André Eriksson

I have mentioned this previously on other forums, the H.265 codec profile used within the NX1 is limited to 160,000 kbps, it's MAIN - Level 5.1, to go higher you need to change the codec profile. To get to 10bit the NX1/NX500 needs the newer version of the codec without which it is impossible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding

You know what Samsung should have done. Used the m4/3 mount.
Its free to use. It covers the sensor. Many MFT lenses cover the whole sensor, some would be good for crop mode. Their own lenses would have been very popular among GH4/e-m5/etc users. More people would have taken the plunge or bought the nx500 as backup.

I'd rather deal with soft footage and aliasing then have leaves, plants and limes look like they have been grown in a radioactive wasteland!

Here's the Velvia preset, which I absolutely love...
First shot, crappy light but it has that 'x' factor Sony is nearly always missing, all without any effort at all in post... Look at the smooth tonality and balanced colour...

By the way, here's what Velvia looked like without the 16-235 correction in Premiere... different to the JPEGs and on the camera screen, it had crushed blacks. However the codec has kept them! They snap right out when you correct for the dumb Quicktime RGB range clipping.

Next shot a much more challenging one for dynamic range. Look how much you can get out of it with the most simple quick grade possible - just Fast Color Corrector in Premiere and zero else, not even a RGB curve change...
First ungraded, 0-255 straight off card:

Second graded, 16-235 fast colour corrector

Oh and very important this...... in doing this correction to extend dynamic range notice how colour doesn't go 'weird' like with S-LOG
Cheers for that vid Kaylee, fun to watch.... You can see how detailed the image is pretty well from that. I dial sharpness down -4 to take the edge of it and bring the blacks up a bit in post. Nice fast lens helps too, and Speed Booster. It is a really cinematic image with these adjustments.

Hi,
A nice breakthrough in hacking NX500 (and possibly NX1 - could someone try and report back?).
So, TLDR version first: I'm able to run a shell script off the SD card without hacking the firmware (and some other stuff). This is just a very modest start, now we need to do everything else. That said, this is a useful start as we can now play around without bricking cameras.
That was the moderately good news, the moderately bad news is that I'm absolutely swamped by work related stuff next few weeks.
Now for longer version:
First a small "hack": If you want to take a screenshot of your camera screen put a file named save_screen_enable.txt in the SD card root and every time you press EV+OK a file named OSD####.jpg will be saved to SD card root. save_screen_enable.txt will contain the integer of next image id (as bytes, not text).
Another small "hack": If you want to see how all the popups and notices look in all the languages (for any reson) put a file named qa.txt in the root of the SD card. When you power the camera on you will see a popup menu that enables you to access all the popups, etc, in camera (press up and down to change them, left and right to change the language). It's meant for quality assurance staff, but here it is.
If you like scrolling through the popups - that's fine. Even better is that the camera app crashes on popup 188 (of 189, go figure) and produces a lot of detailed logs on the SD card. These logs are named timestamp_{log,a7_log,a9_crash,a9_dlog,a9_dmesg}.info
If you take your sweet time analyzing these logs you will find that NX500 does not boot all that often - it hibernates and then wakes up when you power the camera on - cute - that's how it starts up in one second
Also, some RAM information: Total RAM is 512MB, reserved (buffer?) is 380MB. It fits nicely with known buffer limitations. It also means it's very very difficult to extend it to anything larger (maybe by eliminating allshare app or similar but that would give us a frame or two in RAW at best - hardly worth it).
How to run a shell script file:
1. Put file named "info.tg" on the SD card root with contents "nx_cs.adj" and a newline
2. Put file named "nx_cs.adj" (can use something else really) on the SD card root and put "shell script /mnt/mmc/test.sh" and a newline in it
3. Put file named "test.sh" (or whatever you put up there) on SD card root and put whatever bash shell commands you want to in it. Word of caution - it's easy to make a mistake - start small and work carefully
4. Put SD card in camera
5. Camera to AUTO mode (IIRC it works in any mode but whatever, it's in AUTO in the Service Manual)
6. Power on the camera and wait a bit (or a lot, it seems it's quite lazy with closing files and syncing, might do it for it by calling "sync" at the end)
7. Power the camera off (and wait for blinking light to stop blinking if it's blinking)
For example, if you put following in test.sh
st > /mnt/mmc/test
This is what you get on the output:
usage: st [command] [param]
Supported bult-in commands
    help        readl        writel        dump    
    gpio        hdmi        log        lcd    
    cap        pmu        clk        thread    
    key        firmware    util        app    
    leak        devman        stlcd        bat    
    rtc        tbm        micom        misc    
    oic        dvfs        adc    
I put a "ls -laR / > /mnt/mmc/test" and it did list the whole filesystem including /proc /sys /dev etc. And /etc tar also works.
I can see for example that every time process id 247 is given to /usr/apps/com.samsung.di-camera-app/bin/di-camera-app and it runs under root (almost everything does), dfmsd (that's the deamon that interprets commands in nx_cs.adj file that are read and sent by dfmstool - I will have to see what else I can do with it), /usr/apps/com.samsung.ap-setting-app/bin/ap-setting-app running with some access keys or hashed caller PIDs, etc, the works.
Only two modules are loaded (exfat_fs and exfat_core) but I guess we could compile anything we need and enable it in the future (usb audio anybody?).
That's it for now (and some time).
Oh, yeah, the touch screen does not work with info.tg or info.tgw present on the SD card.
Cheers,
Otto

