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Im not going to continue the conversation stating info on what I find. Kernel is irrelevant in this situation. Look up how tizen loads and how the srp works. If there are relevant updates I will post, Im not going to comment on things to which people seem to just want to troll. Google is a friend use it.

Besides the Log/DR, doesn't the NX1 have all of that? And very good image quality in S35 1080p with near-global shutter?

I'm on a film festival committee. Trust me when I say almost all indy movies look really good these days. IQ looks on par with just about anything. Even work that has limited dynamic range still looks pretty impressive. As for all the other stuff that's actually more important in making a narrative film... well, not so much. So, if you think what camera you're shooting with is what's holding you back. IMHO, you're wrong. So, you pick up and use what you're going to pick up and use. That's it. Stop thinking about the limitations of it. You made the choice, move on. Now, make smart lighting decisions. Get a good audio guy (for god's sake please do this), concentrate on telling a good story, and find some actors that can actually do so. Trust me, no one's going to give two shit(es) if you're dynamic range in 10 stops or 13. Your skin tone looks a little goofy? Oh well, I forgive you if you're showing me some interesting characters on screen.

For narrative - no image from any camera under $5,000 will beat the BMCC 2.5K in RAW. The only ones that can match it are the BMPCC Pocket and a 5D mkIII running Magic Lantern in RAW again. And NO - the BMCC does NOT have "limited dynamic range" like Zack said above. It has 13-stops. Which is incredible at the price point and beats all real competitors. Certainly beat the NX1 by far. (No, the Sony A7s is not a competitor because their extended dynamic range is only available in certain modes, and the end result image quality - especially for narrative - has proven out to be a massive disappointment.) It's really not even close. The next contender up is the Sony FS7 for 3 times the price. I have: Panny GH2 (x2) Canon 6D, T2i Sony RX100 mkii Samsung NX1 (which I got for the slow-mo. it can never equal the BMCC image quality) BMCC 2.5k BMPCC Pocket (x2)

I to was after some sort of Cinema/Camcorder hybrid. The C100ii of course came to mind or the now sub $3K c100i. But the JVC always intrigued me, it seemed to fit the bill perfectly but still people wasn't buying it. I kept my eyes on it and when the first Lowlight footage from J-Log came out I just had to try it. Now when I have been shooting with it for a week, and love it btw, a few thoughts and questions about the market surfaced in my mind. I thought that the lessons from the initial bad reviews of the BMCC and C100 would have taught people to not let specs blind them. But maybe more importantly, don't let their feelings about brands get in the way of the results people are getting. Its like when people say "Nikon is bad for video" based on what reviews said 5 years ago. Same with the BMCC, "Philip Bloom says you can only shoot for 30min with a huge rig and no SDOF". But we all know thats not the general truth. A guy on this board just said, "JVC footage looks like news" when he has only ever used a t2i. My suspicion is that the reason we aren't seeing more reviewers giving the camera an actual chance is because its a JVC. They might have been big back in the days, and thats why the reviewers so far has been traditional "Camera Men". But a s35 is mostly interesting for the cinematic shooter, and they/we aren't used to JVC. Just look how long it took before Sony and Panasonic was widely considered an option over DSLRs. Or the faith of the NX1. And speaking of Panasonic. Does a day even go past without people shouting for a AF200? Well, why wait, its already here. It has the 4K, 4:2:2: LOG, Improved form factor and soon HFR that the AF100 users wanted. Plus a cheaper initial price. Plus a s35 sensor.. with the m4/3 mount. And Panasonic owns JVC.. What are they still waiting for? Lastly, I could buy it just for the satisfaction of owning a camera from a brand named "Japan Victor Company" I know NAB is close but Im pretty set on getting a LS300 anyway. I simply don't want to give it back. If you know me Im a vintage lens junkie, and there isn't a better camera to satisfy that need on the market. NAB for me will more be about a B-cam or 4K recorder. Speaking of B-Cam. Given that a B-Cam imo should use the same lenses and do stuff that the A-Cam doesn't, I currently have two great options. BMPCC, Brings a small form factor so that it can always travel in a pocket of the bag. Ads a second angle, Raw and the super stealth, given that the LS300 might raise eyebrows in certain situations. It can use both the MFT, all the vintage and EF lenses I have. 5DMark3, Can only use the EF lenses and some of the vintage. But it brings Raw, FF, Stills, even better lowlight and semi stealth. So if NAB doesn't bring another Raw option to use as B-Cam, my 5D3 might get to stick around or be replaced my a BMPCC. (PS. For the love of god BMD... A BMPC4K with an active MFT.. I can crop the sensor in post for you.. instant buy.)

