@storyboardcreativity, is there a 4K DCI 25 fps mode? It's not listed as a function on the camera under the PAL setting. Is there another way to access 4096 x 2160 at 25 fps with the cumulative patch in your repository? Cheers!

"released cumulative patch. It forces 100 Mb/s and All-Intra for these modes:

4K DCI 24 fps 4K DCI 25 fps 4K UHD 23.976 fps 4K UHD 24 fps 4K UHD 25 fps 4K UHD 29.97 fps FullHD 24 fps FullHD 25 fps FullHD 50 fps HD 50 fps HD 59.9401 fps HD 119.88 fps HD 239.76 fps

You can find "autoexec.ash" in repository. I did not test them, can't be sure that all works correctly. Check it by yourself."

Anyone selling?

3 x Zcam E1 zu verkaufen

3 Top funktionierende Kamera 1als Ersatzteile Lager

2 Remote-Modul Airbot System

1 Modul mit Videoausgang vom gleichen Hersteller

Standort Europa zu verkaufen

I have 3 x running ZCAM E1 international version plus 2 x 4 channel RC remote

and 1 Z Cam E1 for spare parts storage

Location Germany Europe and I am considering selling one or all

make me a realistic offer for an E1

I have 3 x Running ZCAM E1 international Version plus 2 x 4-channel RC remote

and 1 Z Cam E1 as a spare Parts Store

Location Europe and true am considering selling them

Nope

Nop no raw

On my BMMCC dng RAW on 1080 p60 Need sdcard 100mbit write Speed SanDisk Extreme PRO

NO.. live Stream on wlan lower than 400x600 ...Read on the last 15 Tabs you found all Information to E1

Max 1080p on hdmi only 60 fps....ok 30p Filming double same Frame

My setup for live music events and weddings:

3 x Zcam E1 started simultaneously as multicam recordings via remote.

In 3x 4k 30 Fps 3x the 100mbit hack --- 3x 128 Gb sandisk extreme pro

if there is little light, use lenses with at least F1.8 or F2 and switch off the automatics

The noise reduction set to low and a flat profile (less contrast, less color)

So I have achieved the best results with my 3 Zcam E3 even in low light

Good lenses !!! and time for color grading with Davinci Resolve are the most important things

meanwhile I use 2 x LM12XC KOWA manual lenses for the left and right stage cam

Set it once and let it run .. the hyperfocal distance at 12mm F2 makes it possibleI....I love this Lenses

I am selling mine iZugar Z4XL Remote Kabel Set on EBAY

Shipping woldwide with Tracking 10€

if you are interested , To special people i also make special prices

please contact here in the forum via private mail ... so that I can distinguish you from ebay customers

https://www.ebay.de/itm/133600176874

Noise that does not arise does not need to be removed.

The new panasonic / blackmagic red everywhere great importance is attached to good sensor cooling.

and the sensors were not operated up to the limmit.

Only Zcam claims that the noise is not a problem for you .....

Zcam has its external noise removal software to iron out noisy images again

Look the open BMPCC Pic

The huge success of BMPCC was partly due to the image quality .... the BMMCC had already cooled the sensor with a peltier element

@bob_hawk no improvement n video?

I first recreated the housing parts with 3D printing until they fit.

now a friend is milling the 20mm thick aluminum on a CNC machine As a finish, the aluminum fire red is anodized ...... the MN34230 sensor and Ambarella A9S75 are each cooled via a small peltier element with 15x15mm to the housing

I cool down to + 10C to avoid condensation.

Sorry Long Time AVK

when planning and testing the conversion of the e1 to active cooling, i came across a few interesting details

1.) sensor cooling of up to 50C to between 10 and 15C is most effective

2.) The cooling is almost invisible with video ( 3D noise reductin ) , with photo especially with ISO values ​​of more than 400 massively less noise

3.) After an update from Izuga E1 to the current Fw, the 1x1 resolution of 2500x2500 disappears this can be fixed / undone with a small hardware hack

My conversion of the E1 to active cooling has meanwhile become:

1.) E1 has become E2 housing hack with active cooling without a ventilator in which the chips and memory are also better cooled

2.) the Accu has grown to 1sLipo 1000mAh

3.) The New E1 box that looks like an RED e2 style eloxal Aluminium Housing 100x100x100mm

Guys, does anybody have iZugar E1 or iZugar's firmware? Are Z-CAM and iZugar E1 different?

@kurth Good question. I am awaiting the screen, and I will try it out on a number of cameras, including this one! Should be here at the end of next week. In principle, if this cam has a 1080 standard stream via HDMI it should work.

Hi, I have a zcam with its backpanel and buttons not working, so far I've been using it thru http. Something went off and I can not connect. Any chance to use the autoexec.ash to start with wifi on, or do a factory reset? Thanks

@storyboardcreativity how do you check for duplicate frames? If I have a program that reads them and deletes exactly same frame will that work?

