Hacked firmware: feature requests

[Soultrape]

Ok guys,

I think it's time we start looking seriously into hacking the HV20 firmware.

an initial note: modified firmware are legal, you're likely to lose your warranty over this though.

Ok, so to iterate through the steps to make this happen:

1. Decide on a feature list that we'd like to have in our hacked firmware, for instance: Control gain directly.

[In parallel]
2. Donate to a 'First hacker takes all' jackpot donation box (paypal or other...) - This way, we can have people on all forums donate to the jackpot, and thus create more motivation for firmware programmers/hackers to take on the job.

3. Seek out talented firmware programmers/hackers and inform them on our initiative.

Similar initiatives worked, for those familiar with the Hackintosh world knows someone made over a million $ getting OSX to load on a 'grey' PC (a normal PC)

So, who wants kickass new HV20 features?

UPDATE: I will be maintaining a list of all user-requested features to avoid duplicates

• Manual Gain/Aparture/Exposure controls (Soultrape)
• Write video directly to CF card instead of Tape (Soultrape)
• Adjusting manual focus while zooming (McNugget)
• pump out raw 1080p footage through the HDMI (jmalmsten)(suggestion thread)
• PAL/NTSC switchability (Abflex)
• Image flip (touloumpas)
• Save presets (on miniSD card) - such as manual focus / zoom / ... (musicjules / touloumpas)
• color curves in camcorder/REC (musicjules)
• custom slow motion mode - Higher frames per second (musicjules)
• More shutter speeds (zigi-zigi)

Your turn...

[McNugget]

I like the idea, I would support such donation!

Features I'd like to see:

• Adjusting manual focus while zooming

[jmalmsten]

one feature that I thought sounded awesome (aside from the gain-control) was to hack the DIGIC2DV-processor to pump out raw 1080p footage through the HDMI-port as suggested here by LordTangent:

http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?t=6057

[Abflex]

I'd like to see PAL/NTSC switchability.

[musicjules]

memorized preset for mini 35 adapter such as : manual focus-zoom

a sort of MINI35 mode to get rid of the i have to focus on the GG then manual focus then automatic then zoom then manual ...etc

[touloumpas]

- Image flip for mini35 adapters
- Save presets on miniSD card

[musicjules]

- color curves in camcorder/REC mode like this :
to help more than zebra !
note that the curves are already available for fotos in the "play" mode

- a custom slow motion mode , i'm sure the cam can record more than 60images /sec something like 120p (not interlace) even if we loose some resolution and light !

[PeterC]

- color curves in camcorder/REC mode like this :
to help more than zebra !
note that the curves are already available for fotos in the "play" mode

I think you mean histogram...

My feature request would be black stretch since it hasn't been mentioned yet.

[Soultrape]

I think you mean histogram...

My feature request would be black stretch since it hasn't been mentioned yet.

What do you mean by black stretch?

[iTalal]

I'm willing to donate to see these things happen.

[Erik Bien]

Rather than SPAM this thread with an old post, I'll link my personal list from a previous thread.

[zigi-zigi]

I'd like to see PAL/NTSC switchability.

That might be troublesome. I'm using NTSC model in the 50hz part of the world and I contacted a service center technician regarding the possible firmware reflashing.

I was told that Canon doesn't allow this unlike the other manucfacturers. I was offered to replace the camera's mainboard to turn it into PAL. I was even ready to undertake an experiment on my own risk and expences, but AFAIU from what he said they din't even have flashing equipment to do it.

It' s still not clear to me is it the phisical impossibility to flash NTSC cam into PAL and vice versa or is it just Canon's official policy. The motherboard replacement might be related to analog part of it which might be system dependant. I mean the decoder chip for analog output. In this case there could be a way to reflash the firmware at the cost of loosing the analog output.

Anyway, personally I'd be pretty happy to have 1/25 and 1/50 shutter speeds in 24p mode to eliminate the fluorescent flicker while sooting at night with an NTSC camera in the PAL world.

As for the fancy requests, an ability to record MPEG stream to flash would be useful for it turns the camera into a completely silent one.

[mattias]

as long as it makes me a great cup of coffee i'm fine. :-) come on guys, there's a difference between a new camera and a new firmware. if i may rain on your parade, if there is one, i think whishful thinking is nothing but counter productive. if a hack like this ever happens i'm sure it won't add any new functionality, only unlock or add manual control to what's already there.

as for recording to flash i actually think that's impossible due to the bitrate, but correct me if i'm wrong.

/matt

[V10TDI]

switching between 24p/30p/60i on my HV20

[Alsone]

I'd like to see:

1. Gain Control

2. FPS control (it can be done someone hacked the Panny HVX200 and unlocked every single frame rate between 3fps and 60fps!!!)

3. Uncompressed or Intermediary codec compressed video output via HDMI / firewire to record to an external hard drive ie. No need for a capture card just a laptop

[Soultrape]

as long as it makes me a great cup of coffee i'm fine. :-) come on guys, there's a difference between a new camera and a new firmware. if i may rain on your parade, if there is one, i think whishful thinking is nothing but counter productive. if a hack like this ever happens i'm sure it won't add any new functionality, only unlock or add manual control to what's already there.

as for recording to flash i actually think that's impossible due to the bitrate, but correct me if i'm wrong.