All this going on and on about color --as if content creators could never make a good video without someone's skin tone looking like a Vermeer painting right off of the sensor. C'mon, someone's skin tone should probably be the least of your worries with modern gear. All of it is more than good enough. Sorry, I really shouldn't gripe and be an old fart about this. It's just that you're making interview videos for freaking YouTube. If you have half a clue what you're doing... Sony is fine. Panasonic is fine. Canon is Fine. Nikon is fine. I mean, look what you're getting for less than 1K. It's practically magic these days and it only costs a handful of beans. Use it, make fun stuff, and be happy. (Jeez, I'm seriously getting curmudgeonly about things these days. Don't get old kids, it makes you cranky!) So anyway...I'd buy a G7... and why would you need a speed booster for talking head studio stuff?

Everyone is going to be a bit biased toward what they own or choose to use because it took all their research and money to get to that decision (plus the additional time and expense of buying and selling and renting and demoing everything under the sun before making the right decision). But while everyone's choice is usually eventually right for their needs–it gets pretty exhausting deluding yourself and going down the wrong path–many cameramen will then embrace the strengths of their given instrument the more they use it and their bias will only extend as their needs are changed by their choices, rather than the other way around. If you've got an A7S you're gonna shoot low light; if you've got a Dragon you definitely won't. There are a lot of talented guitarists, each using and loving completely different guitars, and to what extent choice informed aptitude and aptitude informed choice is debatable there, too. It goes both ways. Causation, correlation, and whatnot. I think the only mistake is believing everyone shares your needs and your taste (and your finances). I like just about everything if it's done well, maybe it's a lack of cultivated taste, so it's easy for me to say "do your thing," but I also think everyone is going to do their thing anyway so being too set in your beliefs won't help unless you're making your own decisions (which you don't need a forum to make). No one else's needs are your own, so every recommendation is going to vary. You seem like someone who is very thoughtful but also opinionated, and it's good to think before drawing a conclusion. But don't be too quick to dismiss those who form their opinions intuitively rather than intellectually. A lot of the greatest filmmakers operate that way when picking coverage, directing performance, etc.–choices far more important than codec. I think Paul McCartney never learned to read music. Bias is good, it shows intelligence. Intransigence isn't, it reveals solipsism.

Single best 1080p image? Easy to edit? Small file sizes? Cheap? Sony PMW-F3 (unlocked for RGB and S-Log) shooting internal. under $1300 Slightly more grading resilient footage? - as above plus a bm video assist. Under $1800 Greenscreen work? - as above but with the Pix-E5 recorder. Under $2200

Okay, okay. You don't want someone looking green...but what new camera when properly set up for studio shooting is going to fail at acquiring decent skin tone? Or any camera made in the last few years, to be honest? Serious question, that, Mattias, you play with more cameras than just about anyone. I'm just amazed people will dismiss a camera because some other camera makes human flesh look subjectively "dreamy." Even though that may well be true, when you can control your set up and setting, you can dial in the colors to your liking. Maybe I'm the one being nuts here, but I really think that for this level of production, one could buy a used $200 G3 and a used $10 Pentax lens and still make it look great.

I don't think he has claimed to have proved that the CPU is different. It would be foolish for anyone to claim to know if the SoCs are the same or different without proof. The possible differences between the SoC in the NX1 and the one in the NX500 will not necessarily appear in the source code that Samsung has released. The same source code can work with different hardware depending on how it is configured. What's more, there are probably (well, almost certainly) binary-only firmware blobs that are uploaded to run certain parts of the SoC that aren't directly controlled by the kernel. The kernel doesn't even have to include all the drivers needed to run the hardware. For all I know they might be using a user-space driver or proprietary kernel modules for some components, which would not appear in the GPL-required source. Or they might not. But you would have to carefully analyze the entire firmware image to find out. There are many possibilities at this point. The silicon could be identical and fully enabled in both chips. It could be identical and configured differently by low-level binary firmware. It could be identical but with parts permanently (laser) disabled. It could be different. As far as I know it isn't possible to tell apart those four (or more I haven't thought of) cases for sure just based on kernel code. Or it might be possible to prove. All we know right now is that the CPU cores themselves are functionally equivalent, which doesn't really matter anyway. If anyone knows that I'm wrong, please correct me. I'm somewhat familiar with embedded Linux, but I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination.

