Live View Silent Raw on D7000

The D5100 had a string “A:\\LvRaw  .raw” that I notice soon after first decoding the firmware files. I could never fulling put together the how and why of what the code was doing (looking in Task 30 of the D5100 firmware or @0x1AC268 of v1.01 firmware)

After the Magic Lantern guys announced RAW movies and it becoming a hot topic I doubled my efforts to work out how the code worked. But still it evaded me.

Then I bricked my D5100 and I stop working on the project for a month as I’d lost my mojo. Also my replacement D7000 was pretty much all a man could need. But that elusive RAW video mode the Magic Lantern guys have was a very shinny target.

So reading the D7000 firmware with more vigor I discovered why the D5100 didn’t make sense, Nikon had removed the liveview raw saving code, because it’s present in the D7000, and with a simple tweak I got it working.

So for now it’s truly the raw buffer (the part that’s put in the .NEF but with none of the EXIF data), and it takes a hack to turn on, and I’ve not nailed the FPS, nor do I have a clue how to speed it up, but it’s all very cool.

Form the two test video’s I’ve done, the first took 25 frames in 18 seconds so 1.33 fps, on an Extreme 45MB/s San Disk SD card. The second video with an Extreme Pro 95MB/s San Disk SD card, I got 15 frames in 10 seconds, so 1.5 fps. Not ground breaking stuff, but the code to do this was already present in the D7000 firmware. So making it “better” will take a while.

I’ll post a couple of files in case anybody is keen to try decode them. https://simeonpilgrim.com/files/Liveview_silent.zip

Turns out that after some data review, the files contents appear to be the left over ram from taking previous pictures and not the current raw buffer. sigh. Well at least we now how a button, that is wired up to run in live view and a complete understanding of the file handling process, albeit a slow process.

Comments:

Bofrie 2013-07-01 08:48:56

Wow! this is pretty awesome! may be good news for us nikon-guys. :) I have already begun to regret my decision to join nikon 4 years ago because of the amazing raw video coming from canon + magic lantern. Well done Simeon!


Simeon 2013-07-01 09:15:28

Don’t regret, the camera’s are great at what they do.


brian 2013-07-01 16:10:22

This is great news. Thanks for your hard work and dedication.
Would you consider swapping notes with Vitaliy for faster development?


Simeon 2013-07-01 16:23:28

Vitaliy’s notes: “he has seen a text string.” there’s not much to swap.


Simeon 2013-07-01 16:28:00

Or are we talking about all the great patches that Vitaliy has released that are all (besides) the text patches, based on work done by myself, or other Nikon Hacker’s, but all released in my tool?

Besides deleting my posts where I link to our site, taking your donations, and failing to be honest about where the source of the work comes from, I’m not sure what he has done for the Nikon community.


brian 2013-07-01 16:41:32

Lol. Didn’t know it was like that.
Ill donate to you.
I don’t know a whole lot when it comes to hacks; is it possible to increase bitrate for a better image?


Simeon 2013-07-01 16:50:24

I’m not trying to chase donations, there is just bad blood between Vitaliy and me. But mostly talking about makes me look the fool. So I tend to avoid it.


Simeon 2013-07-01 17:07:16

To the bitrate question. It should be possible, this is an area I’m not to knowledgeable (this would have been a good place to work with Vitaliy), but now the concept of “raw video” is a hot topic, it might be easier to just skip to that as a goal.


brian 2013-07-01 17:13:09

I have a d800. Let me know how I can help.


Fusion 2013-07-01 21:16:14

Awesome stuff Simeon! Though the progress has been very slow, it’s been exciting seeing progress made on hacking the Nikons. I’m really looking forward to having RAW video for my D7000 one day, and will gladly help testing once it progresses more.


Kevin Luiz 2013-07-05 03:16:18

Simeon, its so funny how I follow EOSHD.com and I take most of his posts as bible. I did some fishing around on his NTOOLS post and then miraculously came across your posts and website. So glad I did because it looks like you are the real one making significant moves here. I hope that you and nikonhackers can access RAW with our cameras. We are all rooting for you man keep it up and let us know about any progress even the smallest lines of code! Really excited good job dude.


Simeon 2013-07-05 08:41:46

As I have found with most of the “camera” news sites, they all re-use each others posts, and they “as a collective” are not very good at checking the facts. Mostly they are trying to get a scope and a traffic spike.

Thanks for motivating words.


Thomas garret 2013-07-05 14:42:13

Congratulations for your work
I m pretty thrilled by how fast your are advancing
Do you think it’s a definite possibility raw video can be enabled on the D800
I must say I’m a little torn Appart I love my d800 but bought a 5d mark III since ML enables raw video on that camera…
I have to sell one of the two bodies
But I really think that the d800 sensor is better with more DR than the 5D..
So if there s a good chance you guys can enable raw on the d800 I might just resale the 5d…
Anyway keep up the good work


Simeon 2013-07-05 16:14:12

I’d say we are some ways away from getting RAW video on the D800. But how long a “ways” is like the length of a piece of string.


Thomas garret 2013-07-05 23:01:00

I understand it must be pretty hard to give an approximate timeline
But as I understand It can be done for sure but the question is when ?
am I right ?
Well ill be happy to help in any way possible


Simeon 2013-07-05 23:25:28

All I’m prepared to say is it should be possible.

But we don’t have any of the data sheets for the hardware, this is not our day jobs, and we not much hardware to test on.

