Added dual boot and video compression support for IXUS860/SD870IS

[fe50]

yes, i can confirm - the video bitrate now is correct, works like a charm !

[fe50]

@mil22:
The CHDK boot time now (#456) is also accelerated, now we have ~0.5 s instead of the 3 seconds ! 
With the clock-workaround( wikia) the SD870 now is ready to go in ~ 1s, great !!!

[mil22]

Thanks fe50, that's an awesome workaround! The SD870 is super snappy now.

Ironically, someone has already implemented the code to make the SD870 start up in record mode without needing to press any special buttons - Microfunguy. It's in SDM 1.72. But he refuses to release the source code, so none of the other builds will be able to benefit from that feature, even though the entire project is supposed to be open source under the GPL.

[mil22]

Wo-ah, I eat my words. The source for 1.72 is now up on his website. Look for startup patch coming soon.

[badbob001]

Tried the compiled version posted in this thread and it works.

Observations:
1) When in video recording mode and not actively recording, pressing the menu button (not alt-menu) does not bring up the canon menu. Tried with normal allbest #51 and the canon menu does come up.

2) What is happening in terms of refocusing after zoom? The focus does appear to change, but it doesn't look like it's performing an auto-refocus, so it's not as focuses as it can be, especially if you change subjects. Would be nice for it to auto-refocus or refocus at half-press.

3) The default video settings are:
Video Mode: Bitrate
Video Bitrate: 1x
Video Quality: 84

This will cause video to look like it came from an atari 2600. Fix is to change Video Mode from Bitrate to Quality.
Also, it looks like with video support, CHDK will record video at its own quality/bitrate settings and ignore the canon settings.

I recorded a static scene for 30 seconds and got these results:
no chdk, 640 standard: ~60MB
no chdk, 640 LP: ~30MB
chdk, quality 84: 90MB
chdk, quality 55: 50MB

So it looks like I will need to do some trial and error tests to figure out the chdk quality settings to match canon's standard and LP, unless someone has done that already. I want to match canon's settings as close as possible since the available video time is based off of canon's values.

Thanks!

p.s.: someone made a build that allowed the chdk osd to be hidden during playback so that would be a nice feature to have.

[PhyrePhoX]

try the attached build. see if the menu bug still persists. it is the latest build from the collaborative CHDK build .

also, with this build you can see the remaining time in REALTIME.

[badbob001]

Is it possible to disable chdk's video settings except for optical zoom? For now, I want to stick with the canon default video bit rates.

[PhyrePhoX]

well you can just set the bitrate that comes close to the canon one, cant you?
the default values are just - default. play around with the setting until you find the right one.
in the standard build you cannot disable the video extension, it may be added later.
thanks for pointing out that the default values are not as close to the original than we all thought. it maybe is camera depending though.

[badbob001]

try the attached build. see if the menu bug still persists. it is the latest build from the collaborative CHDK build .

This build locks up my 870 where the alt light stays blue and I have to pull out the battery.

[fe50]

try the attached build. see if the menu bug still persists. it is the latest build from the collaborative CHDK build .

This build locks up my 870 where the alt light stays blue and I have to pull out the battery.

@ badbob001:
i've posted a working test version for the SD870 here.


@mil22:

Thanks fe50, that's an awesome workaround! The SD870 is super snappy now.
Ironically, someone has already implemented the code to make the SD870 start up in record mode without needing to press any special buttons - Microfunguy. It's in SDM 1.72. But he refuses to release the source code, so none of the other builds will be able to benefit from that feature, even though the entire project is supposed to be open source under the GPL.

Wo-ah, I eat my words. The source for 1.72 is now up on his website. Look for startup patch coming soon.

I've downloaded the SDM 1.72 sources, but i'm having big problems with this package 
It looks like something went wrong with it, the download is ~ 30MB (!), it includes all binary files, some files are missing...

I also tried to find the startup code for the SD870, but i gave up searching for it - the code is extremly confusing for me, i tried to compare some parts with the Allbest CHDK sources, but it looks like ALL of the comments and blank lines are removed from all of the source file ?!

[mil22]

I couldn't find the code for the SD870 that makes it start up in record mode either. It may have been removed, or it may be part of a special startup script that isn't included in the 1.72 source distribution... or we might be missing something. It definitely doesn't help that he's removed all the comments, which is pretty lame.

[pantelis]

I have two sd870is 2G in each and use them for stereo pics and vids. I am currently running (ixus860_sd870-100c-0.9.8-735-full). I recently and for the first time messed with video parameters and jacked up the bitrate to 3X. The camera stopped recording on it's own after a short time. The video clearly had much higher detail. But then later after bringing the bitrate down, the next recording resulted in what I would guess is a full card. One cam stopped on it's own and I couldn't access the card "card error". I can not access the videos on that cam. The other cam did not do this and I was able to view those videos.

Did I just use up the memory on that cam's card. Is there a way to keep that from happening in the future? Thanks, Pantelis