My initial test was disappointing. The mod seems to suffer the same issue QuickHitRecord mentions near the bottom of the first post in this thread, where it can't quite seem to get to infinity. The taking lens is a Helios 44 (not 44-2) that focuses to infinity just fine on its own and is flat up against the back of the B&H. The front element of the mod is sitting in the helicoid nearly touching the front glass of the anamorphic. John Barlow mentions a negative achromat further down in the same thread as a solution. Anyone know of this and how to acquire one? Richg101 (or any other B&H modders out there) do you have any other thoughts/suggestions? I'm hesitant to shorten the distance between the front glass and anamorphic any further because I'm worried about the glass touching each other. On a positive note, the long helicoid allows me to focus down to about a foot (maybe less!) on my Helios without noticeable vignetting. Some mighty focus breathing, though. I'm very close to finishing this mod and would hate to think all my effort has been for naught. Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated! |. . | .|

Well the A7S colour weaknesses are sadly all too clear in that clip. Noisy, compressed, inaccurate, thin and dreadful on the Rec.709 conversion, only the custom LUT (with a lot of expertise efforts) can save it even after that dodgy white balance, mixed light, exposure all remain difficulties faced by Sony users. Sony need to make it EASY to get Canon or Nikon like colour from their cameras. They should really trash their entire picture profiles line-up and start again.

I've hardly even had time to test the little camera. It's soon to be fitted into forbes70, and I'm hoping global shutter gets enabled. from some of the footage I've shot I have noticed more obvious fixed pattern shadow noise than I have seen from the pocket. @Zak Forsman have you noticed this?

If you like Samsung NX products and want Samsung to keep them alive sign the petition below and have your voice heard! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/samsung-keep-nx-alive

There's a lot of options because everyone's needs are different. For instance, having something that delivers on set editing with relative ease makes the decision a bit more narrow. I love camera gear and I love using the latest and greatest, but if you only have a small budget you make the decision and then move on. Whatever you choose will have limitations. The cool thing is, those limitations push your other skills. And those other skills are the things that actually matter the most. I look at using low-end gear as a kind of win-win situation. Cheap, good IQ these days, and forces one to be much more considerate when shooting to eek out better shots.

For narrative under 4-5K, don't forget the digital bolex. It produces some of the most amazing skin tones and colours, with global shutter to boot.

With fewer lenses out there than NX1 bodies - I'm worried it's going to be the opposite. If you happen to NEED the auto-focus or IS and want the "S" series lens...I could see them selling for twice retail because there are so few of them out there. Maybe 1 for every 10 bodies sold.

I've said this a bunch of times, but I always felt the beauty of Canon "color" is due to the large user base back when they were the only option. Between vision and Cinestyle and Prolost Flat, the best settings were defined by extensive R&D by some of the best DPs, colorists and enthusiasts that gave a neutral starting point for grading or just simple lens selection to achieve a desired "look." For someone like me... A beginner in practical terms... This made the entire process palpable. When Magic Lantern became a viable, stable option, the opportunities were tremendous. But in some ways, the implementation of ML may have hurt Canon's video segment growth because I am almost convinced that the pencil pushers felt the video popularity of their cameras since 2012, was based on their own internals and were oblivious to the impact that ML had on their video segment sales. Well, that and their innate desire to protect their cinema line and their lack of market placement in the consumer 4K television market, led to stagnant development in their video segment. Either way, I hope Canon extends their lines and update their video functions because I would love to use Canon again. As far as auto focus... When I started the hobby, I couldn't afford any good native lenses... So I went with manual vintage lenses. Just recently, after I bought my G7, I picked up a Sigma 30mm f2.8 and although I use it primarily with manual focus, sometimes for a quick punch, I'll hit the af button and get it close... Very useful. And with my recent purchase of the FZ300, the continuous AF is so spot on, it's like having a focus puller following you around with a tape measure. And as long as you're judicious and creative with your shots, I can't see why it couldn't be cinematic. So, I can understand why a filmmaker of any level or discipline could find it useful.

There are many ways of film making, but traditionally, a shot will be planned to an extent where a gimbal is a hinderance compared to solutions that you can use when you have that much control over the scene. Why use a gimbal and have to rely on autofocus when you can build a track for your camera and retain control? I say traditionally, because things like Canon's autofocus, affordable gimbals and the modern revolution of film making has led to tiny crews shooting gorilla movies in locations where they have no control, and then such tools become useful. There comes a point however where you can't just roll up to a location and shoot.

When Auto Focus gets invented I will try it. But to be serious there are times when AF can be usefull. On small chip camcorders it can be nice. In selfie mode with good face detection. Just to name two. But there is no such thing as Automatic Focus.

