Now in Beta: Hardware acceleration for Canon Cinema RAW Light

[Fergus H]

We’re excited to announce that hardware acceleration of Canon’s Cinema RAW Light format is now in the latest beta versions of Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Media Encoder. You should expect to see significantly improved editing & transcoding performance when using Cinema RAW Light files in the beta: smooth playback on the timlineline and export performance improved by up to 10x.

The initial beta release adds Cinema RAW Light acceleration for Apple silicon computers. A future beta will add hardware support on Windows and we will update this post when that beta is available. 

We’d love to get your feedback on this update!

Regards,

Fergus

[ghuff]

Does this mean that acceleration will not be available to us still on Intel-based macs? Will this update add sliders from the Cinema Raw Development app that are currently missing, such as setting ISO, NR, and Sharpness?

[MartieB]

Hi ghuff,
This update was designed as a performance enhancement, so there are no new sliders added with this hardware acceleration feature. You are correct, this update is not intended for Intel-based Macintosh computers.
Regards,
Martie 

[w. ashleym4223359]

This is great news. I didn't use rawLT because its such a pain in Adobe to edit. Looking forward to this! Thank you!

[w. ashleym4223359]

Great update. If you could get the export times down that would be great. 8k RawLT 1:30 video takes about 12 minutes to export. The first time I used it the program crashed. Now it seems to be going good after a re-boot. @Fergus H 

[w. ashleym4223359]

When I edit it in a 4k squence and 8k raw footage it takes less time to export. So maybe that is the way to do it. Thanks so much. @Fergus H is there any way you can add in noise removal in some future update? these raw files from canon are noisy and the 3rd party noise removal plugins massivly slow down the editing and exporting.

[Fergus H]

@w. ashleym4223359  Can you tell me what camera and format you were using to create the 8K footage, then what settings you used to export when it took along time? I'd like to test your setup. 

Thanks for the feature request regarding noise removal. We're definitely aware that using raw formats will often require some level of noise removal but I've got nothing to share publicly on that front right now. 

Regards,

Fergus

[Kirsi21888295ykon]

In my M1 MAX Macbook Pro playback of 8K RAW light clips on a 4K timeline is possible without dropped frames in full resolution. That is awesome. But on the other hand there are multiple issues with the current beta, mainly the timeline freeze issue, that is making the use of the program almost impossible. Hopefully it will be fixed soon. What is the time frame for the HW acceleration to come to Windows? Days, weeks, months?

[Dustin26659971bnvv]

Unfortunately the speed improvements still aren't up to par to make this usable on my system. I get dropped frames and slow playback with my Macbook Pro M3, Apple M3 Pro chip, 18 GB ram, driving an LG Ultrafine 27 inch display and an HP Z27Xs G3 27 inch display. 

I'm trying to view a single sequence of 5.9k raw from the C500 II with a standard rec709 transform on it and it still can't play back at full quality. 

Trying to run a multicam sequence of 5.9k raw form the C500II and 8k raw from the R5C is unusable and stops completely. 

[Fergus H]

Hi Dustin, 

Thanks for the report! Currently, playback of Cinema RAW Light media requires significantly more RAM than other formats. You can see this in real time if you open the Application Monitor (it's in Applications > Utilities). We've done testing on 16 GB computers and 24 GB computers; 24 GB worked well but 16 GB definitely did not. We are working to improve memory useage and if we release a beta that does that, I will provide an update here. 

Regards,

Fergus

[Martie_B]

Hi Dustin26659971bnvv
To help us fully understand your workflow better, can you provide a few more details-
1) You listed a "Macbook Pro M3, Apple M3 Pro chip, 18 GB ram", based on this can you confirm that is a 12-core machine?
2) Can you confirm the frame rate and color depth on the files used in "single sequence of 5.9k raw from the C500 II"- are they 59.94P / 29.97P / 23.98P / 24.00P and 10bit or 12bit files?
3) Can you confirm the frame rate for the 8K raw from the R5C media files used? Was it 30fps or less, or the new 8k @ 60fps?

4) Did reducing the playback resolution on the timeline help in any of your 5.9k or 8K playback workflows?
Regards,
Martie

[Dustin26659971bnvv]

Here's some additional info for you on my current setup:

 Model Number: MRX43LL/A

  Chip: Apple M3 Pro

  Total Number of Cores: 12 (6 performance and 6 efficiency)

  Memory: 18 GB

2) Frame rate is 23.98 and 12 bit for the 5.9k raw LT C500 II footage

3) 23.98 for the 8k raw LT footage from the R5C

4) Even at 1/16 resolution I can't get smooth playback on either stream. 

