Firmware guru Tramm Hudson has publicly released the first version of his alternative firmware for the Canon 5D Mark II camera (Note this is the same firmware as the “5D Mark Free” one I wrote about previously, it’s just been renamed). Additional features added to the base Canon firmware include:
- Onscreen stereo audio meters
- Full-time cropmarks
- Zebra stripes for overexposed regions
- Fixed audio gain (+10 dB analog, +12 dB digital) with -NO AGC-
- Live headphone monitoring on A/V jack (without disabling LCD)
- printf() to the bitmap display
- GUI event viewer (press Picture Style button)
Note that the firmware doesn’t operate quite as you might expect. You store the firmware on a compact-flash card, and to run it you have to do a “firmware upgrade” on the camera each time you want to use it, but the alternative firmware does not persist between camera reboots – therefore the base Canon firmware remains untouched.
More info at the links below, the video introduction gives a good idea of the capabilities….
One day someone’s hacking the firmware to give manual audio control… the next Canon itself is announcing full manual exposure control in an official firmware update due out on June 2nd.
Coincidence? Well, who knows… but if they could just combine manual exposure control with manual audio control, and add in a 24P shooting mode, they’ll have some pretty happy video-shooting customers.
For more info check out Canon 5D Tips, who are writing a series of posts about what all this means, and already have an interesting post up about the effects of different shutter speeds when shooting video.
The ever-enterprising crowd over at the Cinema5D forums have managed to overcome the most sought-after complaint by those who use the Canon 5D MarkII camera for shooting video – the lack of any manual control over audio levels.
In particular, the user “Hudson” has developed an alternative firmware named 5D Mark Free which not only disables the automatic audio gain control (AGC) leaving it set to the default +36 dB, but now also adds onscreen audio meters (see video above).
Bear in mind this firmware remains heavily in “alpha” territory… it’s a proof-of-concept so far, not a working version for everyone to flash today, in fact it’s not available for download yet.
But what is very significant indeed is that it proves once and for all that it is actually possible. There is not an unknown hardware limitation, it’s merely a question of developing the right firmware.
Canon? The ball would appear to be in your court….
The Canon EOS 5D MkII can shoot video in either 640×480 (VGA) or 1920×1080 (1080P, Full HD) resolution, both encoded with H.264 video compression. Playing video files in the former is easy, but the sheer amount of data that needs to be processed with 1920×1080 resolution can tax even quite modern computers. VLC has been my video player of choice for many years as it is free, open-source, and will play virtually everything you can throw at it – but disappointingly I couldn’t get it to play 5D MkII videos without major stuttering or no playback at all.
Go to Tools > Preferences
In the lower left of the box click the checkbox “Show settings – All”
Then go to Input & Codecs > Other Codecs > FFmpeg and look for the option called “Skip the loop filter for H.264 decoding”
Change it from “none” to “all”
Restart VLC
I’ve tried it on Windows and all the 5DmkII videos that were problematic before now play perfectly. It also works on Mac, though you may not need to do it on that platform.
Bear in mind this method DOES reduce the playback quality (by not doing any de-blocking noise reduction), so if you aren’t having problems with playback then don’t do it, but if you are then it’s pretty useful.
The RED rumors continue… this time it’s that RED is working on a sensor called Mysterium “Monstro” (Who makes these names up?) that will go into their planned EPIC camera, but more interestingly for photographers would find its way into “another camera aimed squarely at the DSLR market“.
Now that’s not to say it will actually resemble a DSLR – but it’s a clear sign that RED see the potential of the stills needs of photo-video-journalists.
The rumors and plans of RED always seem to be a long way ahead of their actual available products, but nevertheless this is additional evidence of the coming fusion of video and stills cameras.
Just in case the recent announcement of Nikon’s D90 DSLR with high-definition 720p movie mode wasn’t enough for you.