IMO auto focus and 'cinematic' shouldn't really be uttered in the same sentence. However for things like an impromptu talking head in a run and gun environment with a large sensor, a good af system capable of tracking focus of a face will always be welcome. I highly doubt I'd ever use such a thing since I actually like the aesthetic of a human being pulling focus by eye. If people like to think a Canon will make their colours nicer without having to learn how to set up wb, profiles and learn how to use curves that's up to them. The fact here isn't about af or colour. It's about the fact that the image from the 80D doesn't even deliver true 720p. it's mush. and is noisy. The lack of video ergonomics of a mirrored camera can be worked around when the image is worth working around for - the 1dc, 5dmk3 in raw, etc. But entertaining any positive discussion about Canon cameras not of the Cinema EOS range or ML hacked for film making is madness. Those still buying such devices for cinematic type film making are either ignorant to what else is available, blind or buying out of sympathy for Canon. I see no difference between the 80D and the 550D/T2i in terms of video performance. Canon hasn't made any worthwhile video improvements on their non cinema eos cameras since the 5Dmk2!

you would want to denoise after down scaling, the noise adds dithering and removes banding. It will give you smoother gradients if you leave the noise in before down scaling.

MOV_SIZE on NX1: dc24p=0 uhd30=1 uhd24=2 uhd23.98=3 fhd120=4 fhd60=5 fhd30=6 fhd24=7 fhd23.98=8 hd60=10 hd30=11 vga60=12 vga=13 mjpeg=14 i think i give 9 a try lol -> seems like 9 sets it to fhd24 btw: someone did the same for NX500 at dpreview: http://***URL removed***/forums/thread/3985980

Wow that seems to make a difference with the Video Mic Pro, I've never had good results with it on a DSLR. NX1 preamps especially seem pretty poor. Nice job sir.

I've used auto focus when appropriate for the last 15yrs in everything from independent films to broadcast work to corporate. I'm sure the internet would say I'm not professional. I use whatever tools I have to make my job easier and concentrate on the creative side of things. That's what it's all about right?

The whole Samsung NX (& lenses) story is another cautionary tale: a really great product is not in of itself a guaranteed success. Sadly, marketing, brand recognition etc are arguably more important - you only need look at the continuing success of Canon DSLRs for that...

Bold, I applaud your efforts, the mod is looking good. Regarding the infinity focus issue, I believe it is a flaw of the B&H itself. It simply cannot focus to true infinity. I was also wondering if you've saved the design for the 3D printed parts and could share it. Maybe I can find some workshop where I can do it in my country and try your mod as well. BTW, I see that redstan is selling his original clamp on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/finest-anamorphic-lens-clamp-kowa-isco-sankor-and-more-by-redstan-/331812493831?hash=item4d4190da07:g:0NUAAOSwQYZWzlcS This clamp is a perfect snug fit for the B&H with the silver ring attached (I have it). Cheers!

O.K. I've learnt my two words for the day.

Talking about Special Purposes.... how about being the only $1000 camera with Super 35mm 4K recording, 13 stop dynamic range with LOG, small file sizes, built in EVF, 120fps in full HD and the best autofocus system under the $6000 1D X Mark II pro DSLR.

kgv5, commercials are almost all shot in RAW when possible... This is a choice guided by the production and nothing else... Like 4K when only 1080 needed... Productors want 4K to have the ability to resize... This is not a choice made by the ones who shoot... 5d mark III has RAW... cool !!! I've used it on a big French National TV broadcasted commercial 7 months ago... I don't say it is a bad camera or anything else... i just say this is really not the best option to shoot with today... And today an A7SII is better to my eyes. Way comforter... non hacked, 81 minutes on a 64 GB card, and everything with a slight better dynamic, and slow motions... I don't speak about high isos... lights are always controlled on my sets : 1DC right here 3 years ago... used in 8 bits 1080 only... No 4K MJPEGs... Reaaaaaallllly small budget... But broadcasted on French National TV channels during these three years... Just youtube it : "Pièces jaunes 25 ans"... Shoot with what you want !!!! One time i did replace the F55 we're used to shoot with by an A7SII, my personal A7SII... We had time to play in post. Dynamic and colors are not the same, but the result was here : the client didn't say anything about the quality... No strange skin tones around... Take a look at this too : I don't shoot 5D mark III anymore. Too limited camera. Great picture but limited camera, not flexible, and not matching cameras of nowadays.

