[richandfleur]

That is how this will need to progress eventually. We need others with suitable skills at each stage of the project, be that the ground level programming/hacking, through to debug testers and potentially some management to pull the threads/streams of development together and to update a central information wiki/website etc. Project management 101.


However, right now, this is baby crawling time in the project lifecycle, doing the groundwork that could one day lead to the above.


Establishing a website wiki to track feature requests etc, and to hopefully direct Pentax themselves to it, would be useful. However, it must be noted that this would be a dream site, quite removed from the reality of where we are at right now today.
Everybody wants the end result, and honestly wants to help in which ever capacity they can, and that is to be commended also.

[Shodan]

I've updated my github repo with some new changes that should actually allow people to build two working programs (the test app from the video and a men dumper). When I get a moment I'll write a howto to teach people how to build the alpha alpha alpha version.

I'm also thinking of publishing the process I'm using to find the special locations where things like the current ISO value is stored. Basically you take a number of memory dumps with different ISO values in use, run it through a diffing tool then start building programs which change that value.

[Shodan]

Instructions on build the firmware can be found on the PHDK Wiki page:

Pentax Hacker Development Kit Wiki

[stevebrot]

one thing's for certain: this won't be moving at Magic Lantern speeds.

...and Magic Lantern is not moving too quickly. I was just on their site today and support for current Canon models is pretty spotty with the last stable release being made over two years ago. Support is broader on the nightly builds, but those are untested.


Steve

[RayeR]

Pentax Hacker Development Kit Wiki

Thanks
BTW why do you still refer to FW version 1.5 when it is officially 1.05? I don't belive pentax/ricoh will ever release true 1.5 version in future but it may be confusing...
To Prerequisite:
is the .NET 4.5 Framework required only for decrypting tool using XORkey? Some months ago I compiled it as tiny win32 program under MinGW, I'd like rather keep out of MS depencies and use GNU tools instead I posted the zip package here in some older post, you can upload it to github. Or I can drop a few words about it on wiki, just registered...

[Shodan]

BTW why do you still refer to FW version 1.5 when it is officially 1.05?

Because I made an error. It should be 1.05.

is the .NET 4.5 Framework required only for decrypting tool using XORkey? Some months ago I compiled it as tiny win32 program under MinGW, I'd like rather keep out of MS depencies and use GNU tools instead I posted the zip package here in some older post, you can upload it to github. Or I can drop a few words about it on wiki, just registered...

.NET 4.5 is required for all the tools in the 'PHDK\tools' directory. I'm trying to build (semi) reliable software at speed, It is my opinion that C# is best for my requirements (I write C/C++ professionally). Mono support is very good for non Windows platforms. In fact building the firmware on other platforms should be quite easy and I'm happy to accept commits from people wanting to try.

If you have code to share, host a Git repo and I can pull any changes.

[Derwin]

The memory dump stuff seems as though it might be an area where non-devs can help; producing an index of special locations for particular functions and adding that to the wiki. Could that be useful?

Happy to run pre-alpha stuff and do testing on my K-30 if anyone can help me with compiling the code on Mac.

Shodan, this is incredible stuff. Keep going, and do let us know what any of us can do to help.

[PiDicus Rex]

Shodan: Spit-balling ideas about - how hard would it be to have the camera's USB port accept a digital audio input stream to inject in to the video Codec ?

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/75-video-pentax-hdslrs/267683-video-wishl...ml#post2910866

[ebayliu123a]

Hi, Is there a way to downgrade the firmware on K5 or to enter the debug mode(FW v1.16)? I need change my lens to autofocus by screw drive, not by SDM. Many thanks.

---------- Post added 08-24-14 at 02:38 AM ----------

done on v1.16

[thibs]

Shodan: Spit-balling ideas about - how hard would it be to have the camera's USB port accept a digital audio input stream to inject in to the video Codec ?

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/75-video-pentax-hdslrs/267683-video-wishl...ml#post2910866

IMO much trouble for a solution most interested people would bitch at because it doesn't sync as it should or doesn't accept the format they wish would be supported.
That should be done in PP IMO. Annoying but a lot more flexible.

[Itzjayp]

Would it be possible to increase the video bitrates of the pentax k30 via hack?

[thibs]

Would it be possible to increase the video bitrates of the pentax k30 via hack?

Good question. That has been done on some other cams (Panasonic, Canon) so it may be possible. But IMO we're far from that.

[PiDicus Rex]

IMO much trouble for a solution most interested people would bitch at because it doesn't sync as it should or doesn't accept the format they wish would be supported. That should be done in PP IMO. Annoying but a lot more flexible.

Da, that's how I usually do it, this question was to see if it could be done using an extranl 2 channel mixer and a Balanced In to USB box, for a person who doesn't want to muck around with separate recorders and syncing in post.

Personally, I'm happy getting Balanced Audio in to a Tascam recorder, and running a sync feed over to the Mic input of my camera when needed - Happy to sync to a Clapper Board ( Slate ) myself.

[thibs]

Da, that's how I usually do it, this question was to see if it could be done using an extranl 2 channel mixer and a Balanced In to USB box, for a person who doesn't want to muck around with separate recorders and syncing in post.

Personally, I'm happy getting Balanced Audio in to a Tascam recorder, and running a sync feed over to the Mic input of my camera when needed - Happy to sync to a Clapper Board ( Slate ) myself.

Understand that. But IMO many things will arrive before.

[richandfleur]

The frustrating thing here is that many of the suggestions that have been put forward are just plain sensible, and ones that you'd actually expect the damn manufacturer to be providing in the first place.
Examples for me are better video recording bitrates, and the ability to keep focus peaking on during video recording, and the ability to retain actual mechanical sensor stabilisation during video rather than the nasty visual only analysis 'Movie SR' etc.


At the rate of 'hacking' development the hardware may well be long out of date before the various sections are found, tested and confirmed. The hope would be that Pentax have progressed with a very similar firmware in the meantime, such that the knowledge learned along the way could be applied to newer hardware, (perhaps that new latest K-S1 thing as the hardware base for instance, if it was cheap enough in the future etc). There is the rub though, in that if things haven't progressed within the Pentax software side of things in many years to come then they've got real problems themselves!

I'm all for a custom firmware, but I'm fairly well annoyed that Pentax don't listen to their customers and product reviews about the basics in the first place. Asking for stabilisation in video that actually works should require a custom hack.