You can now run a script file from the SD card inside a Samsung NX1 and NX500 to enable extra features.
Although Samsung seems to have forgotten their camera customers exist, a growing open source community is starting to take shape around the Tizen OS-based mirrorless cameras.
The cameras run a fully functional Linux distribution made by Samsung (Tizen).
Scripts that modify the behaviour of the camera can be run from the memory card (a Linux shell file containing text commands). Here’s one such script you can use, which switches the video mode of the NX500 to 2.5K using the full area of the sensor rather than a crop in 4K mode. This is something which was available in the pre-release cameras but not in the final retail units.
The developer apologies for the low bitrate with this hack at 12Mbit/s – but remember this is a H.265 codec. The quality should be double compared to H.264 at the same bitrate. Therefore 12Mbit/s = 24Mbit/s in H.264 terms. By comparison the highly rated image of the Canon C100 is also H.264 at 24Mbit/s in AVCHD mode at 2K. You can get nice results at this bitrate. I’ve yet to see what the Super 35mm 2.5K quality is like on the NX500 of if the codec holds up in this mode at all – but I will be trying the hack in due course!
Initial work was done and presented on the EOSHD forum over 24 pages, now the project has it’s own NX1 / NX500 hack GitHub resource page here. I urge everyone to check this out, experiment with the hacks on your Samsung cameras and contribute any technical skills you may have to the project!