The Terra has a lot of advantages over the URSA Mini 4.6k. - Higher Resolution. - Switchable shutter (the irony). - Higher FPS. - Lightweight, smaller and more modular. - Kinemount. - Choice between V-lock and Sony batteries. Blackmagic obviously have a much stronger sales channel and a vast user base . Plus the image quality comparison is up for questioning. Still, it's a very interesting prospect I'm very keen to explore.

@mercer: i just found some original media and tried to apply filmconvert so that it looks like it did last time, here you go:

Think this is the thing with the Micro - everyone's just got straight to shooting something, cheers. 1. Used worse screens & with a crude viewfinder, I've never ever missed focus. 2. Yes, yes & yes - stopped using RAW because of this & only vintage lenses + anamorphic lenses (also avoid moire creating things like the plague!). 3. Not a problem - swap the SD card, swap the battery. Pocket has/had the best image out there, hands down, no question about it! Just hoping that BM announce a camera that lies inbetween the BMCC & Pocket...

5D3 in raw mode 24/25fps 1080p 16:9 records 83-84 MB/s. Which gives 5GB per minute. 64GB is 12 minutes, 128GB is 24 minutes, 256GB is 48 minutes. Simple as that. Maybe you card was faulty. About alexa - i have been on set of cat food TV commercial, shot on alexa xt - everything in arriraw. Nobody even mentioned prores. I was making BTS video - everything in raw either 2 day on set with 5d3 - no problem at all (but for that i bought those sandisk cards and didnt even try to use KB 64GB 1000x shitty card. Yesterday ML developers unlocked fully functional 1920x1080 3x crop - now it has fully working real time framing, up to this point it had black/white choppy look on the screen, now it can be treated like normal, usable s16 crop. They have also unlocked 50/60 fps mode without the need of streaching, maxumum resolution is 1920x648 (so very wide) but no image artifacts, IQ the same as 1920x1080 with black bars.

now we are talking! I don't know if its able to be done. I mean, I'm curious what their profit margin is. yea but then it takes a year after its introduced at NAB to come out, and another 6 months to fix the camera so it works.

I kind of hope you're trolling, but I feel compelled to respond anyway. tl;dr: Nobody has been making any implied promises, and your suggestion had already been tried and failed before you posted it. First of all, nobody is claiming to be working on super-duper secret projects. Everyone has been very clear that they are doing this for fun in their spare time. From what I have read, nobody is releasing much since there isn't much interesting to release. For what it's worth, there have already been results, in particular from Otto and Vasile. Both of them made no promises yet delivered exactly what they said they expected to do. Vasile claimed to have found how to increase the bitrate, and provided a video as proof. Yea he could theoretically have faked it, but I see know reason to think that at this point. Otto stated his intentions very clearly and his results have already proven useful to people who want to take videos of events longer than 30 minutes (as well as anyone who wants to investigate their camera further). You got radio silence on your suggestions because people were already working on that and ran into problems that you did not address at all. In case it's too much trouble for you to actually read what people have already written, the issue was that if the camera app is killed it freezes the camera. It's hard to replace an app if you cannot even remove it. If you think you know how to prevent that, I would love to hear it. If you want "traction" in this discussion, try actually being helpful. Regarding the DRIMeV SoC itself, I mostly agree with your educated guess. It is almost certainly the same die, and the ARM cores are 100% identical. Unfortunately that's not saying much at all since most modern ARMv7 cores are identical as far as the software is concerned. It's the details of other blocks that would determine whether or not the important components of the camera application run or not. I can't tell just from skimming the kernel source code. It takes under 5 minutes to find and download the firmware update from Samsung's site. If you really don't have 5 free minutes in your life, I don't understand why you are wasting time criticizing people who have actually accomplished things and posted them here. If you are 1/2 as smart as you make yourself sound, it should take you less than an hour to unpack all the components of the firmware. I had never unpacked a firmware before, but it only took me two evenings to get all the major pieces out. The offsets, sizes, compression, and filesystems are almost all documented right here in this forum, so there is no excuse not to take a look if you really want to test an idea. I totally agree that the ratio of people waiting with high expectations to the people working on it is rather high. The Magic Lantern forums are just like that on a larger scale, but that doesn't change what they have or have not done. You need to keep in mind that this forum is a community of filmmakers, not hackers (or even "photographers"). The point of this thread in the first place was to show interest in modifying a camera, at which I'd say it has admirably succeeded! Finally, nobody cares that you're a busy person. So you like your HoloLens and want to play with it. Cool story. We're all busy people too, so suck it up and either contribute or go back to lurking. Sorry for the tone, but that's because I can never stand people who drop into discussions and claim that they could do it all better if they didn't have so many more important things to do, yet don't contribute anything useful. /rant

diehroptic.ch is collaborating with Rectilux to bring The Dscope We will bring a Single Focus x1.5 Scope based on the Rathenower 2x 48, targeting a wide horizontal FOV. John does the glass and I do the housing & final fittings. It comes fitted with the Core DNA. Price target is estimated around 1.800€. Please find all the details on my page: http://www.diehroptic.ch/essays/2016/03/rectilux-collaboration-for-a-x15-scope/ Cheers Alex Diehr

