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nablet Sony RAW X-OCN AMA Plug-in

nablet Support Team
  • Updated

Features

The nablet SONY RAW X-OCN AMA Plugin allows you to link, play and edit the Sony X-OCN formats as well as F65, F55, F5, and NEX-FS700 Raw MXF files via AMA in Avid editing products. It supports the latest imager modes of CineAlta VENICE and BURANO cameras.

The plug-in provides support of viewing and editing capability with the gamma curve(S-Log3) and color space(S-Gamut3.Cine). The plug-in will translate the image into S-Log2/S-Gamut when the meta data shows that the clip was shot in this monitoring environment. Otherwise, the image will be translated into S-Log3/S-Gamut3.Cine.

The nablet SONY RAW X-OCN AMA Plugin is the successor of the former Sony PLAV-RW1 plug-in. Note that the nablet plug-in and the Sony plug-in cannot coexist on the same system. The installation of the nablet plug-in guarantees a seamless transition* in your Sony RAW editing workflow after the Sony plug-in had been uninstalled.

*Note that clips in an editing project which have previously been linked by the legacy Sony plug-in will show same plug-in name in the bins clip info although the nablet plug-in now handles them. This is because the initial information is stored persistently in the AAF file during linking.

Note: The nablet plug-ins and the legacy Sony plug-ins cannot coexist on the same system. Having them both installed will result in unpredictable behaviors of the editing application.

Supported Avid Products

  • Avid Media Composer v8.6 to latest releases

Supported Operating Systems

Windows

  • Windows 11
  • Windows 10 64-bit

Mac

minimum Version

  • Intel CPU: macOS 10.15  (Catalina)
  • Apple Silicon CPU: macOS 11.00  (Big Sur)

System Requirements

  • Media storage must be able to sustain a data rate of 600 MB/s per stream.
  • Windows OS minimum system requirement: 6 core Intel Core i7 or better CPU with multithreading enabled at a speed of 2.2GHz or higher with at least 8 GB’s of memory installed.
  • macOS minimum system requirements: 6 core Intel CPU at a speed of 2.2GHz or higher or Apple Silicon M1 Pro or better CPU with at least 8 GB’s of memory installed.
  • GPU with at least OpenCL 1.2 support on Windows OS or a GPU with Metal 1.2 support on macOS.
  • It is recommended to set Video Quality Playback option to Best Performance.

Version Information

What's new in version 2025.11?

  • Global settings for image processing and license management can now be made via the nablet AMA Plugin Manager application.
  • New versioning scheme with first digits as YYYY.MM of the release date for better overview.

What's new in version 5.3.0?

  • Supports Apple Silicon (ARM) CPU on Mac.
  • Adds support for Sony BURANO v2.0 operating points.

What's new in version 5.2.0?

  • Processes application of embedded LUT on a supported GPU (OpenCL, Metal) to reduce CPU load.

What's new in version 5.1.0?

  • Improved hardware accelerated color space processing, OpenCL on Windows, Metal on Mac.

What's new in version 5.0.0?

  • Support for CineAlta BURANO 1 imager modes.
  • Support for VENICE/CineAltaV 2 v3 In-camera VFX features.
  • Extended ISO range for EI processing.

What's new in version 4.9.0?

  • Support for VENICE/CineAltaV 2 v2 8K imager modes.
  • Support for embedded LUTs.

What's new in version 4.8.0?

  • Support for VENICE/CineAltaV 2 and 8K imager modes.

Installation Procedure

You cannot install the AMA Plug-ins while the editing application background services are running. Make sure you stop the services before installing the AMA Plug-Ins. The stop/start background services icon is on the Media Composer menu bar (Macintosh) or taskbar (Windows). Once you installed the new AMA plug-in, restart the services. See “Starting and Stopping Avid Background Services” in the Media Composer Help

Install Instructions Windows:

  1. Uninstall any previous version of the nablet SONY RAW X-OCN AMA Plugin and the Sony PLAVRW1 plug-in (See “Uninstalling concurrent legacy Sony plug-ins” chapter later if unsure).
  2. Download the installer “nablet_SONY_RAW_X-OCN_AMA_Plugin_Setup_Win_5.4.0.exe”.
  3. Double click “nablet_SONY_RAW_X-OCN_AMA_Plugin_Setup_Win_5.4.0.exe” to run the installation.
  4. Follow the instructions provided by the installer. You must read and accept to the End User License.
  5. During the installation any previous version of the nablet nablet SONY RAW X-OCN AMA Plugin will be updated.
  6. Additionally the nablet AMA Plugin Manager application will be installed or updated where you can configure global plugin settings and open the user manual.