As an Engineer type, I’m pretty sure about the things I think I know, but the things I know I don’t know much/enough about, I clueless to how little I know.

Thus how long will it take to do something not done on this hardware platform before feels near impossible to answer.

At work I get paid to stop “working” to guess this type of answer, so that we can manage “risk”, but more often than not just getting on with it would produced results faster than all the endless meeting about “what did you really mean when you said X time to go Y days ago” or “can you stop doing X to spend some days brain storming how to bring the project in a day earlier”

So I do this because it fun, but answering questions I cant answer (without lots of clauses) is not fun.

I’m off to bed now. It’s the weekend tomorrow, Yippie!


PoorVit 2013-07-27 03:45:23

The true about Vitaliy.

He never made anything, what is saying about is Ptool was not really from him, it’s a scammer guy that try to appropriate others works.

The first hack on GH1 and co was made by a closer friend of mine, when ptool didn’t exist yet, what Vitaliy did -> Stolen work and compile/gui user friendly and say that it come from him, it is not the first time , it doesn’t know anything really about programming, it doesn’t know how to work and let others work… making a tool/gui doesn’t me that all the work was made by him, most of the preset/algorithm and co was made by others…

Trying to repeat the same BS, i was one of the first guy who really talk about the GH3, it didn’t believe, because i’m not a know name on is family community PV… but it was actually Panasonic who offer me a sample to test

I also made the first patch change the language JAP to ENG on GH1/GH2, after releasing, he repeat that it was impossible to do it, delete my post and co
and few weeks after it was on is BS ptool…

Be careful with this guy ! i also release few code for the NEX and know i’m working on the Samsung open source code of the NX300, my code of the NEX hack is available on one of is stupid hiding project called nex-hack.info how to hide the true, that’s why it doesn’t know how to work with the GH3, because no one who dev believe him anymore, no one want to work with him anymore, i still wonder why people from the PV website still donate a guy who did nothing ! than appropriate others works…

Me too i’m in bad blood with him, anyway if he continue like that, be sure that somebody will do something against him… i’m tired to see him doing that.. and see the same BS come from him (sorry to speak like that but enough is enough about Vitaliy)

Simon, keep your code safe and don’t release anything until you know that everythings is ready, you can do some beta test or make a private forum with trusted people

Good luck man :)


Mojo43 2013-07-31 01:49:55

It’s sad to hear that it’s the way things are. People stealing… Vitally was never easy to get along with, but now he didn’t write PTools? Wow, crazy!


Simeon 2013-07-31 08:42:27

I’m not 100% of the content of the original post your commenting on, but Ptool and Ntool are written by Vitaily, what I see being called into question is in Ptool, that Vitaliy is not the only author of patch content, and for the Ntool that is very much the case.


mojo43 2013-08-07 06:02:07

I was commenting on the post above mine by PoorVit

“He never made anything, what is saying about is Ptool was not really from him, it’s a scammer guy that try to appropriate others works.”

I believe he is saying that Ptool was not written by Vitaly and that parts of it were stolen. Is that not what he is saying?


soufian 2013-08-11 06:07:04

Please notify me if anyone manages to release a RAW option for D800. Thank you.


Bernd 2013-08-14 08:04:43

+1. Very interessted in D800 Raw.


Griffith 2013-08-15 10:37:23

unfortunately, I own only a D5000. Any chance of removing the 5-minute limit in recording 720p? or a higher fps?

thanks for your great work by the way.


Simeon 2013-08-15 10:39:32

Nikon has not released a firmware update for the D5000 so patching that is not an option, and we have not dumped the firmware from a D5000, so building our own update is not possible ether.


Coogie Productions 2013-09-05 16:10:35

This is all incredibly exciting! Keep up the good work man and I know you can figure this out yet. I’ve got a Nikon D5100 and I somewhat began to regret it when I saw the Magic Lantern on Canon’s and saw their ability to manually control ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperature all with the movie function. I know you can figure this out, so if you can also throw in an option to quickly change ISO by assigning it to something through the use of say, the function button, then being able to change it with the wheel would be amazing! Good luck!!! I know you got this! Thanks again for all your efforts! Trust me… they’re greatly appreciated!!!


mojo43 2013-09-05 23:02:34

You can change the iso by assigning it to the function wheel on the D5100.


Lukas 2013-09-23 18:27:14

Awesome work Simeon!!! Keep it up.

Is there way how to donate this project?


Simeon 2013-09-24 14:03:09

The Paypal button on the right, or the same paypal button of the Nikon Hackers website, or the paypal button on the patch site are all the same account.


soufian 2013-09-24 21:24:35

Nothing major for D800 owners ?


Simeon 2013-09-24 22:51:51

Well, that’s because a D7000 was the most expensive camera I personally (my family) could afford after making a mistake and ruining my D5100, also at the time the most expensive camera I could afford.

Given the nature of this process is very exploration eg “i will just change this and see what happens” those things are better done on ~1,000NZD camera’s verse the $3,500-$4,100NZD camera’s, and I don’t feel comfortable asking people to risk that much on experiments that might ruin their gear. Also the process would be very time inefficient.

Now if a bunch of D800/D4 owners would like features, then volunteering to test ported patched (from cheaper based models) would mean I could spend the time to do this, but this is not risk free. Or to donate money with the note For D800 camera via the pay pal link here or on the Nikon Hacker site.