The KineMAX 6K does not have ProRes. Only the JUST ANNOUNCED 6K camera does. I doubt that Kinefinity would switch from Cineform to ProRes without getting proper licensing. Considering that everything Kinefinity has ever promised they have apparently delivered on time and time again. Just because it is a Chinese company doesn't mean they indulge in seedy business practices. Personally I'm looking forward to picking up the 4K after this lowers the price of that camera. 2K cineform is plenty for me Especially with that locking Nikon mount speedbooster.

Wow, a conversation about a new camera release has turned into arguments over ProRes licensing? Kinefinity are actually a small unit in a huge Chinese astronomy imagery company, I'm sure they have all this stuff sorted. Aside the negativity... this camera is a very compelling option which needs better worldwide support. I'm excited to see more of this camera soon.

I just bought a A7R2 and was thinking about selling my A7S, but I kept it and use them both. It's still a great cam, even for pictures it has mojo. Look @ some A7S video's on Vimeo and You Tube. I would recommend the classic A7S.

If you need great colors I would rather go for the NX1... (you also get great AF at the same time if you use NX S lenses)

Absolutely agree with this one, 1. Most important - Higher bit rates is the thing we all need the most. Lets get rid of macroblocking and all sorts of problem. 2. Turn off the NoiseReduction - in my mind, the NR must slow eat a big chunk of processing power. If turned off, this power can be used elswhere. 3. 10 bit or 12RAW - I mean, honestly. You cant argue with this one.. 4. Higher frame rates - is what makes the camera more appealing to us, but honestly, not more usable. Just makes it a better deal 5. Trying to disable crop 4K on NX500 and applieing 1 to 4 to NX500. That could make the camera more appealing to everybody. (not sure if we established already this is not possible?) PS: Chant, as other stated, if you are dedicated to this task.. As other stated, dont be shy to ask for compensation or think of crowdfunding from us, if you plan to break in the camera and make it whole new better piece of tech.