Uninstall Instructions Windows:

  1. Open Windows Control Panel and lauch “Programs and Features”.
  2. Select “nablet SONY RAW X-OCN AMA Plugin” and then select Uninstall.
  3. Next, select Yes to confirm the removal.
  4. The nablet Sony RAW Plug-in is now removed.

Do not uninstall the nablet AMA Plugin Manager as long as you have other nablet plugins installed.

Install Instructions Mac:

  1. Download the installer image

“nablet_SONY_RAW_X-OCN_AMA_Plugin_Setup_Mac_5.4.0.dmg”.

  1. Double-click “nablet_SONY_RAW_X-OCN_AMA_Plugin_Setup_Mac_5.4.0.dmg” to mount the image.
  2. A folder with “nablet_SONY_RAW_X-OCN_AMA_Plugin_Setup_Mac_5.4.0.pkg” opens.
  3. Launch “nablet_SONY_RAW_AMA_X-OCN_Plugin_Setup_Mac_5.4.0.pkg” to run the installation.
  4. Follow the instructions provided by the Installer application. You must read and accept to the End User License.
  5. During the installation any previous versions of the nablet SONY RAW X-OCN Plug-in will be updated. If the Sony PLAV-RW1 plug-in exists, the installer will try to remove it. Confirm that it

is no longer present by the instructions given in the “Uninstalling concurrent legacy Sony plugins” chapter later.

  1. Additionally the nablet AMA Plugin Manager application will be installed or updated where you can configure global plugin settings and open the user manual. It is located under “/Applications/nablet AMA Plugins”.

Uninstall Instructions Mac:

  1. Locate the directory “Library/Application Support/Avid/AVX2_Plug-ins/AMA/nablet”.
  2. Delete the nablet_MVP_MSP_SONY_RAW.avx file.
  3. Uninstall the nablet AMA Plugin Manager only if you have no other nablet AMA plugins installed. Locate “Applications/nablet AMA Plugin Manager” and delete the whole folder with all it's contents.
  4. Empty the Trash to completely erase the file from the system.

Note:  After uninstalling/removing the nablet SONY Raw plug-in from the system, Avid Media Composer will no longer be able to access the Sony RAW and X-OCN media imported via the (AMA) Link function.

Verifying the nablet Plug-in Version

After installation the nablet SONY RAW X-OCN AMA Plug-in will be available to Avid Editing products. To verify the version follow the steps below:

  1. In Avid open the the Console window by selecting Tools->Console
  2. In the Console, type “Ama_ListPlugins” and press [Enter].
  3. Confirm the version number listed for the “nablet SONY RAW X-OCN Plug-in”  is v 5.4.0.

Uninstalling a concurrent legacy Sony plug-in

Reminder: The nablet plug-ins and the legacy Sony plug-ins cannot coexist on the same system. Having them both installed will result in unpredictable behaviors of the editing application.

  1. Follow the steps 1. and 2. from above. If “MVP_MSP_SonyRaw_64-bit” is listed close the Avid application and uninstall the Sony plug-in.
  2. Make sure you stop the Avid Background Services before uninstalling the Sony Plug-Ins. The stop/start background services icon is on the Media Composer menu bar (Macintosh) or taskbar (Windows). Once you uninstalled the plug-in, restart the services.
  3. On Windows enter the Control Panel and launch “Programs and Features”. Uninstall “Sony PLAV-RW1”. If you cannot uninstall from “Programs and Features” locate C:\Program Files\Avid\AVX2_Plug-ins\AMA\ and manually delete the folder named SonyRaw.
  4. On Mac OS X locate the directory “Library/Application Support/Avid/AVX2_Plug-ins/AMA and remove the Sony PLAV-RW plug-in by deleting MVP_MSP_SonyRaw.avx. Empty the Trash to completely erase the file from the system.

