Hacking the fx1 at DVinfo.net

Robert Mann Z. · November 16th, 2004, 12:27 AM

i wonder how long it will be till someone cracks the code and decreases the compression on the fx...say instead of 25mbits to 50mbits, maybe even 100mbits

of course that might mean the tape mechanism would be rendered useless, unless someway it could be sped up and handle the increase load...

but there is always fw out...

of course it would take greater effort then lets say wassa unlocking features in the digital rebel, but i don't think it would require a hardware change like Juans dvx mod

Rob Lohman · November 16th, 2004, 05:33 AM

Don't expect that to happen, that would be nearly impossible. It
is far "easier" (relatively) to apply a mod like Juan's (on the
DVX100) to get uncompressed out for example.

The problem is that the camera would need to be reprogrammed
(the question is whether this is doable) and have the processing
power (remaining!) to actually do that. Not to mention there is no
standard that supports it so you would also need to write your
own capture software and find someway to support the old mode
as well and work around tape issues and whatnot.

Chris Hurd · November 16th, 2004, 08:43 AM

Having met Robert in person, I must say... never tell him anything is "impossible."

;-)

Rob Lohman · November 16th, 2004, 09:27 AM

Robert it's impossible! <g> (wonder if that would challenge him
to make it happen). Nah, I just think it would be faster another
way around, that's all. Heh.

Darren Kelly · November 16th, 2004, 11:25 AM

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : Robert it's impossible! <g> (wonder if that would challenge him
to make it happen). Nah, I just think it would be faster another
way around, that's all. Heh. -->>>

The first obvious hack is to uncover the differences between the FX1 and the Z1. There are some pprogramming that I am sure could be hacked to make the FX1 closer to the Z1

There's your challenge

DBK

Joshua Starnes · November 16th, 2004, 11:39 AM

Speaking of, does anyone know what the data rate is on the Z-1

Dylan Pank · November 16th, 2004, 12:35 PM

It's 25Mbs (same as the FX1, same as DV).

George Caramanna · November 16th, 2004, 07:09 PM

Hi Robert

I really like thinking out of the box. I dont know if this is possible but many things in this world are created by those who dont take no for an answer. I am an owner of a software company that has created products unrelated to video applications.

My employees understand software and hardware and Ill bet that given time and money, could most certainly modify this unit.

Question is, is it worth it? Maybe yes.

Ive never been able to figure out the stupid high cost of broadcast or film camera lenses or equipment. Some of the thinking in the profession also seems to be flawed. For example to find fault in 25mps through mpeg conversion. I think this is a true technological breakthrough!

Uncompressed is far simpler to technically accomplish than an intelligent hardware based compression codec. Have you noticed that the high end "pro's" are absolutely silent with regards to hdv? Instead of demanding more for their money, they ridicule hdv as some strange justification for the free fall in value of their varicams etc.

I also shoot with an eos 1ds and have in my bag what is generally considered to be the finest lense ever made by canon. the 200 1.8. My cost for this lense? around 2K used. Try and get a decent motion picture lense for 2K and see how far that will get you.

Why is it that in motor racing technology lighter and stronger is so coveted and much more expensive. The analogy would seem that more quality out of a leaner bitrate translates into something that is very desirable and transportable. Alas in the broadcast field things seem to still exist in the digital horse and buggy era. Cast iron bitrates of 100mps are somehow inherently better than intelligent 25mps.

Most of the prices reflect whatever the market will allow rather than any true difference in technology, materials, labor or all three.

Pushing the limit is important, however If you are bankrolled by the big boys why even worry about the cost, its really not your problem. a difference of $ 600 per day rental is insignificant on a 1 month production schedule. (600x5)4 is nothing in the scheme of things from a production point of view.

George

Boyd Ostroff · November 16th, 2004, 07:22 PM

I think Adam Wilt made an interesting observation in his article "Size isn't everything" in the April issue of DV Magazine

Quote:

Remember when DV came out? Recall how horrible it was supposed to be? Yet it turned out to be mostly harmless; the images were (and are) nice-better than they should have been for the price and the amount of compression.

HDV looks to repeat that history: Even though the pictures are compressed to within an inch of their lives, they look a lot better than they have any right to.

http://www.dv.com/columns/columns_it...cleId=18902627

Hayden Rivers · November 17th, 2004, 12:37 PM

Does the FX1 create an uncompressed image and the compress it to the tape using specially designed hardware/software? It seems that the mpeg2 compression would have to be rewritten or replaced in order to change how it's compressing to the tape.

I'm talking out of my ass since I'm not a technical guy, but increasing it to 50mbits would be awesome. It's odd that Sony didn't decide to just have the DV tapes only work for 30 minutes instead of 60 minutes. I've been told they make most of their money on tape sales (although how that's possible, I have no idea). So cut the amount of time you can record by half, increase the quality, and double the amount of tape sales.

Looking forward to seeing some hacks. After seeing this story, I'm convinced they can hack anything:

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl...tid=137&tid=10

Carlos E. Martinez · November 17th, 2004, 01:14 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Hayden Rivers :

Looking forward to seeing some hacks. After seeing this story, I'm convinced they can hack anything:

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/17/1743224&tid=141&tid=100&tid=137&tid=10 -->>>

Please forgive my dumbness in hacking matters, but what is the story we should know of?

On that URL I could only see something for the GBA and Gameboy. Can you explain a little on what was the achievement?

Carlos

Hayden Rivers · November 17th, 2004, 01:42 PM

Um.... it's completely useless to this forum, but the fact that someone decided that you should be able to hookup your Gameboy Advance to your computer to turn it into some kind of music factory is insane. I guess there's no technical acheivement, so I probably should have picked something more technically impressive.

