I recently upgraded my camera from a Nikon D90 to a Nikon D7100. I'm somewhat regretting this decision now: Since I have not upgraded my software to the CC, Adobe doesn't recognize my raw files. I'm forced to convert all my nef files to dng. I've never worked with dng files before these conversions and I'm used to working with xmp files sidecarred.

So what is my major issue? At first NONE of my dng files would load/preview in LRTimelapse. After some patience, an LRTimelapse upgrade, and a system reboot, I have managed to narrow the preview-less files to only a few random files. I thought that by loading the high-quality thumbnails in Bridge would help this issue, but made no difference. See the attachment for an example of what is happening.    

My workflow:
nef-dng conversion, process in Bridge, deflicker in LRT, render out of AE.


Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks so much!

When converting to DNG it's crucial to embed previews. But you have to do this without appying any former XMP edits (otherwise the previews will already contain the edits).
Some of your DNGs seem to lack previews, that's why LRT doesn't show them.

I suggest using Lightroom 5 - it's way cheaper then an upgrade to CC and will support all cameras and give you an easier workflow.

When converting to DNG it's crucial to embed previews. But you have to do this without appying any former XMP edits (otherwise the previews will already contain the edits).
Some of your DNGs seem to lack previews, that's why LRT doesn't show them.

I suggest using Lightroom 5 - it's way cheaper then an upgrade to CC and will support all cameras and give you an easier workflow.

I was debating purchasing LR5, but don't have the budget to right now. Is there anyway I can make sure my dng files have the preview active?

Use Adobe DNG converter (latest version) to convert to DNG with embedded Preview.