Petition for Samsung NX1 hack

[Pavel Mašek]

2 hours ago, derderimmermuedeist said:

I mean that the panning shot is now also much smoother (with the 160 Mb/s).

Yes, I have noticed that too (especially in 4k), but I thought it is just my opinion. Anyone complained "motion cadence problem" in NX1? I think it is gone now!

[Antonis]

1 hour ago, Pavel Mašek said:

Yes, I have noticed that too (especially in 4k), but I thought it is just my opinion. Anyone complained "motion cadence problem" in NX1? I think it is gone now!

You got my attention now!! :D
Could you (or anyone) upload a short example of this onto vimeo/youtube?

[Pavel Mašek]

15 minutes ago, Antonis said:

You got my attention now!! :D
Could you (or anyone) upload a short example of this onto vimeo/youtube?

On Dpreview user called Mangokid uploaded this video where was used "only" 140mbits. I also done few codec stressful tests but nothing I would like to upload. All I know is that macroblocking is almost gone in 4K30p 160Mbits in most stressful scenes and panning is smoother than before.

 

[Claudio Lisco]

Honestly i make too the test but i didn't notice any update in my camera..for my side is always the same i never have problem macroblocking in my nx1 so i didn't notice difference

for flat profile here there is a test and explanation how i do

[SMGJohn]

So from what I shot I noticed there is 'slightly' more details on the noise grain, but the NR is still terrible and it seem to kick in at any ISO. But the grain has definitely become more detailed and less blocky with 160mbps hack, this can even be witnessed in my pictures I posted. Its only slightly it still looks Godawful and post-NR is not helping all too well with it because it causes mosquito artefacts.

I also noticed that images can be pushed more in terms of colour grading, a lot more until they start breaking and this is very good news, you can have a lot more contrasty images, shadow details are also slightly better, there is definitely less macroblocking in dark areas but again the NR is the biggest culprit here I think when it comes to crushing details in the dark areas.

The bitrate increase definitely seem to have its effect, definitely for 1080p50/100 which seem to benefit the most of it and needed it badly, but again its not noticeable above ISO 1600 because the NR is destroying details hence why I did not notice much different when I first tried it other than that its fine and there is more details per pixels and again this helps in grading a lot, the banding issues seem to have been decreased but they are not gone at this point I am just going to blame it on both HEVC and the NR for the banding issue, GH4 has no issue with banding like this at 100mbps with H264, its clearly a codec issue at this point when JPEG's are doing fine even at normal compression.

I never touch saturation settings except for in the normal picture profiles when I need artistic images right out the camera, other than that I only touch contrast and sharpness including adjusting the RGB levels, the pedestal is useless all it does it makes shadow either greyer or more contrasty, I suppose its useful for artistic means but for flat images it does nothing but destroying finer details and make noise more apparent so anyone who want flat images should stay away from the pedestal tool its as useful as it is on the GH4.

So thanks again Vasile, I did notice the camera became a tad slower with the 160mbps setting I did not try anything below the bitrate, it takes a while after you start it to react to anything but just a few seconds at most. I read some did not have this issue, perhaps it depends on the SD card.

[André Eriksson]

First off, great work Vasile!! 

I did a very short test and while it certainly worked, the camera got a little bit slow, it also had trouble turning off. It maybe seemed faster at a lower 120 mbps setting, but I got too scared of the whole thing and removed the hack. 

I might try again later, just paranoid that it will damage the camera somehow  

Edit: I can see an extremely small improvement in macro blocking, and maybe slightly more detailed foliage, with the 120 mbps setting. 

[tugela]

I have not had a chance to try the script out yet, but I am hoping it will solve one niggling issue I have observed. Often you will see the image immediately behind a moving object breaking up (particularly with DIS enabled), which I have attributed to there not being enough bandwidth to handle the extra bits needed. Hopefully these higher bit rates will be more accommodating in those situations.

[DPStewart]

1 hour ago, tugela said:

I have not had a chance to try the script out yet, but I am hoping it will solve one niggling issue I have observed. Often you will see the image immediately behind a moving object breaking up (particularly with DIS enabled), which I have attributed to there not being enough bandwidth to handle the extra bits needed. Hopefully these higher bit rates will be more accommodating in those situations.

My guess is that's a compression artifact. Yeah, a bit-rate increase "should" help with that.

On 4/6/2016 at 9:33 AM, caseywilsondp said:

vasile, thanks for your hard work! this is exciting stuff.

did some initial tests of 80 vs 180 (highest my card can write continuously) and I see little to no difference, so double checked the file and sure enough it is 180mbps. That was just a rough shadow/highlight/detail test. Later I'll sit down with some lights and a person and set up a scene to really test it out. My guess right now is that hevc is extremely efficient, so the difference between 80 and 180 are going to be negligible. 320 might be different, but I can't test that until I get a faster card. This does seem to make sense because even at 660+ mbps to an external recorder, the main improvement is only in shadow macro blocking... even with nearly 600 more mbps. It's also being written as prores, so that could even account for some of the improvement.

I think you hit it right on the head Casey.

[Otto K]

Cross post from dpreview:

As promised I was working on alternative way to run scripts off the SD card without entering the factory mode (as it limits several functions important to me).