/matt

I'm gonna agree with mattias on some aspects...

Guys, keep things within reason - having the HV20 run a custom algorithm for intermediate codec is beyond reason - HV20 can compress mpeg2 in 25mbit only because it has dedicated encoding, as even my Core2Duo 2.4 can't render 25mbit mpeg2 in realtime...

As mattias said - we're only UNLOCKING features, not coding any. The best approach would to probably hunt down the superseeding 'pro' camera that uses the same chipset as the HV20 with more features, and copy/paste the features there, and even get as much info about it as possible.

Anyone familiar with that cam? is it the A1? URLs please!

Regarding writing to flash - I'm not aware of the card reader / card media there is for the HV20 (yet), I do know that the newer SDHC can do up to 22MB a sec, or the lowest of 16MB a sec - 25mbit = 25/8bit = 3.125 MB a second - which is within SDHC's speed, we'll need to check if possible with miniSD.

[Charles Lowthian]

white balance adjusting during rec?

[mattias]

I do know that the newer SDHC can do up to 22MB a sec, or the lowest of 16MB a sec - 25mbit = 25/8bit = 3.125 MB a second - which is within SDHC's speed, we'll need to check if possible with miniSD.

i looked at the specs of a kingston minisd card, and it said "1MBps to 5.5MBps write". i don't know if it's faster during sustained writes, if so it would work, but i suspect it's the other way around.

/matt

[Alsone]

Writing to flash isn't going to be possible guys.

The HV20 to my knowledge only supports miniSD not SDHC.

The largest card in MiniSD is 2GB and in my Canon Ixus Stills camera that gives 8 mins of recording at SD definition with Quicktime Compression.

In HD format with HDV compression, I doubt you'd get a fraction of that so Mini SD isn't going to be practicable even if it can be unlocked.

[musicjules]

Writing to flash isn't going to be possible guys.

The HV20 to my knowledge only supports miniSD not SDHC.

The largest card in MiniSD is 2GB and in my Canon Ixus Stills camera that gives 8 mins of recording at SD definition with Quicktime Compression.

In HD format with HDV compression, I doubt you'd get a fraction of that so Mini SD isn't going to be practicable even if it can be unlocked.

and i mean what's the point .... the firmware hack will bring new features or at least will release existing features , as mattias said: there's a difference between a new camera and a new firmware.
what do HV20 users really need ?

• for MINI35 adapter users: LCD flip
• for all : Manual Gain/Aparture/Exposure controls &presets , raw 1080p via HDMI , custom frame/sec ...

all other requests :
IMPOSSIBLE :
* Write video directly to CF card instead of Tape (Soultrape)
* PAL/NTSC switchability (Abflex)

WHAT'S THE POINT .?? i mean do we really need this ?
* Adjusting manual focus while zooming (McNugget)
* color curves in camcorder/REC (musicjules)
* More shutter speeds (zigi-zigi)


another important thing : the HACK will be done on the firmware i will receive ... wich is basically PAL ! i doubt the PAL.firmware will work on the NTSC.firmware and vice versa, same for the HACKED firmware....

[mattias]

2gb is 10 minutes of hdv. if your ixus can fill it in 8 minutes i guess the throughput is sufficient. ;-)

/matt

[Alsone]

Fair enough Matt, I guess its 10 mins then but for most I doubt 10 mins would be sufficient recording time.

Also, be aware so far as bandwidth is concerned, I'm not using run of the mill of flash cards. I only ever use Sandisk Ultra II Professional MiniSD Cards - these have very high data rates: claimed 9Mb/s Sequential Write and 10Mb/s Sequential Read.

Even then as the card approached full (several clips not one long recording), my camera started having to pause to write to clips the card after around 20 secs - seems the buffer was overloading. Whether this was the flash write speed slowing as it approached full or purely the camera I don't know. This could happen on HV20 / 30 depending on the throughput from the camera.

Now if someone could perform a firmware upgrade to allow it to use SDHC cards, there's real potential (buffers / internal bandwidth allowing) as Sandisk have MiniSDHC in 32GB cards.

[Soultrape]

Now if someone could perform a firmware upgrade to allow it to use SDHC cards, there's real potential (buffers / internal bandwidth allowing) as Sandisk have MiniSDHC in 32GB cards.

Now that sounds promissing ha :-)?

OK people, Let's start, the Jackpot is now open!
http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?p=63144

I'm donating from a different account the minute I get home (I'm not allowed to donate to myself...)

[Ivan Fuentes]

hey, HV30 is just the same hardware, so... why not...

30p mode, of course!!!!

[Charles Lowthian]

The HV20 to my knowledge only supports miniSD not SDHC.

I use a mini SDHC card with my HV20.

...but for most I doubt 10 mins would be sufficient recording time.

P2 cards.