I don't think I currently have the experience or time to successfully modify the NX1/NX500 firmware. I don't even have one of those cameras. However it would be a shame to let the interest in this die, so I guess I'll post some of my notes/thoughts about the firmware in hopes that it might help keep the ball rolling. Note: if you aren't into technical minutiae, the only interesting part of this wall of text is the bulleted list at the end detailing what is and is not possible in my opinion. Here are the files listed in the header of nx1.bin (version 1.4.0): version.info: offset=0x0 size=0x3F (same as found in /etc/version.info) linux image: offset=0x0130 size=0x00624748 idk: offset=0x624878 size=0xD8E9 linux image: offset=0x632161 size=0x3192E8 linux image: offset=0x94B449 size=0x638518 idk: offset=0xF83961 size=0x01FF10 idk: offset=0xFA3871 size=0xB35140 rootfs: offset=0x1AD89B1 size=0x117A89FF (lzo compressed ext4 filesystem image) opt: offset=0x132813B0 size=0x58E91C (lzo compressed ext4 filesystem image) pcachelist: offset=0x1380FCCC size=0x7000 (PAGECACHELIST, preceded by a header, I think) idk: offset=0x13816CCC size=0x35BCC44 (lzo compressed. header indicates swap image?) Anyone with the skills to reverse engineer a camera could figure this out pretty easily, but it was fairly tedious so maybe this will save someone 20 minutes of poking around in a hex editor. If anyone knows what's up with the files I've labeled "idk," I would love to hear about it. The checksum algorithm is fortunately unchanged from the NX300 as far as I can tell. As documented at sites.google.com/site/nxcryptophotography/diy-firmware "width=32 poly=0x04c11db7 init=0xffffffff refin=true refout=true xorout=0x00000000 check=0x340bc6d9 name="JAMCRC"" "jacksum -x -a crc:32,04c11db7,ffffffff,true,true,00000000 [file]" The main camera app binary is (I'm pretty sure) located at /usr/apps/com.samsung.di-camera-app/bin/di-camera-app in the rootfs. It seems to access the hardware through a relatively high-level API with the /usr/lib/libmm* libraries. libmmf-camcorder.so is particularly interesting. The function I've focused my attention on is mmf_camcorder_set_attributes(), which comes from libffm-camcorder and is used repeatedly in di-camera-app. It conveniently (and strangely IMO) takes strings as identifiers for the attributes that are apparently being set (why not just an enum? I suppose I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth...). Some of those attributes include "target-time-limit," "audio-encoder-bitrate," and "video-encoder-bitrate." The guy who successfully removed the recording time limit on the NX300 did it by modifying the instructions that set the variable being passed along with "targe-time-limit." I found the control flow instructions he mentioned in that thread, so it should't be hard to get rid of the time limit on the NX1, provided the camera accepts the modified firmware. The NX500 is probably similar. The "video-encoder-bitrate" attribute also looks promising, though it would take some more advanced reverse engineering to figure out where the values are being set. So from what I've seen and read, here is what I think is and is not possible to modify on the NX1 and NX500: Remove time limit: Highly likely. Seems to be the same as the NX300. Pretty easy too, if there aren't any new security measures in place. Increased bitrate: Possible. Needs some real reverse engineering to find where the rates are set for each resolution and quality. Noise reduction and sharpening: Possible. Haven't seen anything that looks like it's controlling these, but if setting the bitrate works, this should be possible too. FWIW I think that increasing the bitrate would help with the noise reduction issues. H.265 tends to smooth things out a lot to achieve low bitrates. Re-enable 2.5k on NX500: Plausible but difficult. It depends on whether they just removed it from di-camera-app, or if they removed it from the underlying libraries as well. Either way it would likely require actually adding control flow to the binary, which opens a whole new can of worms. Beyond my current ability, for sure. Focus peaking for NX500 4k: Maybe? I have no idea, really. There might be a good reason they didn't include it, there might not. 4k crop on NX1: Plausible but even more difficult. We know the hardware can do it, but it was probably never implemented on the NX1, even in pre-production. Gamma profile on NX500: Plausible. Similar to porting the NX500's 4k crop to the NX1, I think. 6k 24fps H.265: Highly unlikely. The H.265 encoder would have to support frame sizes larger than DCI 4k and be able to handle twice the pixel rate (clock speed) of 4k. Furthermore it would require implementing a brand-new video mode at a very low level. I can't say for sure it's categorically impossible, but don't get your hopes up. 10bit H.265: Nope. The H.265 standard does indeed allow for 10bit encoding, but I highly doubt Samsung would include the significantly larger (wider busses, more complex encoding) hardware necessary to do it. It would be a miracle if Samsung had really decided to go to all that effort and not use it. 6k or full sensor 4k at more than 30fps or 1080p at (significantly) more than 120fps: Impossible. The image sensor simply isn't fast enough. If you hope for this you will just be disappointed! RAW Video: Not really. It might be theoretically possible to dump the live-view feed as in Magic Lantern. Who knows how fast the SD card interface is, though. Certainly no more than 1080p. I can imagine tricking the GPU into packing 12bit 4k RAW into 1080p 444 HDMI like Apertus, but consider that a pipe dream. Don't get your hopes up. Anyway, that was longer than I expected, but I enjoyed poking around in the firmware, so I don't regret it even if it comes to nothing. It's a shame Samsung appears to be dropping the NX line; they are cool little cameras. p.s. If you know anything I've said is wrong, please correct me; I'm learning this as I go along.

It's a tricky one. They can improve the DR by lowering the read noise and 3.1 electrons is a fair bit these days. To reduce the shot noise they need to capture more Photons, but the lens f-ratio controls how many fall on the sensor - same lens, same number of Photons. You can improve the Quantum Efficiency, but 58% is really good. You can weaken the colour filters to let a bit more of other colours through. However if you make more electrons you need to make a bigger pixel to store them, which gets harder for the same surface area. I can see them improving the DR (but I don't think they will, as they will want 50p/60p which mean running it faster, which means more noise, so other improvements will get eaten up), but I think for overall noise all they can do is what people have mostly been doing, which is implement ever cleverer noise reduction in their processor. It's doable, but I don't think it'll get you to where Neat Video can get you now. Just my opinion though. Well, except the physics bits. (Edit) Should have said, they can maybe improve the DR a bit if they use the Arri/Canon way of splitting the pixels up, although I suspect that would run into a lot of patents.