Operation Procedure

Linking to Sony RAW and X-OCN files on Media Composer 8.6 and later

  1. Select the desired destination bin in the project.
  2. From the menu bar Select File->Input->Source Browser.
  3. Make sure 'Link' is selected in the Source Browser Settings, not 'Import'
  4. In the Source Browser navigate to the Sony RAW file(s) to be linked.
  5. Right click the file and select “Link with -> Sony RAW X-OCN”.
  6. Hit Link button on the bottom right.

Linking to Sony RAW and X-OCN files on Media Composer 8.5 and earlier

  1. Select the desired destination bin in the project. 
  2. From the menu bar Select File> AMA Link… (“Link to Media…” if using Avid MC 8.4/8.5).
  3. From the Files of Type pull down menu select “Sony RAW X-OCN(*.mxf)”.
  4. Select the Sony RAW file(s) to be linked.
  5. Select Open.

Volumes and root folders

The root directory of a RAW or X-OCN volume will either be named “CINEROOT” or  will carry a name that consist of Camera-ID+RealNumber+CameraPosition+3 Random alphanumeric characters, for example “A003CTLZ”.

Linking to a Sony RAW and X-OCN Volume on Media Composer 8.6 and later

  1. Select the desired destination bin in the project.
  2. From the menu bar Select File>Input>Source Browser.
  3. Make sure 'Link' is selected in the Source Browser Settings, not 'Import'
  4. Inside the Source Browser navigate to the desired volume.
  5. When linking to the SR-D1 , AXS-CR1,  AXS-AR1  or AXS-AR3 devices select the root directory of the mounted volume. When linking to a virtual volume, such as when the contents of a media drive has been copied to another storage device while maintaining the folder structure, select the copied root directory.
  6. Hit Link button on the bottom right.

Linking  to Sony RAW and X-OCN Volume on Media Composer 8.5 and earlier

  1. Select the desired destination bin in the project.
  2. From the menu bar Select File> AMA Link… (“Link to Media…” if using Avid MC 8.4).
  3. From the Files of Type pull down menu select “Sony RAW X-OCN(Folder)”.
  4. When linking to the SR-D1 , AXS-CR1,  AXS-AR1  or AXS-AR3 devices select the root directory of the mounted volume. When linking to a virtual volume, such as when the contents of a media drive has been copied to another storage device while maintaining the folder structure, select the copied root directory.
  5. Select Open.

Relink proxy to high resolution

The relink operation will replace the XAVC or MPEG2 proxy files on a timeline with their corresponding Raw files. For the relink to be successful, the raw files must be online and in an open bin. They must have been linked with the nablet XAVC XDCAM plugin. It is important to note the clips in the bin will not be modified by the relink, only the timeline clips in the sequence will be modified. To prevent any changes to the original timeline enable the “Create new sequence” option in the Relink tool. Use the instructions below as a guide for relinking XAVC/MPEG2 clips to raw clips in a timeline.

  1. Open all bins that contain proxy clips to be relinked.
  2. In each bin, highlight the proxy clips to be relinked.
  3. Now, highlight the sequence.
  4. Right click the sequence to reveal the context menu and then select Relink.
  5. Enable the following options: Selected items in ALL open bins, Relink by Timecode: Start, Source Name: Tape Name or Source File ID , match case when comparing tape and source file names, Create new sequence (this prevents modification of the original timeline).
  6. Select OK to start the relink.

Source Settings, Color Transformations and Embedded LUTs

In order to view the Source Settings window, you must right click a clip in a bin or the current clip in the Source Monitor and select Source settings… There are three tabs in this window, Linked Plug-in, Color Encoding and FrameFlex that affect the image appearance.

The Color Encoding tab allows you to add and remove LUT tables, which will change the visual look of the image an which can transform the clips color space to the project color space.

The Frameflex tab allows you to change the dimension and framing of the image.