[Martie_B]

Dustin26659971bnvv
Thanks for the extra info.

[Fergus H]

@Dustin26659971bnvv We've made some changes to Cinema RAW Light support to make it more efficient. It now uses much less RAM. If you're willing to try the beta again, we'd love your feedback. 

Regards,

Fergus

[stevetomich]

Hey Fergus,

Just downlaoded and installed hte latst PPro beta, to get this enhanced Canon Raw performance on my 2019 iMac.  Specs are here:

I'm disappointed to say that my CRM files (shot on a Canon C200, 4K), import, but show up as blank screens in my projet and in the source monitor.  The same files work fine in my 25.1 (October 2024) verion of PPro.

Suggestions?

Thanks,

Steve Tomich

stevetomich@gmail.com

[Fergus H]

@stevetomich Thanks for the info! We do not plan on providing hardware acceleration on Apple computers with Intel processors. However, you should not be seeing a blank screen. I'll check with the engineering team and get back to you. 

Regards,

Fergus

[stevetomich]

Thanks, Fergus!  Sorry for the dumb wuestion--I had forgotten that my 2019 iMac was still on Intel.

[Fergus H]

Oh, it's not a dumb question at all! While acceleration won't be supported on Macintosh Intel systems, Cinema RAW Light files should continue to play just as they do in the current version. However, we have confirmed that it is broken in the latest beta. Thanks for reporting the problem; one of my colleagues said that you've won a chicken dinner! 

Regards,

Fergus

[Fergus H]

@stevetomich The issue you reported is fixed in the latest beta of Premiere Pro. Please try it out and let us know if you see any issues. Again, thanks for reporting the problem!

Regards,

Fergus

[Kirsi21888295ykon]

@Fergus H Any news on getting this also to Windows side? Or is GPU memory amount a bottleneck?

[Fergus H]

@Kirsi21888295ykon GPU memory isn't a bottleneck. It is running and being tested internally, in preparation for a public beta release. I'll update this post when it is in beta. 

Regards,

Fergus

[Tommaso B]

This is good news. I am really looking forward to see Canon Cinema RAW Light being GPU accelerated. Hopefully we can get a fast workflow with the latest Nvidia cards.
On the other hand, do you think that Canon RAW (not Cinema RAW light) could ever be CUDA accelerated?

Best regards,
Tommaso

[Fergus H]

@Tommaso B are you referring to video or still files? If you're referring to video, are you referring to the original Canon RAW format that the Canon EOS C700 uses? 

Regards,

Fergus

[Tommaso B]

Hi @Fergus H ,

I'm referring to video files and specifically to the uncompressed RAW format currently used in Canon mirrorless cameras like the R5 or R3 — not the Cinema EOS line.

This RAW is uncompressed, which results in a very large and demanding bitrate. It’s typically stored in a .CRM container.

The original RAW from the C700 was also uncompressed, but it used a .RMF container and likely a slightly different encoding method.

Cinema RAW Light, on the other hand, features variable compression (typically from 1:3 to 1:5), which results in lower bitrates. It's available only on the Cinema EOS line — such as the C70, R5C, C300 Mk III, C200, C500 Mk II, etc.

Canon provides an SDK for developers working with their RAW video formats (both uncompressed and Cinema RAW Light):
https://developercommunity.usa.canon.com/s/article/Introduction-to-Canon-s-Cinema-RAW-Movie-Software...

CUDA is fully supported, so in theory it could be implemented in Premiere Pro for GPU-accelerated decoding.

Canon also offers a dedicated RAW video playback and decoding software, which is GPU-accelerated and works well on my GeForce 5000 series GPU:
https://app.ssw.imaging-saas.canon/app/en/crd.html

It would be fantastic to see Premiere support smooth decoding of these increasingly popular RAW codecs using the GPU.

Best regards,
Tommaso

[Fergus H]

Hi Tommaso,

Thank you for the explanation! I now understand completely what you’re asking.

The good news is that the Light RAW and Standard RAW of Canon’s mirrorless camera are both variants of Canon Cinema RAW Light. Both are GPU accelerated by Canon’s CRMSDK, which is what we use.

With CUDA support for Cinema RAW Light now in beta, we’d love your feedback!

Regards,

Fergus