Sensor size is not the only factor that determines noise in the image. The GH4 has a smaller sensor than the GH2, yet it has better performance at the same ISO. ISO 3200 is only 2 stops higher sensitivity than ISO 800. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect better ISO performance from the GH5 using a Micro 4/3 sensor. Also, I forgot to add to my list that I want the GH5 should have 5-axis in-built image stabilizer, as long as the camera doesn't overheat like the Sony cameras. I need to be able to shoot continuous footage (not limited to 30 minutes) so if IBIS causes short record times then no thanks.

No, no, no. I don't want a Super 35 sensor in a GH5. I REALY LIKE the Micro 4/3 size sensor. It makes focusing easier than S35, yet still has enough shallow depth of field to look cinematic. I don't care for Speedboosters. I love using my Voigtlander and Lumix lenses on my GH4, and would want the GH5 to shoot on a 5K or 6K m4/3 sensor downsampled to 4K in camera. 10-bit 4:2:2 internal 4K would be an incredible way for the GH5 to separate itself from everything else in the market. I don't want to use S35 or FF lenses. I WANT my lenses to remain small. I want my whole kit to remain small. There are tons of other cameras out there right now that use S35 or FF sensors. I don't want to pay for a large sensor if I'm just going to use a 4K crop from it because of all my m4/3 lenses. If you want S35 or FF, buy a different camera. Get the Sony A6300 or something else. Leave the GH series Micro 4/3 sensor, because there are a lot of us that find it the perfect size sensor. What I want in a GH5 (in order of importance to me): Micro 4/3 sensor Internal 10-bit 4:2:2 4K ISO 3200 as good as the current ISO 800 of the GH4 4K 60p No lag on the HDMI output V-Log included Keep the same style body & battery so all GH4 accessories work

No, no, no! Dear Panasonic, please don’t listen to Andrew. He’s a nice guy, but this time…. :-) I don’t think, businesswise it would be a clever decision. From my consumer segment point of view, it wouldn’t be an attractive one either. The main benefit from the MFT is not the FT, but the “M”. Micro! If somebody wants “full-frame”, than buy a full-frame camera. MFT gives the best size/quality compromise. There is no perfect camera, no “one size fits all” system. Size-quality-price is all important but antagonistic factors! I don’t want to invest into speedbusters and co. and I certainly wouldn’t buy a camera, i.e. pay for features, I could only use with other lenses. That’s the whole idea with having a system. I want a light and efficient gear, exactly as MFT is. Actually, I would rather ask Panasonic for the opposite. Make the new sensor with fewer pixels. I would love to see a native 4K MFT sensor with app. 8 MP. but with excellent low light capability. Aka a7s… Full pixel readout and no mathematics, how to make 4K from 6K, instead of that, using the processor for more color and dynamic range. God forbid it, even RAW :-) Of course, 8-10 MP would not be so attractive for some photographers, but that’s why, there are other cameras. You can’t please all. In business strategy, segmentation is like DoF, it’s about taking choices, focusing. I certainly hope, Panasonic would not change their focus :-)

While FF sensors are great, S35 will remain the professional standard for the foreseeable future. Why? Because the image circle of PL cine lenses can cover S35 but not FF 35mm. That is why professional cameras such as the Arri Alexa, which cost $70K+, still use S35 sensors.

Interesting post, Andrew. However, I do not believe Panasonic would change the sensor size in the GH line to S35 for many of the reasons already mentioned. I also don't want them too. I've been using the GH line of cameras for my business for the last 4 years. They are small, have a lovely detailed image, and most importantly of all they have never let me down. With the GH4 they finally got to a professional standard body. It is rock solid, has best-in-class battery life, it never overheats, and has no recording limits. Panasonic have played to their strengths beautifully. Apparently they sold way more GH4s than they were anticipating and it would be a strange move to throw that progress away when they now have a fan base. I hope to start make narrative films this year and will have no qualms using the GH4 for the job too where I can use my Nikon lenses with a speedbooster and achieve an S35 look if I desire.

Great post as always Andrew, but my concern is what we might LOSE if the GH5 goes with a larger sensor. What Panasonic has done so well with the GH line is exploiting all the benefits of a smaller sensor. For instance, if a m43 sensor means giving us 240fps at 1080p as opposed to 120fps on a s35 sensor, I would go with the m43 sensor every time. Hell, maybe we could even get a global shutter this time around? At any rate, there are certainly many benefits of a smaller sensor that can potentially outshine the step up to s35. I still think Panasonic should continue separating this format by offering kick ass specs that larger sensors can't offer. That might even mean having to do a complete technology overhaul for m43, which it sounds like they are already working on. See below. http://blog.planet5d.com/2016/02/a-sensor-that-can-shoot-in-starlight-panasonics-apd-cmos-could-change-low-light-forever/