I’ll admit it, I use camera forums a lot.  Too much, probably. I use them to check out the latest cameras and lenses and lights and accessories. I waste about two hours a day on them.  Time I could spend watching “the View.”
When I started out shooting part-time in 2005, I got a DVX100 because a juggler who was a featured extra on a tv show called “Sons of Saddam” told me to.  “Cause it does 24p.”  I didn’t know what that meant, but I plunked down $3,000 - all the money I had in savings on this camera.  
The camera could have been a bust.  But I did it because a juggler who played one of Saddam’s sons goons said so.  That’s how easily influenced I am.
Then I bought a HVX200, not even testing it first.  “Cause it can do HD.”   I bought the Redrock micro adapter because I watched the work of MacGreggor and some other DPs back then do stuff on a Gorilla 35 lens adapter that hadn’t even come out.  I hadn’t even tried it first.  Just sent in my credit card info.  
Rinse and repeat.
All these periods of time I bought things just based on videos I saw shot on them. No tests - I didn’t understand tests.  Just videos shot with them and the opinions of people I respected.  I could look at screen grabs but just scroll down to their opinions.
Well finally 11 years later, I am seeing what I was doing - buying based on people’s emotions.  Based on the emotions of people whose work I liked.
This is fine to do, but it’s not always the smartest thing to do.  
There are several, maybe twenty influential figures online in the cinematography world.  David Mullen, Shane Hurlbut, John Brawley, Art Adams, Geoff Boyle, and of course Andrew Reid, come to mind as leaders who people follow and listen to.
Even the opinions of the above people and the other influencers are, in the end, just their opinions.
When someone says, “this to me screams filmic” or “this looks digital” - again, that’s all an opinion.  If they say, “that grade is terrible” or “man you nailed the skin tones” - again, that’s all opinion.  Even looking at test charts and camera tests, the results are subjective.  Aesthetic is subjective.  There are scientific tests, but they lead to opinions.  This isn’t pure math - this is an art form.
There is no such thing as filmic.
Everything is digital.  Film emulsions see the world differently, but they go through a digital intermediate.  They become digital .  And I think that’s probably about 99.9% of all films shot on celluloid.  Maybe a few hipsters shoot film and use a steinbeck, but they still upload their results to vimeo, which converts this to a h.264 file.
I have very strong opinions, and a lot of people have very strong opinions.  That’s why we work in film.  It’s an art form that is full of passionate people.  But I also have low self-esteem.  My whole nature of existence is based on others approval.  I’m getting better at trusting my own self, but this is my basis.  
I think maybe most artists have low self-esteem or why would they want to share their art?  Is it ego?  Or the attempt for others to connect?  Yes that’s part of it.  But whether you want to admit it or not, we love when people love our work.  We live off the feedback, or why would we check vimeo 5 times a day to see if someone commented?  Why else would we have awards?  Especially in an art field where awards are just based on opinions of a community who may or may not get your work?
Something is beautiful if you think it is.  You don’t need an oscar in cinematography to be happy with your lighting or camera movement or angle, or have your opinion mean anything less if you aren’t in the ASC.  Everyone brings something unique to the art form.  Everyone brings a new perspective that is needed, especially now, when everything feels pretty much the same.  

