1D X has traces of 1D C firmware but Magic Lantern 'will never touch 1D series' as Canon threatens potential hackers with legal trouble

[OverCranked]

That would be defending and explaining myself and my decisions in my choices in technology. That extra stress nullifies all the conveniences that DSLRs offer for me. It was the time for us to move on.

 

I'd have told her to go and do her ...

[MOONGOAT]

lol Canon.

 

Are you even trying.

[bwhitz]

I say keep going hackers! If the 1DC is really the 1DX, besides some coding, canon deserves to be exposed for it. Keep it anonymous and release the patches and tools from multiple sources at once... they can beat this crap!

[MediaMan]

I'm gonna show my age here, but I recall with much clarity my first Canon camera — a beautiful pro F1. I've been a loyal consumer of the brand for almost 30 years and in my career I estimate I've sent over $120k back to Japan.

 

In the last few years Canon has taken a few PR hits but I've stayed firm. But I gotta say this story really has challenged my love affair. I'm not sure this story will rise above the serious entusiasts and pros. But Joe Rivera is right. There are far too many (great) hardware choices out there right now for Canon to think they can manipulate customers any more.

 

Meet the new boss. Us!

[Caleb Genheimer]

I really hope they get their act together and offer some genuinely powerful video machines some time in the future. I'm simply not drawn to their stuff right now, and I sincerely think it is that either their 1080p looks like crap, or you must pay ludicrous prices for the decent stuff. I'm even more afraid as other manufacturers start to all use Sony sensors. Where's the diversity?

 

The one area where Canon still blows others out of the water is the color reproduction out of their sensors. It is gorgeous. If they would stop half-assing the video side of their products, they'd probably take back a large piece of the pie. 

 

Also the apocalypse-weather sealed unubtanium bodies are mighty attractive.

[Germy1979]

The form factor and size of it kind of throw off a little charm I guess. It's big enough to feel like you're holding a damn camera & apparently that's worth a lot more than I'd thought it would be to most.. Despite whooping it's ass in resolution, I still struggle with taking the GH2 seriously sometimes, (until I hit play..lol..) I've actually heard this from others while trying to decipher why people still sweep Canon's off the shelves with their shortcomings. The million dollar question for me was, "Hey Shane Hurlbut, Why are you so nuts over the Canon DSLR's when a GH2 even without a hack, out resolves them?"........to which he responded: "Not a fan of Panny's colorspace." Binding agreements or whatever obligations he may or may not have to Canon, I always thought the 5D2 had some of the most gorgeous looking color I've seen in terms of video & I still think it does. That's 8 bit....I still don't think any of them Canon has come out with since,.. especially the 5D3, look as good as it does. They don't look bad, per se', but I think they nailed it with the 5D2....that's personal preference:) The 1DC is pretty awesome, but aside from a heat dispersion unit, & a couple of other little tid-bits, it's a jailbroken dslr.

[Bruno]

The firmware features are exclusive to the 1D C, and disabled in the 1D X code.

What makes you think they're disabled instead of not present at all?

Hackers could possibly extract all the firmware from a 1DC and try to make it work on a 1DX, but ML has never done anything like that, and I doubt Canon would leave the specific 1DC features in the 1DX firmware so they could be activated. In fact it would be highly unlikely since the 1DX has been out for a while now, so what are the chances it came with the future 1DC firmware? :)

The thing here is Canon are entitled to do this, they could even be the same exact camera, they're entitled to charge for their firmware whatever they want. When you buy a 1DC you know what specs you're getting, they don't have to give you anything else only because their other version has it. Many software apps work like this, you install the whole thing and then you need to pay to unlock extra features if you need them. I'm sure clever hackers could find a way, but that's piracy, using software you didn't pay for.

If you don't like the price don't buy it, get something else, but it's still a free market. Apple have been selling overpriced products for years and they've been doing just fine!

[bwhitz]

The thing here is Canon are entitled to do this, they could even be the same exact camera, they're entitled to charge for their firmware whatever they want.

 

Yea, sure they can. But we as the consumers are allowed to exercise free-speech and publicly criticize them if we choose as well... and I think the industry on the whole is in some dire need of "calling out" on shenanigans like this. Welcome to the free-market 2.0 canon. :)

[chauffeurdevan]

I simply disagree, on about every point.

 

First, the price should not be set on production (and must never be the only parameter on price settings. Even more, this is not a product from mass production. When marketing a product like that, the thinking is not of creating a bestseller - you should not set it a price low enough that is will sell five times more. It will cause more problem and more loses on medium/long term than the there is benefits to. Why ? Manufacturing.

