Magic Lantern and Canon's 2.0.4 firmware

[Tramm Hudson]

After two days of hacking on the 2.0.4 firmware with IDA Pro and patchdiff2, I have Magic Lantern booting and running on 2.0.4. Hopefully I'll be able to declare a stable release sometime soon (like later this week after more testing).

The new features in 0.1.8 are (besides 2.0.4 firmware support) autobooting, waveforms, spot-meter and USB control (via PTP). There isn't really that much new code, so hopefully it won't take too long to decide that the stability is unchanged from the previous release. The ML audio control doesn't interoperate with Canon's, so you have to use the ML menu and config file to set the gains. 1080i HDMI continues to be problematic and there is no estimate for when/if it will be functional.

[Chris Hurd]

Outstanding work as always, Tramm... thanks for the report; much appreciated!

[Jon Fairhurst]

Wonderful!

Regarding the audio, I've been doing some testing with 1.1.0-ML compared to 2.0.4 and have found that 1.1.0-ML has less noise than the new Canon code when used with an identical, strong external signal.

That said, the Canon code looks to have a flatter frequency response, and there is no DC offset. For whatever reason, 1.1.0-ML has a DC offset on the left channel (I've now seen this on two cameras), and a slight rolloff at high frequencies. The DC offset limits headroom and can cause premature clipping.

Hopefully, Tramm will be able to dump the contents of the audio registers. I'd love to analyze the differences. It would be great to get the improved behavior of the Canon code with the lower noise offered by Magic Lantern.

I also have the juicedLink DN101 (defeats ALC externally) and a Tascam DR-100 to compare with the Canon and Magic Lantern firmware approaches.

Congratulations on the breakthrough, Tramm!

[Tim Polster]

Thanks for your efforts!

I think a lot of us would be willing to pay for the HDMI to work. A Nanoflash with the 5D would solve all of the audio issues and improve the video.

[Heath Vinyard]

HD monitor while recording? I'd definitely pay a little for that.

[Soeren Mueller]

So would I (pay for full HDMI output) .. or at least no further resolution drop between Live View and Recording...

I guess many many people would...

[Matthew Roddy]

Count me in on the HDMI/Pay For thing - if that helps...

[Evan Donn]

Originally Posted by Tim Polster

I think a lot of us would be willing to pay for the HDMI to work. A Nanoflash with the 5D would solve all of the audio issues and improve the video.

Except that I don't think Tramm's talking about full screen, full res output over hdmi - just the equivalent of what you can get when you're not recording. Much better for focusing, certainly, but not much use with an external recorder.

[Lars Steenhoff]

Thanks, this 1.8 update looks very promising!
I see two little dots in the centre of the screen I assume this is for the spot metering? is there going to be a way to turn them on/off in the next release?

[Joe Ray Skrha]

I recently recorded a 4 hour live concert of a singer-guitar player. I downloaded the new firmware (Canon 2.0.4) and used a CX431. I used a Whirlwind mic splitter and DI Box that allowed me to intercept the mic and guitar feed before it went to the house soundboard. IThis allowed me to have balanced XLR feeds directly into the CX431 and Canon 5D MKII. I panned the vocal mic left and guitar right in the CX431.
As for settings in the Canon 5D MK II, I set the audio manual input 1 click right of off (all the way left).Of the 64 settings the new Canon firmware allows, I chose setting 1 of 64. At this setting, I had no hiss or noise and plenty of headroom. I had the CX431 pre-set to medium with the trim at the 1:00 position. What I got was a clean recording of the vocal and guitar on each channel. Once in FCP, I can take the audio to Soundtrack Pro for mixing and mastering. I anticipate this will turn out good. When I set the Canon 5D MK II audio to 1/3 or 1/2, I got a ton of noise. Then I called Robert Rozak at Juicelink and he convinced me to experiment... So, 2 hours before stage time, I started to experiment and came up with this extremely low setting on the 5D MK II that seemed to work. Why, I don't know but the final result was clean and quiet and with plenty of headroom. Anyone have similar success??? Pleace, Joe Ray Skrha at: joeray@alaska.net

[Tim Polster]

By lowering the MKII audio levels, you effectively took the in-camera preamps out of the equation and let the Juicedlink preamps do all of the work.

If Canon was more serious about making this more of a video camera (or allowed to) they would have added a line level audio setting for external devices.

[Chris Barcellos]

I posted my initial look at the noise levels here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eo...ml#post1501780

[Jon Fairhurst]

I just completed some noise tests with the juicedLink CX231 and FW 2.0.4 with and without Magic Lantern's 0.1.8 alpha code.

Here's what I found:

* Magic Lantern with m_gain set to +17dB and d_gain set to 0 is within 0.1 dB of 2.0.4 firmware at three ticks above the minimum.

* Using a Rode NT-1A (an exceptionally quiet mic) in a dead space, Magic Lantern shows 8dB less noise than the Canon code, statistically. Most of ML's noise is at the low end. It's MUCH cleaner at high frequencies.

* The previous Canon code had a DC offset in the left channel, with and without Magic Lantern. The new Canon code has fixed the DC offset issue with and without ML.

The bottom line is that the Canon code is nice and clean. With the juicedLink, it's just a bit noisier than the H4n or DR-100, but it's solid. With the Magic Lantern 0.1.8 alpha code on top of 2.0.4, the noise is exceptionally low.

More testing to follow...

[Joe Ray Skrha]

Just a quick few words of thanks to Tim Polster, Chris Barcellos and Jim Fairhurst... I really appreciate your comments on the noise issue and am in awe of your knowledge and experience. Thankyou for sharing your thoughts with me. JoeRay

[Heath Vinyard]

Originally Posted by Evan Donn

Except that I don't think Tramm's talking about full screen, full res output over hdmi - just the equivalent of what you can get when you're not recording. Much better for focusing, certainly, but not much use with an external recorder.

Although recording out over HDMI would be nice someday, I'm much more interested right now with HD monitor out while recording. That would be huge and would be in line to drop some money on getting that working.