Friday 7am London time sees the release of a firmware update for the Sony FS5 which optimises the performance of internal recording, fixing the issues spotted by early adopters of the camera including myself (Andrew Reid) and Paul Antico.
Read the full article

Yeah, he has a Scottish/Irish heritage. He isn't red headed or anything but he has freckled, blotchy (for lack of better word) skin. 

Thanks! No LUT. Just DaVinci Resolves lovely gamma wheel, a lot of saturation, some fiddling with the contrast curve, and then I balanced the individual red, green and blue curves in a separate node. It's very easy to get lost with the individual curves though... 

The settings from the camera seems fine. I blame any bad skin tones on laying in bed with the macbook at an awkward angle...  
RGB Cruves + very minor hue adjustments in Resolve:

Nice bookeh on that lens btw. 
 

Was bored and did some grading, with a slight warm touch. Nice grain from the camera.  
I would really like to learn how to remove the blueish hue from the tree branches in the sky...
 
 

Thanks for the kind words guys.  This was a fun and sort of insane shoot.
I've written up a few words on lens selection, lighting, and post workflow with some BTS stills here:
http://phfx.com/articles/forgedIn8K/
 
To answer a few questions.
@Dan Wake - Editing native REDCODE RAW is something I've been doing for a while.  This shoot was done this way using Adobe Premiere Pro CC which has GPU acceleration and adaptive resolution settings while editing.  I even ran some of these files through my laptop and was able to "work" effectively.  While this is not the only way of working, especially on longer projections with more content and assets, it's certainly something that doable not on a NASA supercomputer
@araucaria - 8K is interesting.  For display purposes I would prefer 8K to hit theatrical and exhibition use before it hits home.  At the moment and for a long time, like a decade plus, UHD 4K is going to be the focused format for home use.  Especially since every major studio has now come to an agreement on a UHD Premium Standard via the UHD Alliance.  The resolution itself can be down sampled of course and that provides certain advantages as you mentioned to the debayering process.  However, 8K will indeed land on screens and screens smaller than you think.  I wrote up a paper titled "The Window Effect" that explains much about resolution and optimum viewing distances not too long ago.  Here's a link to it:
http://www.phfx.com/articles/theWindowEffect/
 
@Jimmy - Thank you Jimmy.  IMAX theatrical presentation is one area I'd like to see this camera used the most.  
 
@DPStewart - Thanks Stewart.  Resolution is all about "what type" of resolution it is.  I have a great deal of experience in the world of motion picture film scanning and film's resolving power purely comes down to what format you are shooting, what stock you are using, and the glass you are shooting with.  Super 35mm for instance resolves about 4K-5K worth of detail.  Typically we scan it in at 6K and over sample to down sample to yield better quality results.  At 6K resolution Super 35mm film's grain is globular and larger than a pixel.  It isn't exactly sharp, but it's rather smooth.  Most higher end digital cinema cameras that are using Bayer Pattern sensor tech are somewhat emulating that effect to a degree.  When we get to larger film formats like VistaVision 8-perf, 65mm 5-perf, and 70mm IMAX 15-perf the resolution increases based on the negative size.  If you've seen a full optical release of a properly shot IMAX film, it's still a tremendous visual treat.
 