 

This camera is produced in small quantity. There is a small part of a factory dedicated to it. If your price is too low to be true and you sell much more than you can currently produce, your first problem will be the same problem as with the Black Magic Cinema Camera, a lot of unsatisfied people waiting way too long for it (however on the bmcc the price/quality is way too good for customers to be too much of a problem). So what's now ? You wan't to increase production. How do you do it ? You reduce the production of another camera to replace it with this one ? This is a high end camera so you are not reducing whatever Powershot manufacturing line to do it, so you'ill probably use the 5D line, but is it a good solution ? I don't think so. If not, maybe you can create a new factory, train new people just for a few thousands cameras (that is less profitable cause you reduced the price, remember ?)

 

Also, I don't consider not exploiting the full ability of a component, crippling. It is in fact maximizing the manufacturing process by reducing the pieces count to a minimum as you reuse them in many products. That maximization help cutting the cost, that reduce the price at the end for the consumer. (12k for a 4k camera, how much was it 5 years ago ?) Does the iPhone 4S really that different from an iPod Touch to cost 2.5x more ?

 

As for firmware. I believe that software can be sold to whatever price. Be it a single line of code, or thousands of classes and functions. There is a lot of software that is using the same exact code for the free version than the Pro version that sells for many thousands. It executes in a different way cause in the serial you set a 3 instead of a 4. I really do think that the 1DC is different enough, and the added value (yes, I'm talking about you, single line of code) gives a much more interesting product than the 1DX - Which camera for less than 12k gives you 4k 4:2:2 8bit (that you can convert to 1080p 12bit 4:4:4 !) Will I buy no. I'm not DP, just an Art Director. Would I buy it for 6k ? Hell no, if they sell it at 6k, I want Sony to sell its new F5 at 6k also !

[Sean Cunningham]

 and I doubt Canon would leave the specific 1DC features in the 1DX firmware so they could be activated. In fact it would be highly unlikely since the 1DX has been out for a while now, so what are the chances it came with the future 1DC firmware? :)

 

Oh really?  ATI and NVIDIA have been doing this forever.  Clever hackers have routinely been able to reveal the brains of a $200 graphics card marketed to consumers and gamers as having the same internal functions as the "pro" boards costing $2000 or more and the additional, expensive hardware functions, like hardware realtime antialiasing, etc. could be turned on and that the pro lines were largely badge engineered and priced to what the intended customers were expected to pay and not a reflection of the difference in design or cost.  

 

They were essentially the same thing with the consumer version clocked down and sometimes having slightly slower memory but this all depended on who you got your GeForce from because NVIDIA just set the minimum spec.   Quadros, for instance, were just expensive GeForce cards (usually with much poorer drivers, ironically).  Pick the right GeForce and you could save yourself a bundle with a free bit of code.

 

Making fewer versions of silicon and turning off and on functions lowers their manufacturing cost.  Same thing happens in all sorts of industries.  When Ford owned both Jaguar and Aston Martin folks weren't too keen when it got out how much three similar looking cars from three different companies with vastly different price tags shared both mechanically and from the plastic parts bin.  Toyota, Nissan and Honda have been doing it in America with their badge engineered brands designed for narrow-minded round-eyes.

 

Sony did the same thing with TVs for the longest time too between their consumer line and the XBRs, the former having very little mark-up and the later having almost 100% in some instances.

[zaz]

For what its worth, Arri does the same thing with their Alexa liscencing plans (turn on 120p, dnxhd, anamorphic stretching).

I think it's awesome to see assholes like this get reamed by honest companies like BMD and Panasonic.

[Miguel De Olaso Macgregor]

- Which camera for less than 12k gives you 4k 4:2:2 8bit (that you can convert to 1080p 12bit 4:4:4 !) Will I buy no. I'm not DP, just an Art Director. Would I buy it for 6k ? Hell no, if they sell it at 6k, I want Sony to sell its new F5 at 6k also !

 

Hey, do you care giving your explanation about that conversion? Sure resizing a 4K image down to 2K will improve chroma sampling, but it won't magically improve bit depth.  :blink:

[Bruno]

Oh really? ATI and NVIDIA have been doing this forever. Clever hackers have routinely been able to reveal the brains of a $200 graphics card marketed to consumers and gamers as having the same internal functions as the "pro" boards costing $2000 or more and the additional, expensive hardware functions, like hardware realtime antialiasing, etc.

