Things are going great now, the skies have been very dark and dangerous for a few days, and the MD script is running without hiccups for dozens of hours at a time, always responding quickly when I walk over to test it.
changes since prealpha2* bugs fixed *- capture mode change works (from a script)- subject distance override works, but requires user attention (needs to be switched off before switching off the camera, followed by halfpress to let the cam autofocus) caused assert at shutdown while testing, hence the above warning only useful in scripts- redraw of the overlay now uses a more appropriate firmware function which should work faster- ISO override now possible, with issues The camera's internal implementation differs from that of later cameras, my current workaround consists of a heap of hacks. The sensitivity range roughly equals to the official ISO50...400 range. When overridden, the JPEG and DNG Exif will contain a value which is related, but does not equal to the set value. Moreover, various utilites strongly disagree about these ISO values (Irfanview, exiftool, Raw Therapee). I have no idea, what the real ISO is. Another solution for scripts is to set propcase 21 to a known market ISO value (50, 100, 200, 400).- better colors chosen (hopefully)* movie mode *- quality and bitrate override has been implemented, with issues: - random crashes were observed when using extreme overrides (low bitrate, high bitrate, high quality), mostly when recording a scene with unusual complexity (e.g. high contrast fine grid on a monitor) - the size of an individual compressed frame can not exceed 204800 bytes (sad firmware limitation) - if it does, the frame will be clipped to prevent corruption of the file - many software can't deal with clipped mjpeg frames, VirtualDub can (lower parts of those frames will be lost) - this framesize can also be reached with regular high detail scenes! - 1x (default) bitrate means an average frame size of 64kB in VGA fine mode - the camera routines use 15 levels of compression internally (0=best quality, 14=worst quality) - this is mapped to CHDK constant quality like this: 0 .. 40 = worst quality, 96 .. 99 = best quality* known problems *- The shoot command may not complete in scripts, use keypress emulation OR delays if you encounter this.- ubtest (script) usually locks up because of "shoot" being broken- If you override subject distance in a script (SD override makes no sense otherwise), don't forget to disable it before you switch off the camera.- Don't load CHDK if you want to make sure that the camera doesn't crash during movie record.- ISO override works, but the real ISO is not really known- No control over dark frame subtraction yet
change since prealpha3* movie mode *- the 204800 bytes/frame limitation has been lifted to 262144 bytes/frame which is what later cameras use in VGA mode this should eliminate the possibility of frame corruption (tested, frame sizes over 220kBytes observed with no corruption)* known problems *- The shoot command may not complete in scripts, use keypress emulation OR delays if you encounter this.- ubtest (script) usually locks up because of "shoot" being broken- If you override subject distance in a script (SD override makes no sense otherwise), don't forget to disable it before you switch off the camera.- Don't load CHDK if you want to make sure that the camera doesn't crash during movie record.- ISO override works, but the real ISO is not really known- No control over dark frame subtraction yet- No control over the flash
changes since prealpha4bugs fixed- instability caused by CHDK's use of LockMainPower / UnlockMainPower has been solved (the functions exist, but have different effect than in any of the later cameras) - may help with the motion detection issue reported in the forum - will help with movie recording- another try to create a palette that is not unreadable in record mode (see palette viewer in rec and play mode to see why it's hard)new feature- the default assert handler has been replaced with a custom one that shuts down the camera instead of restarting it on an assert the camera will switch off with extended lens when this happens (which is what later cameras do) it will also try to save some debugging info to the card in case of a crash be sure to switch the camera off by pressing the OFF button when this happens, or it _may_ drain the batteries* movie mode *- instability of the movie recording should be gone- the movie bitrate display has been replaced with another that shows - internal "quality factor", Q0 = best quality, Q14 = worst quality, useful in constant bitrate mode - current video frame size - average video frame size (average of the last 64 frames)- the movie file size limit has been increased to almost 2GB (untested, may not work)* known problems *- The shoot command may not complete in scripts, use keypress emulation OR delays if you encounter this.- ubtest (script) usually locks up because of "shoot" being broken- If you override subject distance in a script (SD override makes no sense otherwise), don't forget to disable it before you switch off the camera.- ISO override works, but the real ISO is not really known- No control over dark frame subtraction yet- No control over the flash
changes since prealpha5bug fixed- previous change didn't prevent Canon's "display off" from kicking in while recording a movie from now on, phantom events will be sent every 10 seconds in movie mode too to keep this from happening* movie mode *- bitrate display shows average of total (video + audio) bitrate / second instead of average frame size* known problems *- The shoot command may not complete in scripts, use keypress emulation OR delays if you encounter this.- ubtest (script) usually locks up because of "shoot" being broken- If you override subject distance in a script (SD override makes no sense otherwise), don't forget to disable it before you switch off the camera.- ISO override works, but the real ISO is not really known- No control over dark frame subtraction yet- No control over the flash- Masking of zoom lever is not effective in record mode when ALT is active
changes since prealpha6bug fixed- some experimental parts of the LockMainPower/UnlockMainPower replacement caused problems with scripts (blank screen), should now work as beforenew feature- dark frame subtraction control now possible (but results in uselessly noisy pictures when disabled)- somewhat faster motion detection (not available in stitch or movie mode)* known problems *- The shoot command may not complete in scripts, use keypress emulation OR delays if you encounter this.- ubtest (script) frequently locks up because of problems around sensing the shooting state- If you override subject distance in a script (SD override makes no sense otherwise), don't forget to disable it before you switch off the camera.- ISO override works, but the real ISO is not really known- No control over the flash- Masking of zoom lever is not effective in record mode when ALT is active- Prevention of power save doesn't always work reliably (kicked in once while running the memory viewer module). Either get out of ALT mode (by pressing the shortcut button) or use a button which is not influenced by CHDK (rec, play, zoom lever in record mode) when this happens.