On the Linked Plug-in tab you find controls to adjust the White Balance, Exposure and Sharpness of the clip. Application of an embedded LUT, which is explained later, can be enabled here as well. Initially the values for White Balance and Exposure which were found in the clips meta data are used.

For technical reason some parameter names needed to be truncated on the user interface. When you hover with the mouse over a parameter, it's full name is shown.

To modify fine tune the White Balance the Color Temperature can be adjusted on the appropriate slider in a range of 2000 to 15000 Kelvin,  and Tint in a Range of -100.0 to +100.0.

The Exposure can be adjusted in range from ISO 80 to ISO 10000 in steps of 1/3 of a stop.

The Sharpness control is only available for X-OCN footage and can be adjusted in a range from -300 to + 500. The default is a value of 0. Note that the Sharpness setting takes effect only when full resolution frames are requested. So make sure the Avid Video Quality menu is set to Full Quality (see below) when you monitor the settings adjustment. How the sharpness changes can best be viewed at full screen display on a secondary monitor after you hit the Apply button.

X-OCN footage shot with with a camera with VENICE 2 v3 firmware or later can have two additional parameters which then appear in the In-camera VFX settings group. When the footage was shot in an environment with mixed conventional light and and light from an LED wall and the In-camera VFX checkbox is checked, you may fine tune the color fidelity by correcting the LED Wall Color Temperature in a range of 2000 to 15000 Kelvin, and by specifying the percentage contribution of conventional light to the color in the mixed environment by means of the Light Blend slider in a range of 0 to 100 percent.

Note:

On some versions of Media Composer the first attempt to change a value on the Linked Plug-in tab does not take effect. To overcome this, toggle a setting one time, e.g. switch between Clip Meta Data and Default and back. After that any further changes will take effect as long as the dialog is oepned. To reset the custom settings to the values at recording time choose Clip Meta Data settings above. To reset them to generic defaults choose the Default settings above.

The image preview on the Linked Plug-in tab shows the image in the format before any Color

Transformation LUTs and Look LUTs have been applied on the Color Encoding tab. Switch to the Color Encoding tab to view the final effect of your custom settings after the LUTs have been applied and thus how the image will appear in further processing, or, if the clip is opened in the Source Monitor, use full screen display on a secondary monitor to view the final image while you change settings.

Managing Color Adapters

When you link footage whose Capture-Gamma or Transfer-Characteristic does not match the project color space, for example a clip with Sony S-Log3.Cine into an BT.709 project, a color transformation is needed to correctly display the pictures.

Media Composer ships with a variety of LUTs for color transformations, including those for Sony S-Log color spaces. Automatic insertion of a matching color transformation upon linking can be enabled in the Color Management Settings. They can be reached either via File->Settings->User tab or at the Color Encoding tab in the Source Settings dialog.

Open the Source Settings dialog of the linked clip to see the current color transformation.

If automatic insertion of a color transformation is disabled in the Color Management Settings, or if the clip color space matches the project color space, the Color transformations list will be empty. If color spaces don't match, you can now insert a color transformation manually in two ways:

Under Color Adapters hit the Auto button which will cause Media Composer to insert the required transformation automatically now.

Or select the desired Color Adapter from either the Generic or User installed LUTs type.

Look LUTs and custom Color Transformation LUTs

If you have a Look LUT, a LUT that gives the recorded video a creative look, or a custom color space

transformation LUT that you want to insert, first you need to install that LUT via the Color Management Settings dialog.

For details please see the Media Composer user manual. A user installed LUT can be inserted in the same way than manually inserting a color adapter. Select it from the User Installed LUTs Color Adapter type. 

Make sure to position a Look LUT before any color transformation. If you added a Look LUT after a color transformation was added automatically or manually, you can easily drag the Look LUT upwards to the top position.

Embedded LUTs

Some clips may carry an embedded LUT. This can be a creative LUT to apply a specific look to the recorded footage or a color transformation LUT for example for conversion from Slog3.Cine to BT.709 or it can even be a combination of both. When an embedded LUT is available you will find the additional checkbox on the Linked Plug-in tab.

