Heads up: I have started to use CR 7 for RAW video

Question

Just a heads up. Interesting times over at Magic Lantern, where they've cracked the Canon DSLR's to deliver RAW video. The resulting .RAW file is converted to a DNG sequence of custom dimensions. The way I develop these is just like I do my photos: I use Bridge to browse, open up a representative frame in CR, do my settings, and sync up the rest in Bridge. Then I use Image Processor to output a JPG sequence for final rendering in Premiere (I use premiere 5, but Photoshop CS6, that is why I dont import the DNG sequence directly in, say after effects or Premiere).
Anyway, lots of people have suddenly started using Camera RAW for grading RAW video over the past week or so.
Just wanted to let you know. Its pretty big news. Here's my first tests: https://vimeo.com/66414746

Answer 1

It's much better to use After Effects to grade Canon RAW/DNG footage, as you can maintain a 100% nondestructive workflow.
You can import a DNG frame sequence into After Effects (and it will display the ACR interface automatically, as if you were opening a single image in Photoshop). Whatever you 'develop' in ACR is applied identically to every frame, so yes there are problems if you do something like add grain as it'll produce a static pattern. That doesn't matter for stills, so nobody in the ACR team bothered to add a random seed to the grain function. Maybe if this workflow catches on we'll see it added to future versions, but right now you should add grain later with AE's effects.
The DNG 'footage' always imports in 32-bit space even though the data from Canon's sensor isn't that deep. If you put it onto a 16-bit comp in AE you can adjust tone/exposure with the same effectiveness as the sliders in ACR, and the non-32 effects such as Add Grain will be happier. There's no real point working in 32-bit comps for these files unless you're doing something extreme. Replicating the shadow/highlight/clarity sliders with curves requires some skill, but you can get some amazing one-click effects on these DNG sequences from plugins such as MB Looks.
Personally I would make the overall pre-grade in ACR (white balance, approximate exposure, lens correction) but I'd do everything else (denoise/curves/grade/grain) in AE once the footage is on the timeline (I'd apply a little bit of MB Denoiser II, then Colorista or Looks, then AE's Add Grain or MB MisFire). Note that you need to set the lens correction manually, as the DNGs from Raw2dng don't include the EXIF tags.
One thing I've been asked is how to get the ACR dialog open again once the footage is imported to AE. You do that by right-clicking the footage in the project bin and choosing Interpret Footage > Main (Ctrl+Alt+G). On the dialog that appears, press the More Options button on the bottom left.
btw - Premiere Pro CS6 does not import DNGs. A previous version did, but Adobe reduced their activities on the emerging CinemaDNG standard and removed the plugin.