I know that, it doesn't mean anything, they're entitled to sell it like that, hacking it is a form of piracy. You can claim you can do whatever you want on your own gfx card, but whoever shares the cracked firmware could be legally charged for it.
Also, the thing is in that case that was their intention from day one, whereas the 1DX came out before the 1DC was even ready, that's what makes me doubt it. That and the $6k price different, I'd think Canon would take an extra step to protect it.

Anyway, the point here is Andrew finished his post suggesting legal teams wouldn't be able to do much about it and that's far from the truth.

If you ask me, I'm all about having long lasting hardware, even if it means paying for firmware upgrades, anything to fight obsolescence and help save the environment, but that needs to come from the companies themselves. When you buy a 5D3 it doesn't say anywhere on the box or the manual that it has HDMI uncompressed output, and it's your decision whether or not to buy it, so stop bitching about it.

I'll give you another example... Your kick ass computer could run ANY software around, are you gonna start bitching that not having Maya or Nuke for free is crippling your hardware and that it gives you the right to resort to piracy instead of paying for the $10k they cost?

[Leang]

are there are any websites like Nikonrumors.com where they disassemble new (Canon) cameras and show the insides and go deep with the technology?

 

if WE really wanted to find out any rumor fallacy about hardware then maybe Andrew can organize some crew/site to open them up side by side and see board differentials etc...  find a sponsor to invest in these two comparison purchases in exchange for some monthly  adverts... B)

 

if the hardware is different like that Canon rep had mentioned from Andrew's previous article then I could see why Canon would be worried for anyone tampering with their firmwares.  I can just see someone damaging a 1DX with a hack tamper and then trying to send it back for warranty. who knows...interesting

[chauffeurdevan]

Hey, do you care giving your explanation about that conversion? Sure resizing a 4K image down to 2K will improve chroma sampling, but it won't magically improve bit depth.  :blink:

 

Absolutely, but some condition needs to be respected. Downscaling needs to be a proper algorithm using some kind ok interpolation (bicubic, lanczos, etc..), not a nearest neighbor one. And the math should be done in an higher bit-depth space (idealy 32-bit or more).

 

Here is an example of a 1-bit b&w image downscaled by 25% (for the example, it have been upscaled back without interpolation):

http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/2012/10/lower_bit-depth.html

[MANYHANDS]

To add to this - I am so disgusted by my C100 which has much worse AVCHD than the FS100 or 700. No-one who has bought it is admitting this on-line  - but it looks awful. Skin tones are horrific. If only the ML team could hack this!

[HurtinMinorKey]

The big boys like Canon and Nikon will fall like dominoes. Want an example? — just look at Microsoft, RIM, HP ... the list goes on.

 Microsoft and HP don't belong in the same sentence with RIM. Microsoft is still the worlds #1 office OS. 

 

My biggest criticism of Canon is that their marketing strategy(as late) has been piss poor. If they were making tons of cash, gaining market share, and had a rising stock price, who could blame them? But that isn't the case. It's clear that heads need to roll at Canon.

 

Did you know it's a family company?

[Bruno]

My biggest criticism of Canon is that their marketing strategy(as late) has been piss poor.

 

That may be true, and I'm all up for getting better cameras at lower prices. We need a video DSLR with focus on the video side and that costs no more than a 5D, not held back by the stills side of it. There's no such thing yet. You could mention the BMCC but it is not a DSLR, it's quite bigger and different, and many people would prefer a decent DSLR shaped video camera. Canon and everyone else are taking their sweet time before coming out with something like this, and they'll try to milk every other product they have before coming up with something like this.

 

The 1DC is a different thing, good or bad, like it or not, there's nothing else like it out there, and it could be 6 months or it could be 6 years before they get direct competition, and until that happens they'll want to make as much money as they possibly can.

 

Regardless of the constant bashing Canon gets in online forums, the rental industry and small production houses these days are still dominated by Canon, and you still can't get a better video DSLR than the 5D3 from any other maker.

 

Constructive criticism would probably go a much longer way than the current blind bashing, ridiculous demands or piracy/hacking suggestions.

[Bruno]

Obviously this is not the case.  Unless those red badges are lovingly hand made, complete with tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of … wherever.

 

Do software and R&D costs have no value to you?

[/p/]

Let's talk about RED cameras, they look pretty cool. One day I'd like to touch one, I dream about it. Need to get a job somewhere that has such a camera.