Magic Lantern gone bad?

[Alex Anderson]

After what I just read on their forum, I decided to not use it. Bricked cameras from the ML hack, internal fighting amongst their developers, etc.

[Donald McPherson]

Let's hope 1% starts his own forum. Just wish I had the knowledge to write programs like these guys.

[Chris Barcellos]

Alex:

I am curious where you are seeing that.

I say that not out of disbelief. In early days of Magic Lantern, I and few other intrepids tested Trammel Hudson's first hacks. It was unnerving to say the least that you were putting you $3k camera up for potential disaster. In all that time of early testing, we had some scares, but never any bricks being made.

I kind of dropped out the scene as they got into more and more features. It was, frankly, getting to be a bit of circus out there with all the mods. Trammel seemed to disappear and Alex took over the lead. I started having some extended interest when the raw program started, and actually loaded some raw, but with my Black Magic Cinema Camera being available, I just didn't see the need to learn the latest aspect of Magic Lantern. They've packed so much on the mod now, I was wondering if pushing edge might eventually hit a bit snag. Curious to hear more about what is going on.

[Alex Anderson]

Alex from ML said most of it.
About forking Magic Lantern and the support that can be provided on this forum

In case you missed my original post I had here, I am sorry. I changed my mind about being the one to say so much about the fiasco between ML and TL. As they say, don't kill the messenger. It's probably better for people to read, talk and make up their own minds on the whole situation. I didn't like hearing about ML leaders censoring, reading peoples PM messages to other people and hiding threads from people that contain years worth of valuable information. :-(

I think it's better to get at least a BMPCC and shoot ProRes or Raw, which has audio, instead of all the extra time and extra steps involved to just get raw footage to the timeline to edit. They did get audio to record with their MLV raw files, but only on the 5dm3, 7D and maybe another I may have forget. Point being, you still can't get audio or headphones out on many of the cameras with ML/TL.

[Ted Ramasola]

Alex,

I'm glad you edited your first post and posted the link instead.
Magic lantern are being used in professional settings all over. It does take some tech savy to know how to install and maintain it. New and reasonably priced cameras with raw are now available and would probably be a better route for those who don't have the time or patience with firmware add ons.

That being said, I and many others around here have been using our ML enhanced cameras which allowed us to postpone expensive upgrades for the time being. The Cameras I use with magic lantern are the mkII and 7D,

Both are:
RAW capable with sound at 48khz stereo.
Variable framerate from .4(yes theres a point) to 30fps for 5D2 , and .4 to 60 fps 7D
H264 auto start capable(meaning I can leave them to record non-stop beyond 4gig)
Headphone monitoring with adjustable controls.
Audio recording with separate sources for 2 tracks and independent controls.
Zebras
Peaking
Histogram
Vectorscope

3X Crop modes, which is 1:1 pixel no line skipping, no aliasing.
up to 2512x1200 @23.976fps limited time 7D
2048 x 930 2.20:1 @ 23.976fps continuous 7D

2144x1076 @23.976fps limited time 5D
2048 x 930 @23.976 continuous 5D.


The 5D mkIII, which I dont have, have much better performance.
And many other lower models.

Hopefully this information helps update you and others on what ML can currently do.

[Chris Barcellos]

Thanks Ted for updating us on what ML is doing at this time. Guess I will have to dig a bit to find out what is happening with TL v. ML.

[Al Gardner]

Alex you are reading that thread totally wrong. Basically the admin is just telling people to use the software following the guidelines set forth by the designers. That's it.

[Ted Ramasola]

In fairness, Alex Anderson has already rephrased his original post and added a link to what ML has posted about the forking of ML code. His decision not to use it is his prerogative just like in choosing what camera to buy.
But yes, there's actually no proof that ML has bricked a camera, this is why they placed so many safety checks in the code and is taking a long time to review the code 1% has made for TL and also they did not remove those placed by Canon. This is also the reason , they tread a very thin line and not put out code that "hacks" and reverse engineer canon's code in the firmware, they only put code that "piggybacks" on to canon code similar to what windows first did on top of DOS.

As to the in fighting among devs, there is non. There are a lot of complaints from posters and users on the ML forum but theres no infighting within the developers. They are just straightening out a code of conduct on how the forking of code and pull requests should be screened before being committed back into the unified branch.
Third party devs for 5D including a.d and pravdomil and 1% for the 7D have already agreed to the code of conduct and 1% even is slowly contributing to the back porting of TL back into ML. Its not just as fast as other camera models due to 1%'s other personal commitments.
Remember, ML devs are doing this on their own free time.

Hope this clarifies things.

[Alex Anderson]

delete,,,,,,

[Alex Anderson]

sorry, double posted somehow.

[Ted Ramasola]

Glad you deleted. Just let people form their own opinion.

To be honest, I use TL myself. What camera do you have? I ask cause the latest TL might not be the best.

[Alex Anderson]

you are right. I currently have the EOS-M

[Ted Ramasola]

I'm using the 7D and in my tests the Mar 7th had the most feature rich version. The following versions had a lot of problems which was due to mlv_rec tweak and the ones from Mar13th onwards had problems with the aspect ratio when in 60P mode in shooting raw.

[Alex Anderson]

My friend has a 7D, but he has no interest in using ML/TL. He just takes pictures. I mostly do video.