Hi there!
So I'm looking to do something a bit different, but CHDK seems like the closest community to what it is I'm trying to do... so I thought I'd reach out here first?
You're welcome here, folks involved with Magic Lantern (
https://www.magiclantern.fm/) might also have ideas.
I'm working in a studio that has CR-N500 cameras – Canon PTZs that can stream over network via NDI|HX, RTMP, etc.
These cameras *have* microSD slots – but they are literally non-functional
Canon's tech-specs say, "Media Slot – microSD card slot x 1 (future expansion, recording unavailable)"
They have released a few firmware updates since the devices came out last year, but none add the recording feature
Part of me wonders whether there might be a simple flag in the firmware, to turn this feature on...
... and I figured that if *anyone* had a good place to begin figuring out how to mod the Canon firmware images, it would be the CHDK community
The firmware in question can be downloaded from the CR-N500 Support Page (or directly here)
So, any thoughts...?
A first obvious question is whether it appears related to any of the other Canon camera families (PowerShot P&S, EOS, Digic DV).
The "Digic DV 6" branding suggests the latter.
The fact the firmware update file has a .BIN extension rather than .FIM, .FIR or .FI2 suggests it's not in one of the known formats, though of course they could easily stick a different extension on the same formats.
xf705 is Digic DV 6 and used the FIM format (understood by
http://github.com/protyposis/CanonCamcorderFirmwareTools), which IMO the bin file definitely is not.
The fact CR-N500 is quite recent (announced in 2021?) suggests it could be in the unified firmware family that started with Digic 8 still cams and includes recent Digic DV cams like xf605.
The only ASCII strings in the file seem to be in a header ("2023-07-10", "1.3.0", "0447") from a quick skim the rest looks pretty random, likely compressed and/or encrypted. By eye, it doesn't obviously look like the known formats to me, but I didn't do any real analysis. Neither 'file' nor binwalk identify it as any standard format
Some options for further investigation would be to try to reverse the .bin file format, or investigate the exposed network services, or it up to look for a UART. (hmm, is the "service" terminal on
https://www.usa.canon.com/content/dam/canon-assets-(no-crop-applied)/newsroom/2021/20210317-product/cr-n500-rear-white-copy.jpg a UART?)
There's also a USB port listed "Type-A (USB 2.0) x 1 (future expansion)" which you could try connecting and see what sort of device it shows up as. Some Canon DV cams expose some service related features over PTP.
Personally, I'd probably hit the network first since it should give you general information about the device even if there's nothing immediately exploitable.
