properly in your editor for it to work.

 

[SmilingOgre]

I personally find the HLG at ISO 100 delivering better results than with D-log, to my layman's eyes at least. Coming from photography background keeping the ISO at low levels always delivers better results than from higher ISO. D-log base ISO on M3 is 400. It looks like there is some serious noise reduction baked into the pipiline causing posterization in skies when a bit of sharpening is applied in post. And boy oooh boy, the M3 videos do need sharpening otherwise the they look very soft. I do not see that posterization problem happening with HGL footage. The files are also a bit sharper, less noisy and the DR is basically the same. Someone did tests also with M3 night mode and his final findings were favouring HLG over the new nightmodes and also over the files shot with d-log.
So, I am a HLG convert

You make a convincing argument. I'll have to give the HLG some more consideration and see what I can get out of it. Surely don't mind playing around with it some more.

 

[Filmarik]

You make a convincing argument. I'll have to give the HLG some more consideration and see what I can get out of it. Surely don't mind playing around with it some more.

Man I am not an expert on this at all but to me HLG is an interesting format and very usable one at that...

 

[SmilingOgre]

Man I am not an expert on this at all but to me HLG is an interesting format and very usable one at that...

I'm no expert either. If I were I would probably have gone on to another hobby, lol. Spending some "quality time" with HLG will be fun, no doubt.

 

[gypsy1]

Thank you.
Question - if a footage is recorded in Rec.709 like D-Cinelike, wouldn't most of the highlights / shadow info required for proper HDR conversion be missing? I was under impression HLG / D-Log videos do contain this data but not Rec. 709.

He posted a tutorial of his entire workflow in final cut pro, although its for Mavic 3 but same applies for mini 3 pro D-Cineliek 10 bit footage
Drone tricks: sunrise above the clouds | Neat Blog

Same can be done in Davinci Resolve 18 too.

 

[SethB]

He posted a tutorial of his entire workflow in final cut pro, although its for Mavic 3 but same applies for mini 3 pro D-Cineliek 10 bit footage
Drone tricks: sunrise above the clouds | Neat Blog

Same can be done in Davinci Resolve 18 too.

This is an outstanding article on workflow and colorspace - great find and thanks for sharing!