November 16th, 2004, 12:27 AM	#1
Robert Mann Z. Skyonic New York Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: NYC Posts: 614	Hacking the fx1 i wonder how long it will be till someone cracks the code and decreases the compression on the fx...say instead of 25mbits to 50mbits, maybe even 100mbits of course that might mean the tape mechanism would be rendered useless, unless someway it could be sped up and handle the increase load... but there is always fw out... of course it would take greater effort then lets say wassa unlocking features in the digital rebel, but i don't think it would require a hardware change like Juans dvx mod

November 16th, 2004, 05:33 AM	#2
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	Don't expect that to happen, that would be nearly impossible. It is far "easier" (relatively) to apply a mod like Juan's (on the DVX100) to get uncompressed out for example. The problem is that the camera would need to be reprogrammed (the question is whether this is doable) and have the processing power (remaining!) to actually do that. Not to mention there is no standard that supports it so you would also need to write your own capture software and find someway to support the old mode as well and work around tape issues and whatnot. __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

November 16th, 2004, 08:43 AM	#3
Chris Hurd Obstreperous Rex Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: San Marcos, TX Posts: 27,368 Images: 513	Having met Robert in person, I must say... never tell him anything is "impossible." ;-) __________________ CH Search DV Info Net \| 20 years of DVi \| ...Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!

November 16th, 2004, 09:27 AM	#4
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	Robert it's impossible! <g> (wonder if that would challenge him to make it happen). Nah, I just think it would be faster another way around, that's all. Heh. __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

November 16th, 2004, 11:25 AM	#5
Darren Kelly Major Player Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Vancouver Posts: 351	<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : Robert it's impossible! <g> (wonder if that would challenge him to make it happen). Nah, I just think it would be faster another way around, that's all. Heh. -->>> The first obvious hack is to uncover the differences between the FX1 and the Z1. There are some pprogramming that I am sure could be hacked to make the FX1 closer to the Z1 There's your challenge DBK __________________ Darren Kelly

November 16th, 2004, 11:39 AM	#6
Joshua Starnes Major Player Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 356	Speaking of, does anyone know what the data rate is on the Z-1

November 16th, 2004, 12:35 PM	#7
Dylan Pank Major Player Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Portsmouth, UK Posts: 611	It's 25Mbs (same as the FX1, same as DV).

November 16th, 2004, 07:09 PM	#8
George Caramanna New Boot Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Scottsdale, AZ Posts: 6	hack nstuff Hi Robert I really like thinking out of the box. I dont know if this is possible but many things in this world are created by those who dont take no for an answer. I am an owner of a software company that has created products unrelated to video applications. My employees understand software and hardware and Ill bet that given time and money, could most certainly modify this unit. Question is, is it worth it? Maybe yes. Ive never been able to figure out the stupid high cost of broadcast or film camera lenses or equipment. Some of the thinking in the profession also seems to be flawed. For example to find fault in 25mps through mpeg conversion. I think this is a true technological breakthrough! Uncompressed is far simpler to technically accomplish than an intelligent hardware based compression codec. Have you noticed that the high end "pro's" are absolutely silent with regards to hdv? Instead of demanding more for their money, they ridicule hdv as some strange justification for the free fall in value of their varicams etc. I also shoot with an eos 1ds and have in my bag what is generally considered to be the finest lense ever made by canon. the 200 1.8. My cost for this lense? around 2K used. Try and get a decent motion picture lense for 2K and see how far that will get you. Why is it that in motor racing technology lighter and stronger is so coveted and much more expensive. The analogy would seem that more quality out of a leaner bitrate translates into something that is very desirable and transportable. Alas in the broadcast field things seem to still exist in the digital horse and buggy era. Cast iron bitrates of 100mps are somehow inherently better than intelligent 25mps. Most of the prices reflect whatever the market will allow rather than any true difference in technology, materials, labor or all three. Pushing the limit is important, however If you are bankrolled by the big boys why even worry about the cost, its really not your problem. a difference of $ 600 per day rental is insignificant on a 1 month production schedule. (600x5)4 is nothing in the scheme of things from a production point of view. George

November 17th, 2004, 12:37 PM	#10
Hayden Rivers Regular Crew Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 53	Does the FX1 create an uncompressed image and the compress it to the tape using specially designed hardware/software? It seems that the mpeg2 compression would have to be rewritten or replaced in order to change how it's compressing to the tape. I'm talking out of my ass since I'm not a technical guy, but increasing it to 50mbits would be awesome. It's odd that Sony didn't decide to just have the DV tapes only work for 30 minutes instead of 60 minutes. I've been told they make most of their money on tape sales (although how that's possible, I have no idea). So cut the amount of time you can record by half, increase the quality, and double the amount of tape sales. Looking forward to seeing some hacks. After seeing this story, I'm convinced they can hack anything: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl...tid=137&tid=10

November 17th, 2004, 01:14 PM	#11
Carlos E. Martinez Trustee Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil Posts: 1,138	<<<-- Originally posted by Hayden Rivers : Looking forward to seeing some hacks. After seeing this story, I'm convinced they can hack anything: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/17/1743224&tid=141&tid=100&tid=137&tid=10 -->>> Please forgive my dumbness in hacking matters, but what is the story we should know of? On that URL I could only see something for the GBA and Gameboy. Can you explain a little on what was the achievement? Carlos

November 17th, 2004, 01:42 PM	#12
Hayden Rivers Regular Crew Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 53	Um.... it's completely useless to this forum, but the fact that someone decided that you should be able to hookup your Gameboy Advance to your computer to turn it into some kind of music factory is insane. I guess there's no technical acheivement, so I probably should have picked something more technically impressive.