@Mattias Burling - Much of what I'm after with my images is due to my film background.  I'd say not until fairly recently, like around 2013 did we actually get into the true potential of digital film alternatives when it comes to motion picture production.  Film still has that magical quality to it that's something hard to truly define, but at this point there's certainly quality alternatives for those who choose the crazy world of digital capture.  And it's a very controlled yet flexible format at that.  Much of my earlier work before RED hit the scene and even before the PV Genesis was making digital cameras look more like film.  Adding grain was one aspect of that, but I'll tell you 10+ years ago it was much harder to do than with today's cameras.  Especially if you are using high resolution scans of actual film grain.
 
@Goose - Thank you.  Seems like 20000 people like it and about 3 don't so far   But boy do those negative comments sting.
 
@AaronChicago - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 has already begun filming on the first batch of 8K Weapons and it's going to be interesting to see how that translates to VFX and post workflow for sure.  I think they are aiming for a 4K finish if I'm not mistaken.  The standard in 2020 will still be mostly 4K, but 8K broadcast trials start this year and in 2020 NHK is hoping to broadcast the Olympics in 8K "somewhere".  As for the next 10-15 years, yep, a lot of UHD 4K with a growing trend of 8K for productions that are looking to explore that world.  HDR is going to be the next big thing that comes home it seems.
 
@richg101 - You hit the nail on the head when it comes to glass Richard.  That's the main reason I went with the Otus primes.  However!  I did also use a few several decades old Olympus OM lenses in there as well as a Leica-R and Canon 200mm (so I didn't set myself on fire).  I have a feeling the Otus trio will be something I'll be shooting a lot of content with on the 8K.  And much of this was f/2, with a few f/1.4-f/2.8 shots in there.  There's something truly seductive about this format size and focusing on nuanced detail in my opinion.
@Dan Wake - That flicker doesn't show in my ProRes masters here.  It appears it's a YouTube encoding artifact.  Had to watch both a few times to make sure I wasn't crazy.  Seems to be minimized when watching full screen on a 4K display, but it's certainly weird.
 
 

