Nikon Hacker making progress - Higher bitrate for D7000 D5100 D3100 and D800

S

stokstad

Well-known member
This is great! They are starting to kick ass over there :)

http://nikonhacker.com/

It seems it will come to D800 since they have access to that body and it shares stuff with the older nikons. They D5300 etc. is not mentioned yet.
 
I WANT RAW!!!
(on a D800, that would be pretty sharp RAW video with 14 stops of DR and just mild aliasing/moire)
(but I won't hold my breath, it was over a year ago that the NEX hack was announced, and nothing has come out of that)
 
Different needs, I guess.
Of course cleaner shadows would be a step up, and if you already own the camera it's a no-brainer. But I shoot on a Sony right now and this wouldn't make me buy the camera. RAW would.
(10-bit 422, internal or external, and with a profile that preserves all the detail from the sensor, would be just as good as RAW, for me; very unlikely from a hack, though; RAW is a lot easier, if still quite difficult)
 
Now that the team has made their first major step towards better IQ and showed that its possible, we might see a bigger community, more research funds and more interesting hacks in the future. So Im glad seeing things happening on the Nikon front!
 
I hope we see D7100 being patched soon. I want 50mbps. That is good start for me. Would increasing the bitrate minimize fpn and banding?
 
The D7100, D5200 and D5300 seems to have completely different based hardware. So these hacks won't come to these cameras as of now. Who knows in the future..
 
stokstad said:
For almost all my work I would not want RAW.

To have the internal recording handle shadow-noise and movement better WOULD BE AWSOME for me :)

They just released this:

https://nikonhacker.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1798


So it seems its coming for D600, D3200 and D4 aswell
Click to expand...

I am on the same train, because a 10 bit log prores would be much better in my view. But I think it will be much more difficulty because the video image processing might be tied to the 8 bit jpeg engine which might never have any 10 bit button. While the RAW if it is like the one in the Canon, just need to be redirected to be stored on the sd or CF card. These raw would be in another world as we would be about 14 stop while the Nikon basic internal codec could chalenge the Canon Raws as they are about 11 to 11.7 stop in the Canon cameras.

I hope they start to work on the new expeed 4 camera like the D5300. I have a D7100, but I think they will be superseded very rapidly with an expeed 4 version with no FPN. It is a little bit silly to invest too much time/effort in older technology. The expeed 4 will be with us at least for the next 2/5 years.
 
Nikon Hacker's RELEASE firmware patch v1.18 currently supports the following features on the D5100:

  • Remove Time Based Video Restrictions
  • NEF Compression Off
  • NEF Compression Lossless
  • Remove NEF Nikon Star Eater, for Astro folks
  • Jpeg Compression - Quality (vs. Space)
  • Non-brand Battery
  • Live View Manual Control ISO/Shutter

Some of the above options are also supported on D3100, D7000, and D300 cameras.

Nikon Hacker's BETA test firmware patch v1.17.6 additionally offers increased bitrates on D3100, D3200, D5100, D7000, D600, D800, and D4 cameras.

BETA test patch v1.17.6 also offers increased bitrates on the D5200, but it is currently in ALPHA test status, meaning that it has not yet been tested by the patch developers.

I'm currently testing BETA v1.17.6 on a Nikon D5100, and it appears to be working properly at increased bitrates of 36Mbps and 54Mbps in 1080p24 video mode.
 
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With the increased bitrate for the d5100, is there any necessary adaptation of the workflow from camera through editing?
 
Any actual IQ improvements when you increase the bitrate? I mean: does it work like the increased bitrate in the GH2, or in the Canons? (where it made basically no difference)
(My bet: better detail in the shadows, bringing internal recorder a bit closer to what external recorders give you)
 
Nikon D5100 Bitrate Hack test results

Nikon D5100 Bitrate Hack test results

I applied Patch v1.17.6b to a Nikon D5100 and it appeared to work properly. I then shot comparison videos at 1080p24 using stock (24Mbps), 36Mbps, and 54Mbps bitrates. I used a Rokinon 85mm lens set at f2, with the D5100 on a tripod set at 1/60 sec and ISO 400, shooting a still image of artificial flowers for 4 seconds, testing static image quality. I analyzed the videos using Elecard StreamEye Slim, and confirmed each video's expected bitrate and use of a fixed, 12-frame IBP GOP. Here are the results reported by StreamEye (Red: I-frame; Green: B-frame; Blue: P-frame):

8qdm.jpg


The IBP frame charts and statistics confirm that the D5100's H.264 encoder is using the additional bitrate provided by the patch to increase the size of encoded data in each frame. What we can clearly see in the charts are consistent increases in the size of B and P-frames at 36 and 54Mbps. This is confirmed by StreamEye's inventory of min and max macroblock quality factors (qp) used in sample I, P, and B frames selected from each video:

I-frame macroblock quality factor
Mb Min Max
24 - 5 - 21
36 - 4 - 20
54 - 1 - 19

P-frame macroblock quality factor
Mb Min Max
24 - 5 - 27
36 - 1 - 16
54 - 1 - 15

B-frame macroblock quality factor
Mb Min Max
24 - 18 - 27
36 - 12 - 21
54 - 9 - 19

Each macroblock in a frame is encoded with a base quality (qp) ranging from around 1-30. These are basically 8-bit resolution divisors, with higher numbers producing coarser quality. A qp of 20-25 is fine for low-detail blocks. High-detail blocks should use a qp of 5-20. The macroblock inventories show that with the stock 24Mbps bitrate, B-frames are encoded at pretty coarse quality levels. Boosting bitrate up to 36Mbps produces a significant improvement in B-frame macroblock quality. At 54Mbps, it's even better, but shows diminishing returns.

That, however, is only static image quality. Motion picture quality always requires more bitrate to encode detailed frame-to-frame camera and object movements. When the weather clears up here, I'll shoot a rippling stream and we'll see how that turns out.
 
ok, this is showing great promise

if they can do that, they definitely have access to the really interesting bits

keep it coming!
 
What is very encouraging is that they are getting better knowledge of the code by the day and things like RAW is a possibility (would have prefered 10 bit high bitrate codec). 14 stop DR for $ 800/$1100 camera, that would be awesome. I don't know if the Nikon D5200/D7100 sd card interface would have the speed for at least 1080p raw
 
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