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Preview could not be loaded for (Cinema) DNG files

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#1 Gunther
The reason for this is that Cinema DNG files usually don't have previews embedded.

You have two options:
  1. Use Lightroom's "Convert to DNG feature" to embed the previews into those DNG by converting them again. This won't introduce any losses, but it'is an extra step that does not deliver any real advantage.
  2. work without those previews (you really don't need them) - just do the regular visual workflow (1st row) then edit keyframes in Lightroom as usually, make the transitions in LRT and let the visual previews generate. It will be the normal LRTimelapse workflow, just without the camera previews (that are obsolete anyway).
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#2 Colin
Hi Gunther,

Do you have any information about working with the .dng files from the DJI X5R drone?  I know I won't have any camera previews with cinema .dng files.  I'm able to apply keyframes, edit in ACR, and apply transitions but there is some weird behavior.  It will never generate visual previews, even after creating and saving transitions and After Effects won't respect the white balance or graduated filter settings.  Everything else works fine.  The white balance and graduated filter settings and transitions are shown in ACR and Bridge but After Effects does not see them. Any way to fix this that you know of?  I don't use LR for timelapse and video sequences but would it help to import them into LR and let LR create new metadata or convert to different .dng files?  Thanks for your help!

Best,
Colin
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#3 Gunther
Hi Colin, if you could send me a couple of those files to support(at)lrtimelapse(dot)com then I'd have a look. You can use Wetransfer or Dropbox to send.
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#4 Colin
Your support is so amazing.  I just emailed you a link to the files on Dropbox.  As an update, I added the set of photos to LR and forced an update of the preview and metada and then reimported back into After Effects.  The white balance comes across now but still not the graduated filter.  I didn't force LR to create new. dng files from the originals.  Thanks again!
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#5 Gunther
Hi Colin,
I've tested your files. I only worked with the two original files. Just leave the camera previews blank, no worries, you don't need them. The visual previews will work fine, if you have the latest Adobe DNG Converter installed. Make sure to have the latest After Effects/Camera RAW too, in order to avoid compatibility problems.
Turns out that the whitebalance treatment is not being evaluated correctly for those files.

To fix this, do the following:
- Make sure that LRTimelapse has not loaded the sequence
- Make sure that the last save on the xmp metadata has been from Lightroom/ACR (in Lightroom: "Metadata -> Write Metadata to files", in ACR, just reedit something on the keyframes, I don't know if you can manually trigger the update)
- Now in LRTimelapse load the sequence, choose "Metadata -> Change White Balance Treatment" and set that to "Absolute". Now save.
- Activate the visual previews, you should get the right white balance now.

For new sequences from that camera, that have never been edited, just set the Treatment to "Absolute" before starting with the workflow in LRT!
Hope I could help!
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#6 Colin
Thanks a lot for your help, Gunther.  I am using the latest version of ACR, DNG Converter, Bridge and After Effects and still, After Effects won't recognize the graduated filter and I can't get LRT to generate a visual preview.  I had fixed the white balance issue simply by applying the transitions in LRT and then synching just the white balance one last time in ACR.  When I get home in a couple of hours I'll retest everything and post an update.  Thanks again for your quick responses.
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#7 Gunther
Did you change the White Balance Treatment for the sequence in LRTimelapse? That will help. Visual previews definitely work then on your sequence.
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#8 Colin
Gunther, 

I've done a bunch more testing now.  I started by verifying the version number of every piece of software in the chain and then proceeded to follow your suggestions exactly.  Turns out the version of After Effects that was loading from my dock icon was still the last version from a few weeks ago.  I manually opened the most recent version and then followed your steps concerning the white balance.  When I imported the sequence into After Effects I noticed that, for the first time, my .dng files had .xmp sidecar files in the folder with them now.  The sequence loaded in After Effects and this time it honored the transitions of my graduated filter but the white balance was still off.  Interestingly, the camera raw settings that pop up when you import .dng files into After Effects showed the correct white balance.  So did the thumbnail for the image sequence inside of After Effects.  When I used ACR to change just the white balance of all the files back to "as shot," they then came in correctly but without the graduated filter adjustments.  As I continued to re-load, re-save and re-import the sequence trying different things I noticed a couple of weird things.  One was that when I first changed the white balance handling as you suggested, I immediately saw that the white balance and tint columns were added to the LRT window.  However, after switching it back and forth a few times testing different things, those columns failed to appear regardless of how white balance handling was set.  The other weird thing is that the first image in the sequence, which contained a keyframe, seemed to be the one that was not updating properly.  I noticed that it would still have the wrong white balance when all the other images were correct.  And then, while importing another test into After Effects, I noticed that all the xmp sidecar files were gone except for the one for the first image.  Manually fixing this image's white balance didn't help.  I ended up deleting the first image of the sequence and then everything worked!  I was able to get both the correct white balance and graduated filter adjustments into After Effects.  A couple of notes:  One is that the white balance and tint columns never showed back up regardless of how I set the white balance handling in the metadata pane.  I know I can manually choose to show it but I thought this was weird.  The other is that, since using the most current version of Bridge and After Effects, the visual previews seem to render just fine regardless of the white balance handling.  Not sure why that would be. I'll try more sequences and let you know if I have further issues. 

Someone ought to give you a medal.  You are a complete rock star for single-handedly creating one of the most useful pieces of filmmaking software in recent years as well as the best-supported one.  Thank you for your awesomeness.
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#9 Gunther
Thanks :-)

I think the best would be to directly change the WB treatment for those sequences when you first load them into LRTimelapse, before any further editing. Then everything should work. Another option would be to reinitialize the sequence in LRT, change the treatment then save and start over.
I'm not sure what's happening with the gradients, Lightroom leaves them alone, normally I wouldn't think that ACR removes them just because they are "empty". Ill do some test about this. The recommended way is to use Lightroom, that's what I test and support. ACR works, but is known for having some limitations in this workflow, that's why I don't recommend it.
By default the columns will only show up, if they have animated settings. If the values in a column are all the same eventually they will get hidden. You can then show them with unchecking "Hide equal columns"
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#10 Colin
Hi again and sorry to be inundating you with so many posts.  I've tried processing other sequences and thought I would share some additional info.  I starred the images I that I wanted LRT to use as keyframes from within Bridge.  This is what I did last time as well since I couldn't see any camera previews in LRT to help me figure out where the keyframes should be.  When I brought them in to LRT, it grouped the 4 images with stars all together as the first four images even though they images that were spread out fairly evenly throughout the sequence.  The first image, again, had a different white balance than the rest of them and the white balance was off.  I got very erratic behavior going back and forth between Bridge and LRT and started wondering if my stars added in Bridge were causing trouble.  I started over and added the keyframes in LRT and things worked better.  Still some weirdness with the white balance - the first image has a question mark icon in the luminance value column while none of the other images do.  The first image also now shows the correct white balance while all of the visual previews show the wrong white balance, which I believe affects the previews.  But when I import the sequence into After Effects it sees everything correctly.  I read in one of your posts that the camera previews are obsolete and not that valuable but it seems to me that not being able to see camera previews is a real hassle for placing keyframes.  Is there a way to add the keyframes from Bridge without messing things up?  Anyway, not sure if any of that is useful but thanks again.

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