Like many people I guess I have read all the posts about LUTs and using D Cinelike and, again like many others I guess trying to improve and differentiate my footage I have been experimenting. I have to say I have drawn a complete blank with D Cinelike. The drone does produce files but I cannot reliably open them in my editor - Corel VideoStudio Ultimate 2022. They open and render but with huge jumps and vacant pixel areas. I thought initially that this must be a fault on the drone but then I was able to open the files in VLC and they play fine. I now find that D Cinelike is a proprietary format of DJI and I don't seem to be able to find a proper spec. I was told that these files open in DaVinci Resolve but then another post said it was only in the studio version. Anybody got any other suggestions for an editor which will open them on modest hardware? I am using Windows 10, 64, an I7 processor, Intel UHD 620 Thanks, Mark

Sounds more like your software can't handle the H265 decoding in real time or at all.  

Cineline isnt a format - its just a colour profile inside a standard wrapper and h265 compressed.  


Its quite possible that Coral cant handle 10 bit h.265.  You may get luck creating proxies or transcoding before edit to make it a more managable file type.

Can you use the Standard profile and h.264?

gnirtS Posted at 1-8 06:47
Sounds more like your software can't handle the H265 decoding in real time or at all.  

Cineline isnt a format - its just a colour profile inside a standard wrapper and h265 compressed.  

Thats another thing that DJI changed that i hate, they stopped creating proxies, on my P4P SD card there is a "hidden" folder that saves a low res version of the video, which saved a lot of encoding time for sure....

That's not a proxy.  Its a highly compressed, very low resolution copy, effectively a cache.  Of no real use to anyone.  A proxy provides a link to the full size file so rendering uses the proper, high quality video.

None of the mavic, air or mini range has ever done that - its always the mobile device caching.

H265 is an industry standard but a little heavy for old hardware and old/basic software.  Its not really an issue, free apps like Handbrake can transcode if your system is struggling and choice of NLE wont do it for you.

My 5 year old Dell laptop handles .265 playback without issues and also editing in Premiere or Resolve.

Thanks for the replies....which really open up more avenues of my ignorance rather than anything else. I wasn't aware that I had any choice over the H265/H264 thing when I chose D Cinelike......so do I? where in the menu do I make that choice? I guess what I am really after is a proper specification as to what D Cinelike is and what choices, if any, I have over the output. Sorry to be asking ever more questions, Kind Regards,  Mark

Drone.Hunter Posted at 1-8 07:57
Can you use the Standard profile and h.264?

Absolutely...I haven't gone above 30 fps in 4K yet but so far no issues.

I managed to open only the h265 file in AVS4You, but they have no dynamic range display, so I can see whether I'm blowing anything out.

I read a post around here by a pro video editor, who said after 20 years, he still didn't think he was competent to edit d-cinelike or dlog, without making it worse. They make it look simple in the reviews, but maybe it isn't.

SpikeHuelva Posted at 1-9 00:33
Thanks for the replies....which really open up more avenues of my ignorance rather than anything else. I wasn't aware that I had any choice over the H265/H264 thing when I chose D Cinelike......so do I? where in the menu do I make that choice? I guess what I am really after is a proper specification as to what D Cinelike is and what choices, if any, I have over the output. Sorry to be asking ever more questions, Kind Regards,  Mark

My first tests with D Cine I recorded it in h264 and I found nothing could open it properly without wind colours or playback issues.  

SpikeHuelva Posted at 1-9 00:33
Thanks for the replies....which really open up more avenues of my ignorance rather than anything else. I wasn't aware that I had any choice over the H265/H264 thing when I chose D Cinelike......so do I? where in the menu do I make that choice? I guess what I am really after is a proper specification as to what D Cinelike is and what choices, if any, I have over the output. Sorry to be asking ever more questions, Kind Regards,  Mark

Cinelike is 265 only.

h.264 cant write that amount of data at the bitrate required.

You can select normal mode and use 264 but then its pre-edited 8 bit video.

Zoooom Posted at 1-9 00:47
I managed to open only the h265 file in AVS4You, but they have no dynamic range display, so I can see whether I'm blowing anything out.

I read a post around here by a pro video editor, who said after 20 years, he still didn't think he was competent to edit d-cinelike or dlog, without making it worse. They make it look simple in the reviews, but maybe it isn't.

Thanks for this. I downloaded AVS4You and it opened the jpegs fine but on D cinelike it hung up and eventually reported a format error.

I also read the post about the experienced guy who said 'it is really hard and you need experience'.

It certainly is turning in to 'too hard' for me!

Thanks for your help, Mark

For all that cannot open D-Cine format....why do you use it, guys? Is clear you have no experience in handling H265 10bit files in video editors, so why you want this?
Use Normal profile...
Any D-Cine can be opened with proper HEVC codec...Install it and you will get access to D-Cine format...is not about D-Cine, is about H265 encoding, the DCINE profile is a flat one in order to give more possibilities for experienced users to edit it in 10bit and also increase the DR...I don't see a use in usual footage, as long as you don't work on commercial contracts, the difference will not be positive as you have no idea how to open a H265, not to say how to EDIT one like this.
Sorry to be too direct, but that is the truth and you will save some of your time with Normal profile that can be great if the exposure is where it should be.

Geo_Drone Posted at 1-9 06:15
For all that cannot open D-Cine format....why do you use it, guys? Is clear you have no experience in handling H265 10bit files in video editors, so why you want this?
Use Normal profile...
Any D-Cine can be opened with proper HEVC codec...Install it and you will get access to D-Cine format...is not about D-Cine, is about H265 encoding, the DCINE profile is a flat one in order to give more possibilities for experienced users to edit it in 10bit and also increase the DR...I don't see a use in usual footage, as long as you don't work on commercial contracts, the difference will not be positive as you have no idea how to open a H265, not to say how to EDIT one like this.