So ssd must be 2times bigger than necessary if I understand well!! Sorry for these maybe stupid questions but : If I set e1 to 1080p 25fps, I can shoot in 1/50s, so hdmi will transport 1080p 50fps, which is 2 Time the same picture, record it to ssd in bm shuttle. If I create a project in da Vinci (or other edit software) that is 25fps, and I import the 50fps file, it just remove 1 on 2 frames? So it result with exactly the original 1080p 25fps captured by sensor?

Thanks Hugues

Thanks @stiryboardcreativity. So if I understand well you have to remove duplicate frame in post after the record in bm shuttle? It’s a pitty!!!

@zcream

I used old script for AE... yes, It's stupid :DDD

Used something like this: https://aescripts.com/duplicate-frame-remover/ Don't know for now, but a year ago it worked awful as shit - I had to remake script for new AE versions.

@storyboardcreativity that is 24p in 29.97p pulldown. How do you do this pulldown?

if I want to force hard drives to fill I load e1 4k30 material into Davinci and save it in h264 10bit

The following facts are known from data sheets

sensor 10bit max 4k30 4096p24 from Sensor

chipset 8bit e1 recording 60mbit ,,e1 100mbit hack

ALl data move within this framework

on the monitor out max 1080p60 even at 4k30 and the image data comes from the data stream that runs into the memory

(please read the data sheets for the chipset beforehand)

Such ideas have surfaced several times since this treat was created

Does the HDMI of the E1 allow more than 8 bits to be read No

where should 10 bits come from? certainly not from the chipset?

the E1 is what it is and will certainly not reach the performance of an E2 or the Bmmcc4k

Storryboard is the only one that has made real progress

THANK YOU Storyboarrdcreativity

So the shuttle 2 records at 48fps and you make it 24p in post? Or you record at 24p and it becomes 12p in post?

You posted that you used shuttle 2. That only records till 1080p30. How you record 1080p50 so you throw away every second frame?

And that's 25p inside 60i?

@storyboardcreativity how do you know it's 10-bit 444 over hdmi? It could be 8bit 420 in wrapper

@hugobors

You'll have to make a script to remove duplicate frames from Shuttle 2 recording result

@zcream, much better

@hugobors

I have Blackmagic Hyperdeck Shuttle 2 too. Checked, video is true 1920x1080 10-bit.

To reset to the factory settings you need to do the following:

1. Please press shutter+power+menu buttons at the same time until you can see there is a "test" in OLED then you can release the three buttons above.

2. Then camera will enter the factory mode, please go to the "factory reset" and click on it

3. At last, you can restart the camera by pressing the "power " button to use the camera again.

@storyboardcreativity

You mentioned above that you don’t get weird color artifacts as long as the camera is cold and recording externally (presumably because of less noise?)

Is there anything we can do about that? would you be able to output raw? Like cinema DNG or something? Does MJPEG still suffer from the color splotching?

i make on this weekend 720P240 and 960p120 Record with diffrent Firmware 0.28 0.30 and 0.31

2 Link to Youtube E1 slomo Video

and to my horror 120 Fps video under FW 0.31 without hack

I'm new to this site and probably violating a rule by post this here, but I like the people in this thread and wanted to offer to you guys first. I am selling my E1 on Ebay. It is listed at $349 USD, but if you let me know you are from personal-view, I will accept a $250 offer.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Z-CAM-E1-Ultra-High-Definition-Digital-Camera-4K-UHD-24FPS-16MP-MFT-Lens-Mount/254694133119

The presumably marketing to increase the distance to E2 What wonder under E2 came The Slog back For fast Work flow

@benolayinka, unfortunatelly, no. It's very difficult to find out how sensor modes are changed (we don't have special manual about Panasonic sensor and it's registers).

@Ksanford, unfortunatelly, zLog is VERY BAD in this camera. It's really shitty because of 8-bit color and H.264 compression. It can be usable only when your camera is cold and while you record video through external HDMI recorder.

Nice to know that you are fine in this problematic time

there are a few things you could help us with

I originally cloned the github project to my windows machine and tried to use the files directly without success. Ended up using notepad ++, turned on “show all characters”, and did the find and replace on the carriage returns that was posted earlier (page 7 I believe). Getting 101mbps now. Thanks for posting that fix.

I want to ask, what do people feel are the optimal settings for the e1? I’ve seen discussions around setting noise reduction to lowest setting but I get crazy noise, even at 100 iso, if I don’t do strong noise reduction. I’m also getting green and magenta artifacts when I shoot log and try to bring saturation back up. So I’m curious about noise reduction, sharpness, brightness, contrast, log vs rgb, and also what you guy last are doing in post to get the best image.

Unfortunately, I cannot understand why you have problems. unfortunately, "storyboardcreativity" is rarely here in the forum.

