Tragic Lantern for 6D

[kgv5]

Ahhh, alright. I formatted it with camera, I shoud have done this via windows.

[teo770]

PREVIEW question.

When recording RAW, we've seen that selecting JPEG only in Canon's menus allow us to gain more writing speed.
If we choose Jpeg S3, what happens to this jpeg when recording ?
Is it generated and discarted when writing on card ? or just not generated at all ?

If it's generated and discarted at each frame... perhaps we could keep one s3 jpeg (0.3Mb) every 100/200 frames
so we could have a kind of sequence "preview" ?

[teo770]

Ahhh, alright. I formatted it with camera, I shoud have done this via windows.

Most people uses in camera format (recommanded by each cam manufacturer)
and not all cameras are exFAT compatible.

Make me think we would need a sheet about cameras compatible with exFAT !
I start it ! Canon 6D IS compatible with exFAT !!!!

[a1ex]

When recording RAW, we've seen that selecting JPEG only in Canon's menus allow us to gain more writing speed.

The quality setting in Canon menu affects how much memory is free for ML to use.

Fun stuff to try:
- alloc as much RAM as you can, by calling shoot_malloc_suite(0)
- take a burst photo sequence
- free the memory suite 10 seconds later

Result: the burst will work correctly, and the display will say BUSY until you free the mem suite. After that, all the frames will be developed and saved correctly to card.

Conclusion: Canon code reserves a large amount of memory just for this.

[teo770]

The quality setting in Canon menu affects how much memory is free for ML to use.

So more room for ML's frame buffers...

Is there a known list of Canon daemons running when camera in ON ?
Perhaps, like Windows services list, we could shutdown selected ones ?
For example, even powered off, wifi should have a driver daemon running somewhere waiting for wifi power on, no ? same for GPS.
Could free some mem perhaps.

[a1ex]

In Debug menu. The AEWB task eats a bit of CPU (at least on 5d3) and I think it's worth killing it.

An extremely mean hack would be to disable photo shooting and use almost all of the 512MB for video buffering. I'm not that adventurous though, so I'm not tempted to try it. I prefer clean solutions that don't affect normal camera behavior.

[ted ramasola]

In Debug menu. The AEWB task eats a bit of CPU (at least on 5d3) and I think it's worth killing it.

An extremely mean hack would be to disable photo shooting and use almost all of the 512MB for video buffering. I'm not that adventurous though, so I'm not tempted to try it. I prefer clean solutions that don't affect normal camera behavior.

A1ex,

There are some(like me) that are not really concerned about "normal camera behavior" . Especially some 5D2 shooters who have a VAF filter installed, we can't take normal photos now since the mirror is fixed in up position due to the VAF.

I bought these cameras for video and I think a lot have too. So if by disabling some of the "normal" behaviors to allocate more resources to ML gives better Magic Lantern performance, so be it.

I'm sure you can also have a menu option to toggle that on or off?


Ted

[a1ex]

The kind of hacks I'm thinking about may require changing stuff in Canon code at boot time. So it's not about a menu option or a loadable module, but a separate autoexec that does only this. I also don't want people saying "I've installed ML and now I can't even take pictures..."

[teo770]

An extremely mean hack would be to disable photo shooting and use almost all of the 512MB for video buffering. I'm not that adventurous though, so I'm not tempted to try it. I prefer clean solutions that don't affect normal camera behavior.

I agree but if you just kill some running daemons, will a simple hard reboot (battery pull) not restart all daemons/services ?
I'm not at all to modify normal boot sequence cause we're not speacking about $100 cams, clearly !

And this would be usefull only if those killed daemons would free some mem. If just CPU time... not sure we would gain something.

[ted ramasola]

The kind of hacks I'm thinking about may require changing stuff in Canon code at boot time. So it's not about a menu option or a loadable module, but a separate autoexec that does only this. I also don't want people saying "I've installed ML and now I can't even take pictures..."

You can have this as another version then, lets call this "Magic Lantern Extreme Version" ! Heck, there are businesses out there already permanently removing the mirror assembly to mount PL mount, those are extreme hardware hacks already. Several physical mods like the Hotrod cameras do this, even boarding up the viewfinder already.
With a stable "extreme hack" focused toward film making, an ML raw capable canon DSLR will make a compelling challenge to the big boys like red, or sad to say even to the BMCC.
Besides, RAW DNG video IS a series of RAW stills already. This is what some fashion photographers are doing with the RED cameras.

[teo770]

Perhaps good news for Moiré issue with 6D.... needs testing !

When importing DNG sequence in After Effect, it uses Camera Raw.... so same tools are available than in LightRoom....
You can create a filter to apply to the whole frame and... push the anti-moiré slider to the right.
In my "threes in the wind" sample, Moiré is just gone !

Of course, this kind of filter applied on the entire frame and all frames can change all colors so....
need deep testing to see if after this anti-moiré filter we can still color grade enough...

update: Good for moiré, but still aliasing to be treated...

[1%]

An extremely mean hack would be to disable photo shooting and use almost all of the 512MB for video buffering. I'm not that adventurous though, so I'm not tempted to try it. I prefer clean solutions that don't affect normal camera behavior.

A config option? Like If video_only = 1 run these cache hacks in boot-hacks.c And then flip it on/off and reboot.