Hover with the mouse over the checkbox to get information about the name of the LUT.  To use this LUT enable the application with this checkbox. Also for this, on some Media Composer versions you may need to toggle the setting once to see the application of the LUT taking effect on the display window.

You can also check the availability of an embedded LUT in the bin's Monitoring Descriptions column.

The name prefix “EMB1” indicates that it is an embedded LUT.

If the LUT is a pure creative LUT, after you enabled the application of it the color transformations on the Color Encoding tab can be kept as they are. However, if the LUT contains a color space transformation, the color transformation on the Color Encoding tab must be deleted. Otherwise you will get a duplicate color transformation which results in a bad image with wrong colors. Switch to the Color Encoding tab, select the items in the Color transformations list and delete them.

If you know in advance that the footage has an embedded color transformation LUT and that you want to use it, disable the automatic insertion of color transformation in the Color Management Settings before you start linking. Use File->Settings->User->Color Management or hit the Color Management Settings button on the Source Settings Color Encoding tab to change the behavior.

Of course the color transformation of the embedded LUT must match the color space of your editing project. For example you must not use a LUT with a target transformation to BT.709 in a project with Slog3 or HLG color space to avoid wrong colors.

Unlike the settings on the other Source Settings tabs, unfortunately Media Composer does not support to apply the settings on the Linked Plug-in tab to multiple selected clips. So you must enable and disable the application of an embedded LUT for each clip individually.

Configuring Plugin Features at the nablet AMA Plugin Manager

The nablet AMA Plugin Manager app which has been installed along with this plugin allows to configure some global plugin settings which cannot be done on the limited Source Settings->LinkedPlugin user interface under the Avid host. Run the nablet AMA Plugin Manager and choose the Sony RAW X-OCN tab.

For best performance by default the decoding of Sony RAW and X-OCN images as well as the processing of an embedded LUT will happen on a GPU if available. If you are facing image distortion or software stability issues those my be caused by the GPU and it's drivers. You can force the plugin to 

use the CPU. Uncheck the option Use GPU for Rendering. Processing on CPU will degrade performance. Always make sure to use latest drivers for your GPU on Windows OS.

Avid Playback Settings

The playback quality in the Avid applications can be configured using the Video Quality Menu in the Timeline window. When the Avid Video Quality menu is set to Full Quality the full 8K, 6K, 4K or 2K image is being decoded. At a Draft Quality setting an image of 1/2 resolution is being decoded and at the Best Performance option an image of 1/4 resolution is decoded.

For a fluent playback it is recommended to choose Draft or Best Performance mode. To view images in best Quality choose Full Quality mode.

Known Issues and Limitations

  • The user must uninstall any versions of the legacy Sony PLAV-RW1 plug-in from Programs and Features on Windows before installing this plug-in.
  • The Source color space parameter of the Source Settings dialog for S-Gamut3.Cine color space clips will display as “unknown gamma [90-582 (10 bits)]” on earlier versions of Avid Media Composer.
  • Real-time playback is sustainable with a single video stream of RAW or X-OCN material and 16 channels of audio using Avid’s NLE Video Quality Playback setting of Draft and Best Performance.
  • After transcoding a clip or after performing a video mix down, some versions of Media Composer will not set a desired lower Video Quality when playing back the source file.
    Toggle the Video Quality setting once when you encounter a performance loss during playback.
  • Sony SR-D1/AXS-CR1 devices are not designed for real-time playback in Avid’s NLEs.
  • Importing RAW or X-OCN  files to a 1080i/50, 1080i/60, or 720p/29.97 project may show incorrect format information.
  • If linking to multiple RAW or X-OCN files at one time and the scroll bar in the AMA Link to file window is moved, it may result in a “File Not Found” error when the clips are linked. To avoid this situation perform a select all with the Ctrl+A keys instead.
  • AMA Link sometimes cannot be performed from the SR-D1 device.
  • Automatic import of RAW files when connecting a device to the NLE is not possible when the CINEROOT folder does not exist.
  • Intel Arc external GPUs and integrated Intel Iris GPUs are not supported by the debayer currently. The CPU will be utilized to process the images if no other discrete GPU is available on Windows systems.

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