I don't think I currently have the experience or time to successfully modify the NX1/NX500 firmware. I don't even have one of those cameras. However it would be a shame to let the interest in this die, so I guess I'll post some of my notes/thoughts about the firmware in hopes that it might help keep the ball rolling.
Note: if you aren't into technical minutiae, the only interesting part of this wall of text is the bulleted list at the end detailing what is and is not possible in my opinion.
Here are the files listed in the header of nx1.bin (version 1.4.0):
version.info:    offset=0x0          size=0x3F   (same as found in /etc/version.info)
linux image:    offset=0x0130       size=0x00624748
idk:                   offset=0x624878     size=0xD8E9
linux image:    offset=0x632161     size=0x3192E8
linux image:    offset=0x94B449     size=0x638518
idk:            offset=0xF83961     size=0x01FF10
idk:            offset=0xFA3871     size=0xB35140
rootfs:         offset=0x1AD89B1    size=0x117A89FF     (lzo compressed ext4 filesystem image)
opt:            offset=0x132813B0   size=0x58E91C   (lzo compressed ext4 filesystem image)
pcachelist:     offset=0x1380FCCC   size=0x7000 (PAGECACHELIST, preceded by a header, I think)
idk:            offset=0x13816CCC   size=0x35BCC44  (lzo compressed. header indicates swap image?)
Anyone with the skills to reverse engineer a camera could figure this out pretty easily, but it was fairly tedious so maybe this will save someone 20 minutes of poking around in a hex editor. If anyone knows what's up with the files I've labeled "idk," I would love to hear about it.
The checksum algorithm is fortunately unchanged from the NX300 as far as I can tell.
As documented at sites.google.com/site/nxcryptophotography/diy-firmware
"width=32 poly=0x04c11db7 init=0xffffffff refin=true refout=true xorout=0x00000000 check=0x340bc6d9 name="JAMCRC""
"jacksum -x -a crc:32,04c11db7,ffffffff,true,true,00000000 [file]"
The main camera app binary is (I'm pretty sure) located at /usr/apps/com.samsung.di-camera-app/bin/di-camera-app in the rootfs. It seems to access the hardware through a relatively high-level API with the /usr/lib/libmm* libraries. libmmf-camcorder.so is particularly interesting. The function I've focused my attention on is mmf_camcorder_set_attributes(), which comes from libffm-camcorder and is used repeatedly in di-camera-app. It conveniently (and strangely IMO) takes strings as identifiers for the attributes that are apparently being set (why not just an enum? I suppose I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth...). Some of those attributes include "target-time-limit," "audio-encoder-bitrate," and "video-encoder-bitrate." The guy who successfully removed the recording time limit on the NX300 did it by modifying the instructions that set the variable being passed along with "targe-time-limit." I found the control flow instructions he mentioned in that thread, so it should't be hard to get rid of the time limit on the NX1, provided the camera accepts the modified firmware. The NX500 is probably similar. The "video-encoder-bitrate" attribute also looks promising, though it would take some more advanced reverse engineering to figure out where the values are being set.
So from what I've seen and read, here is what I think is and is not possible to modify on the NX1 and NX500:
Remove time limit: Highly likely. Seems to be the same as the NX300. Pretty easy too, if there aren't any new security measures in place. Increased bitrate: Possible. Needs some real reverse engineering to find where the rates are set for each resolution and quality. Noise reduction and sharpening: Possible. Haven't seen anything that looks like it's controlling these, but if setting the bitrate works, this should be possible too. FWIW I think that increasing the bitrate would help with the noise reduction issues. H.265 tends to smooth things out a lot to achieve low bitrates. Re-enable 2.5k on NX500: Plausible but difficult. It depends on whether they just removed it from di-camera-app, or if they removed it from the underlying libraries as well. Either way it would likely require actually adding control flow to the binary, which opens a whole new can of worms. Beyond my current ability, for sure. Focus peaking for NX500 4k: Maybe? I have no idea, really. There might be a good reason they didn't include it, there might not. 4k crop on NX1: Plausible but even more difficult. We know the hardware can do it, but it was probably never implemented on the NX1, even in pre-production. Gamma profile on NX500: Plausible. Similar to porting the NX500's 4k crop to the NX1, I think. 6k 24fps H.265: Highly unlikely. The H.265 encoder would have to support frame sizes larger than DCI 4k and be able to handle twice the pixel rate (clock speed) of 4k. Furthermore it would require implementing a brand-new video mode at a very low level. I can't say for sure it's categorically impossible, but don't get your hopes up. 10bit H.265: Nope. The H.265 standard does indeed allow for 10bit encoding, but I highly doubt Samsung would include the significantly larger (wider busses, more complex encoding) hardware necessary to do it. It would be a miracle if Samsung had really decided to go to all that effort and not use it. 6k or full sensor 4k at more than 30fps or 1080p at (significantly) more than 120fps: Impossible. The image sensor simply isn't fast enough. If you hope for this you will just be disappointed! RAW Video: Not really. It might be theoretically possible to dump the live-view feed as in Magic Lantern. Who knows how fast the SD card interface is, though. Certainly no more than 1080p. I can imagine tricking the GPU into packing 12bit 4k RAW into 1080p 444 HDMI like Apertus, but consider that a pipe dream. Don't get your hopes up. Anyway, that was longer than I expected, but I enjoyed poking around in the firmware, so I don't regret it even if it comes to nothing. It's a shame Samsung appears to be dropping the NX line; they are cool little cameras.
p.s. If you know anything I've said is wrong, please correct me; I'm learning this as I go along.

Here it is!
We recorded hdmi 8-bit 4:2:2 out of it and went to the odyssey
 
 
skin tones overall are nice!  and stabilization is amazing.
 The camera was interesting to use - especially considering that it's a 200 ASA camera and has moire and dynamic range challenges - sometimes this is interesting to have to maximize something with limitations. It's difficult, but I guess it disciplines you.

While it was much easier to grade the source clip (could not save the overexposed sky though), I don't think I got the colors that much closer...
 

 

Was bored and tried to match them as best I could, but there's a lot of strange things going on with the Sony image. Especially in the greenery and woods outside, but also in the papers in the window. 
 

 

(Hi forum btw, long time reader)
Edit: Messed up the contrast curve slightly, re-uploaded.