Full text here

https://github.com/ottokiksmaler/nx500_nx1_modding/blob/master/Running_scripts_without_factory_mode.md

What it does: it modifies your root filesystem in camera so it starts a shell script from SD card (if present) every time you start WiFi.

Yes, it's rough. This is a first release just to enable everybody else to test and play around.

Touchscreen works.

Bluetooth works.

Camera works faster than in factory mode.

This might help with increased bitrate as well (don't know, can't test).

Have fun

[caseywilsondp]

ok just a quick preview of the test i shot earlier.

here are unedited 14 bit jpegs from the timeline. one is at bit rate 80mbps, 180mpbs, and one is 660+ mbps (shogun). can you tell from the stills (shogun might be obvious)? i'll upload the actual video files a little later. if anyone wanted to take a stab at grading these, i'd love to see it.

wanted to test banding, shadow detail/macroblocking, skin tones, but had to run the test really quickly so I chose these settings:

normal gamma, -10 contrast (to induce banding), -10 sharpness, 16-235

the color chart is just for reference, btw.

 

[Last Leaves]

My guess: A= 180Mb/s B= 80Mb/s and C(actually named "D")= Shogun

My fast pass CC (could not get anything that I was happy with)- same order as yours:

Stress test to show light bulb roll-off/banding (same order as yours):

 

[pressland]

Shogun definitely looks a bit better. Is it a pipe dream that the NR and sharpening can be switched off somehow?

[Pavel Mašek]

8 hours ago, Otto K said:

Cross post from dpreview:

As promised I was working on alternative way to run scripts off the SD card without entering the factory mode (as it limits several functions important to me).

Full text here

https://github.com/ottokiksmaler/nx500_nx1_modding/blob/master/Running_scripts_without_factory_mode.md

What it does: it modifies your root filesystem in camera so it starts a shell script from SD card (if present) every time you start WiFi.

Yes, it's rough. This is a first release just to enable everybody else to test and play around.

Touchscreen works.

Bluetooth works.

Camera works faster than in factory mode.

This might help with increased bitrate as well (don't know, can't test).

Have fun

Sorry for dumb question - so if I have Vasile's bitrate hack on SD card and then follow procedure from github it will mean that bitrate hack will be activeted just only in case I will start wi-fi?

[Otto K]

@Pavel Mašek Yes, but this "hack" is not meant for general end users just yet (wifi was just the simplest test case I could find). It's more for people willing to experiment and confirm that it even works on NX1. I think this will work fine in future update when tied to bluetooth (as it can be set to be automatically started) plus it would give us an easy "Hack ON/OFF" switch.

Plus - this thing modifies your "read-only" root filesystem on camera - it's more invasive than SD card based mods. Beware.

[Pavel Mašek]

18 minutes ago, Otto K said:

I think this will work fine in future update when tied to bluetooth (as it can be set to be automatically started) plus it would give us an easy "Hack ON/OFF" switch.

That would be so great!

18 minutes ago, Otto K said:

this "hack" is not meant for general end users just yet

OK, I will rather wait - I was able to connect camera via telnet but my knowledge ends there and I am not so brave to change filesystem by myself.

BTW I am curious if bitrate hack will be started outside of factory mode if it helps to increase bitrate even more (for 6,5K video :-D) or had real 120fps (not 106fps etc.). Maybe processor is slower in factory mode and that is why we cannot go beyond 200Mbps or have stable 120fps.

[vasile]

Poll: burner NX500 for a chance [NB not a guarantee] to get "production" 2K5 high bitrate?

http://***URL removed***/forums/post/57572799

rgds

[Pavel Mašek]

I would really like to contribute to NX1... but I think I will have chance for it in future :-). Thank you Vasile...

[Otto K]

Improved version now using BT to trigger running scripts from SD card (still modifies your rootfs):

https://github.com/ottokiksmaler/nx500_nx1_modding/blob/master/Running_scripts_without_factory_mode_BT.md

Apparently this works on NX1 as well, Wifi does not.

[Chant]

Some interesting things in the di-camera file

######## RECORD TEST STARTED(%d)
RECORD SINGLE THREAD STARTED
RECORD SINGLE THREAD COMPLETED
RECORD UNIT THREAD STARTED
RECORD UNIT THREAD COMPLETED
RECORD commands:
Usage: st app nx record [cmd,...]
  start: do record start
  stop: stop video record
  pause: pause current video recording.
  resume: resume current video recording.
  resolution [show,name]: set video record resolution
  run stop       stop current running test
  run count [n]  set the max test count as given value (0: infinite)
  run unit       do video record unit test
  run single     do video recording while changing resolution
  run basic      do record test while changing mode and video resolution
  run full       do full integration video record test
help
pause
resume
resolution
Usage: st app nx record resolution [show,name]
Usage: st app nx capture run count [n]
Set the max test count as %d
unit
single
basic
Usage: st app nx record run [mode]
 unit     do video record unit test
 single   do video recording while changing resolution
 basic    do record test while changing mode and video resolution
 full     do full integration video record test

If anyone wants to test. No time for me tonight.

[RieGo]

just tried "st app nx record start" and "st app nx record stop". works just as expected, starts and stops video recording. but i have no clue how to use the resolution parameter... i tried but couldn't get to change anything.
is this even what you are thinking about? i have no clue 

resolution [show,name] -> this arguments seem like only predefined resolutions can be used