Firmware Patch v1.0

[Simeon]

Nice work Martin. Thanks for posting.

[matt]

First of all, a HUGE THANK YOU to Simeon! I'm absolutely thrilled to have the limit removed from my D7000!

Secondly, results from a quick test from this morning:

Camera: D7000
Movie Settings: 1080p 24fps, high quality

Test video 1 - static scene, low detail (filming a corner of my desk at work)
Duration: 24 minutes, 18 seconds
File Size: 3,560,517,941 bytes (3,395MB)

Test video 2 - moving pattern, moderate/high detail (filmed lcd screen running stuck pixel fixer from http://www.flexcode.org/lcd2.html)
Duration: 24 minutes, 18 seconds
File Size: 3,602,001,703 bytes (3,435MB)

File sizes differ (of course), while duration limit remained the same. Draw your own conclusions.

EDIT: Forgot to add I used an 8GB SDHC card formatted in exFAT, but I'm not saying that has any relevance.

[nDrju]

Camera: D3100
Movie Settings: 424p 24fps - 1 hour 46 minutes 13 seconds (stoped when timer shown 0:00). And no overheating. Battery is low:) But it's amazing!
3,25 GB (3 495 067 648 bytes)
I set camera on tripod and open connector cover on the left side of the camera (usb, gps, etc). I think tripod a bit cooled camera.

[Robb]

D7000 patched already? That's just great news you guys! So the exFAT format has the answer for larger files or doesn't the camera write files larger than 4gig anyway? So are there bugs or errors that might crash the hardware? Does shooting in PAL work fine? Is it possible to install the original firmware without having any traces of patched firmware? For the record, i'm a d7000 guy so i could help with some testing. I hope PAL isn't an issue somehow.

[Vicne]

D7000 patched already? That's just great news you guys! So the exFAT format has the answer for larger files or doesn't the camera write files larger than 4gig anyway? So are there bugs or errors that might crash the hardware? Does shooting in PAL work fine? Is it possible to install the original firmware without having any traces of patched firmware? For the record, i'm a d7000 guy so i could help with some testing. I hope PAL isn't an issue somehow.

Simeon's patch just removes the time limitation.
The 4Gig limit still holds, it is managed by some other code in the camera (more like 3.5Gig in fact, see reports), which means that the max duration is now dependent on the recording quality settings.
No known bugs, no hardware crash reported until now, but if you shoot long movies in hot ambient temperature, the camera may stop the recording with a message saying the camera is running too hot. Basically, you'll have the same issue if you shoot multiple 20minute segments one after the other.
Code has no link to PAL or other standard.
Best regards,

Vicne

[Yauja]

The limitation timer it isn't a technical limitation or high temp reasons, is only for taxes, a camera with more than 30 min recording video capabilities have to pay more taxes in a lot of countries, so Nikon applied the limit for this reason.

Sorry for my bad English, and congrats for the patch, very good job guys.

[Simeon]

D7000 patched already?

Yes build v1.2 has D7000 support. Been tested, so happy shooting.

[hakkiro]

Hello All !

I've been reading with great interest about the patch developments.

I'm a D7000 guy and I'd like to contribute some info which someone (programmers ?) hopefully may find of interest.

Regarding the thermal cut out :

In short - the overheating issue is easily enough avoided.

There are two crucial conditions, though : built-in LCD is turned off (and no external LCD over HDMI is used).

As part of my job (http://www.RealGigReel.com) I regularly record 720p stream for over 3 hours straight (in multiple back-to-back 20 mins segments).
I achieve up-to 3hrs 15mins of continuous recording on one fully-charged battery.

I operate the camera remotely using Camera Control Pro v2.8 over two (daisy-chained) active USB2.0 20metre extension cables.

This setup gives me an almost complete control over the cam, while I get the real-time video preview on my laptop.
Crucial part of this is that the moment USB is plugged in at both ends - camera's entire graphics display subsystem (video out amp + LCD)
is turned off outright. The preview video signal is encoded and streamed in real-time (ish) over USB thus not engaging at all the heat-producing power-hungry
graphics-out head and LCD hardware.

I start the video from within LiveView Software preview window by pressing "REC" software button.
The Camera Control Pro software window displays the remaining time counting down from 20 mins.
At appropriate points I simply hit the software record button twice in quick succession to finish one video chunk and initiate recording of another.
Crude though it is, it works well in practice and the resulting gap between the video segments is only about 1s long.

I have been using this setup for a full year now without a single fail due to (over) heat (ing)

Interesting thing to note is that it works for such (practically unlimited) long periods of time over USB only.

I tried long recording (multiple back-to-back 20min clips) using an external LCD display over HDMI but run into overheating after about 40mins of continuous recording.
This (somewhat logically) confirms that as long as any part of Camera's graphics display subsystem is active (in case of using an external LCD it's the internal graphics-out head)
the resultant heat will eventually cause a problem.

In USB-only scenario, much like IP CCTV cams, there's no analogue video being output from the camera at all.
Instead, the preview video data is being encoded in fairly low-quality (but sufficient enough for judging exposure)
and streamed live over USB to be decoded back inside Camera Control Pro for on-screen playback.
When running it like this - power draw (and thus - the heat) overheads are insignificant in comparison.

I hope this sheds some light (from the trenches) on the often misjudged causes for thermal cut-outs.
It's not the Sensor or the Encoder that is the culprit, it's the Display Subsystem.

Where can I download the v1.2 for D7000, please ?

I will definitely give it a go.

My regards,

martin

[Simeon]

Where can I download the v1.2 for D7000, please ?

Thanks for the great information.

http://code.google.com/p/nikon-firmware ... loads/list

What's the video resolution/quality over usb?

[hakkiro]

Hello Simeon !

Thank you for the DL link.

What's the video resolution/quality over usb?

Just to clarify a potential misunderstanding :

The setup I describe is for remote Cam control and video PREVIEW only.

The actual video is recorded in full quality straight to SD card as per normal operation.

Camera Control Pro LiveView window (which is not re-sizeable) displays a 640x480 live feed.
It's difficult to say what compression is applied but the picture is of rather high quality.
Certainly high enough to judge whether I'm overexposing, which is what I care about most.

My regards.

martin