On 5d3 this isn't needed so much but on SD cameras we have less than 1/2 of CF write speed. On 600D you already "kill" photo mode by having to use sraw. So IMO this is kind of necessary.


I'll see what is happening with the writing... it shouldn't have slowed down but who knows.

[rebenkaiser]

Since updating to the latest 113 .bin the help mode in camera no longer works for me. Pressing the INFO-button has no visible effect, except for disabling display updates. If I press the button and try to change the menu item with the main dial, nothing happens. After I press the INFO-button again, the menu item I tried to navigate to is selected and controls work as normal again.
I did already try to replace the doc-folder, then the whole ML-folder (plus the MODULES, SCRIPTS, etc.) with a freshly downloaded copy, unfortunately this did not resolve the issue.
Did anyone else encounter this problem?

[1%]

So ML is running and the FW on your camera is 113?


I know why write speed is lowered.. using 32MB buffers instead of 30MB

[teo770]

Yes, i noticed 30->32 Mb buffers but frame drops happens really early now,
even @ 1504x600 vs no frame drop before

Problem is since [113] Module Refactor .zip

[1%]

The 32MB chunks are too big and too slow... I tried to fix it not sure how it divides now. Really we should be using 28.. that was the fastest for this camera but it wasn't freeing properly when allocated with the old method.

[teo770]

Fine tuning, fine tuning !
Which i knew enough C to help somehow....

[finnschi]

So, has anyone ever taken their camera apart so that we actually know what kind of SD controller is being used? if the controller has a maximum of 50MB/s , we have a known limit and know where we can go from here.

If the Controller is in fact better but SD cards are not up to speed yet, we can maybe hardware hack an SD card--> SSD (or CF) Adapter, the controller should be able to handle that, I am looking into how Sd cards work  but I should be able to run wires from a "blank" Sd Card to direct Sata Pins or IDE.... if there are CF->SD adapters, making it work the other way SHOULD be possible, maybe we need external power to run the CF but that should be the least problem...

UHS-1 Specs:    50 Mbyte/s (SDR50, DDR50)
                        104 Mbyte/s (SDR104)

if its a SDR104, we can make 1080p work Theoretically

If that does not work, another idea is to externally Raid0 SD cards

And then there is also the HDMI port, which is by far the fastest port we can use, I have all kinds of testing equipment for that stuff at hand, so if you can somehow get the raw signal out the HDMI port, I can probably build something to receive it.

[finnschi]

Also: I can confirm that with the latest Autoexec.bin  I am seeing Frame drops way more early than I did with the previous version

[finnschi]

One more thing: I Have really nasty pink/Green spots when filming in ISO 25600

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HVfljMyWZE

[1%]

HDMI is an off the shelf solution it works on the image too. Doubt we can make it just pass regular data.


Obviously its not SDR-104 or sandisk pro cards would be getting 90MB/s and we wouldn't have a problem. 208mhz speed not listed in the firmware.

Adapters aren't going to work... what could work is
*WIFI - if buffer sizes + write speeds are high enough
*WFT like USB disk through USB port or the grip.
*Opening camera and finding where the CF card connection is and if there is one on the 6D board (might as well install the headphone jack while you're in there)

6D is basically 99% 5d3 with a different sensor.

[finnschi]

*WIFI - if buffer sizes + write speeds are high enough
*WFT like USB disk through USB port or the grip.
*Opening camera and finding where the CF card connection is and if there is one on the 6D board (might as well install the headphone jack while you're in there)

I Like the Grip Idea,  totally forgot about that, is there any documentation on the Pins/controller?

I don´t think Wifi will work we will really only see 240 Mbit/s (if that)  and the WTF adapters uses the USB 2.0 Port (480Mbits)  , maybe we can ghetto-Raid  the SD and the USB card and then Merge the files , best solution I am seeing right now

[teo770]

Any chance we could use USB port to plug a USB CF card reader ?


I already know the answer.
Damn those cams doesn't run linux inside !!!
We could mount anything on this USB port !

[finnschi]

Any chance we could use USB port to plug a USB CF card reader ?


I already know the answer.
Damn those cams doesn't run linux inside !!!
We could mount anything on this USB port !

The WFT adapter (WFT-E7 i.e)  has a USB Host (and Gigabit lan..)  But the maximum Speed will be limited to 480Mbits  (60MByte/s)  (Theoretically)

So yes, you can connect a SSD Raid if you really want but it wont be any faster than a fast SD Card.. (USB Bottleneck)

[1%]

Yea but how much does a "fast" usb card cost vs a plain old USB hard drive? Sure it would have to be powered externally.. you could also use USB to CF but I think that would be too slow. If we get anything around 30-40MB/s its a workable solution.

Wfi does use memory and may not be so good performance wise, who knows. I think someone tried sending files and couldn't get much more than 20MB off.

I tried changing minimum chunk size to different things and we can only go worse.. Using the 32MB buffers cut at least 1MB off of write.. I'm writing at 27.x now where I was writing at 28.x-29... if 28MB works now I bet it will do the whole  31MB for me... it did when 28MB buffer size was previously elected. I think we need to hear from a1ex on how to fix it so it doesn't use values good for CF.