Hello! Well I cannot answer for others but I can for myself. I was amazed at the quality of the video and stills from the mini 3 pro which I have had for about a month now. For the stills though I found that I was able to produce  amazing photos by using DNG files in an exposure burst to yield a HDR file which I could then edit using a colour template as a starter.....I had expected that the D cinelike files would be rather the same as editing a DNG or RAW still and absolutely I have been seduced by the LUTs that I see others promote so I wanted to try it out. I accept that the Normal output from the Mini 3 pro is great right out of the drone. I also accept now that I probably will not be able to improve on it.....doesn't stop me wanting to try though! It would be easier though if I could have a proper spec for what D cinelike is........even just to find out that it is H265 has been a bit like pulling teeth. Thanks for your post,  Mark

Editing D-log isn't hard.  No different to a normal colour workflow - sort out the contrast then the saturation.  Doing it manually really isnt hard at all.  Or just stick a rec.709 LUT on as a starting point.

Cinelike needs even less editing - its inbetween log and normal mode so needs less massaging to get it to a level...or just slap a .709 LUT on again as a starting point.

It doesn't need a "full spec".  Its literally just a bog standard 10 bit video file encoded via h.265.  Nothing special or unusual about it at all.  Its just a video with a low contrast and low saturation.

No consumer DJI drones do RAW video so none are going to be near editing a RAW file off a camera.  You're always dealing with a file encoded using lossy compression.

Most peoples issues are because their system and/or NLE can't handle H.265.  Either old hardware or just trying to use an old or very basic video editor.  Any system running Resolve. Premiere or similar will handle it fine, or create proxy media or transcode.

I ran into trouble trying to come up with an upgrade strategy for my PC, which is still Win 7 and integrated GPU.

You look for a graphics card that might facilitate NVENC encoding, but you end up with 3 fan things, that cost $600AUD and don't quite support AV1 , and to top it off, encoding I think is only useful to live streamers, who don't really care about all the quality tweaks.

So, then I started looking for lots of CPUs (8/16) and the top end AMD 7700X looks good, but they are pushing the frequency up, so your heat sink can't cope, and the CPU backs off. They have a new convention for lying about the TDP. New systems are jokingly called room heaters. (I'm on solar power and I leave the computer on for no reason.) The Intel 13700 doesn't look like less of a room heater. Then I looked whether any of these motherboards and CPUs have been certified for Win 11, and that's a big ahem. Sure, they will be.

I concluded that old gen AMD 5700G was as far as I could go, without needing cryo coolers.

So, It's no wonder people shell out $7000 for an Apple thing, and Premiere Pro.

As for editors on this platform, Cyberlink something looked good, but LightRoom was a bust - only editing 264 or Apple Pro Res.

Zoooom Posted at 1-9 17:30
I ran into trouble trying to come up with an upgrade strategy for my PC, which is still Win 7 and integrated GPU.

You look for a graphics card that might facilitate NVENC encoding, but you end up with 3 fan things, that cost $600AUD and don't quite support AV1 , and to top it off, encoding I think is only useful to live streamers, who don't really care about all the quality tweaks.

For me, when encoding video, the video card (RTX 2070) is loaded, not the processor (i7-8700K). GPU = >90%, Temp = > 60, Power = >170W

It really doesnt need a cutting edge system.

My 5 year old Dell laptop handles it fine.

Thermals are always going to be your limiting factor on speed these days.

Drone.Hunter Posted at 1-9 17:54
For me, when encoding video, the video card (RTX 2070) is loaded, not the processor (i7-8700K). GPU = >90%, Temp = > 60, Power = >170W

>>For me, when encoding video, the video card (RTX 2070) is loaded, not  the processor (i7-8700K). GPU = >90%, Temp = > 60, Power =  >170W

That's good to know. The 2070 uses "6th gen" TU104, which does everything. Still an expensive card. What's the software editor?

True editing will need a CPU minimum Intel I5 gen 6 or equivalent AMD, 32 Gb Ram, 2 x SSD and a video card with 8Gb Ram....And that is a minimum to use if start to work with Optical Flow and After Effects/Mocha AE, proxy work.

My personal computer only for retouches is an I7 6th gen with 64 Gb DDRam, 4 x mirror SSD high speed, Nvidia RTX 2060 12 Gb ram, MSI Gameboard Ultra, Ultra Wide LG screen.
On the other hand, at studio we work on a IBM server blade 4 x Intel XEON x12 core each CPU (48 CPU core total), 2 x Quattro Nvidia, 128 Gb Ram, 6 x SSD hot swap, 32" LG and 31" Flanders 5000 nits HDR monitor.

Even at that huge blade server used for Adobe Team work, if I start to work real time with live HDR output and 64 Transitions and Optical Flow, I have a small delay...because video editing is not eating much resources on color processing, but at the moment you start to work with optical flow and 64 transitions / & or denoise or After Effects with particle generators, will consume huge amount of processing power for live preview.
Best is to split the work in parts and render each part as you work it, in order not to have a very long work area...as there will be buffers to be rebuilt each time you change something and eats resources and time.

Zoooom Posted at 1-9 22:06
>>For me, when encoding video, the video card (RTX 2070) is loaded, not  the processor (i7-8700K). GPU = >90%, Temp = > 60, Power =  >170W

That's good to know. The 2070 uses "6th gen" TU104, which does everything. Still an expensive card. What's the software editor?

DaVinci Resolve 18

Resolve 18 (Studio) works fine on my 8th gen i7 / 1050TI video card for d-log and cinelike in h.265.
You dont need a beefy system.  Mid range is fine.