Thanks Bob Hawk! My card is SanDisk Extreme 128G (not pro)

1.) Have you Firmware 0.31 ?
2.) Use the cumulativ Hack ? 3.) the temperature of the housing rises ? 4.) What SD Card .

Best result with SANDISK Extreme PRO 64 or 128 gig

@orey10m

Jepp Deal i send you a private mail

Back to E1

The case mod goes into the next phase

1.) Remove accu, cut out direction to sensor for peltie element

2.) heat to the outside with a laptop cooler with heat pipe on the outside cooler

First test :Cool the sensor to 15-20 C to avoid condensation. This works very precisely at + - 0.5C

Second test : measured temperature of the "On Chip temp sensor" reduced from 42 C to 17C

On photo´s you can immediately see a drastic reduction in noise

"Noise that does not arise does not have to be removed"

A friend is currently using the 3D data from the E2 to adapt a housing for 3D printing

If that fits send it to printed in metal 3D

@Bob_Hawk

OK, lets go back almost 2 years in time, and Kinson Loo a brilliant marketing manager :-)

At the time they decided to go after cinema cameras market, instead of focusing on smaller, smarter cameras, especially suitable also for direct connection to computer (read games streamers, conference cam, and so on). And they did not want to hear anything, no arguments.

Note that almost all team expertise had been Ambarella processors and not the chips they use now.

Now they have amazing community and lot of good products (in small niche!), but as business goals are - Kinson decision had been badly wrong. They also abandoned almost all E1 users base (same error that Panasonic made gradually).

Actually all this webcamera drivers craze (Z-CAM also participated in this) already showed how right my position had been.

@ Vitaly-Kislev

probably not developed rather changed and slimmed down so that it doesn't stand out Unfortunately Zcam has changed the BF1 design on Zcam E1 with Sony "IMX159" to the panasonic sensor for cost reasons, to return to Sony "IMX159" with the Zcam C1, unfortunately this backward innovation was then officially discontinued in favor of the E2 the development was not end because it was still used in stereo and multikam systems

Are we 100% sure that cooling is the reason for these weird color effects that I'm seeing? I've attached a sample video. The effect I'm referring to is on the baby's arm. It looks like the color depth is reduced or "posterized" to just few shades. There isn't much noise anywhere else in the video beyond what I'd expect.

One method of reducing noise is to cool the camera. Generally, it will assumed that the thermal noise of a CMOS sensor with a temperature reduction is already halved by 7 ° C.

I have 3 Zcam E1 but One of my Z Cam E1 has a display defect, I've had it open a few times. its all standart not magic

The sensor is in contact with the front part of the battery compartment with a simple thermal paste, which is ideal for the LIPOs.!!!

I am currently in the process of converting them.

Accu out of the case, Peltie element on the sensor, with heat pipe heat out of the case

The processor is cooled with a copper sheet behind the display, in between is a sloppy thermal pad without air one of my E1 lacked the thermal pad,.

The SD card limited to 100Mbs, a SanDisk Extreme Pro has a write speed: up to 90 * MB / sec !!!!!

I like my 2 Zcam E1 still running but It is and remains an action cam with a 4/3 sensor with an internal 8 bit color and limited processor performance.

great distance from the colour and image quality of my BMMCC with 10bit ProRes ..

if you set the noise reduction to min and deactivate the lens correction and do it with davinci resolve, you will have gained more.

check if the use of the HDMI output (1080P) at 4k is noticeable in the image quality

thanks for the test result with the noise, you are probably right. the sensor of the E1 sometimes gets over 50 C during operation, the iphone app shows the sensor temp, because every sensor is noisy higher temp-higher Noise ,Blackmagic Cams have better cooling .

The 100mps makes itself felt drastically with movements and fast light changes by changing from a fixed 50 mps to a variable 100 mps. with static image without much movement you still have 50-60Mps with a lot of fast movements, it rises drastically to over 100Mps. Without mod, a lot of moving artifacts appear .

the processor in the E1 is very limited in performance, so I reduce the noise reduction in the camera and move it to davinci resolve

@storyboardcreativity Thanks so much for your awesome reverse engineering work!!

I’m trying to squeeze every last drop of performance out of this camera. It’s challenging I’m not gonna lie!

I used your UHD 4K 100Mbps script. It works well.

There are still issues I have with the image coming from this camera. The color fidelity is very off - showing lots of pink and green splotches in the shadow areas. I noticed that this is a very noisy sensor and maybe this color artifact comes from their 3D noise reduction. I saw earlier in this thread that you were making progress with disabling that. Have you managed to do so? I think if the chroma noise was more uniform the artifact would be less noticeable.

Also, I’m recording at 100 ISO, but I still get more sensor noise than I would expect at such a low ISO. Is the camera lying to me? I hope to get the sensor to record with no, to very low gain so that I can get back light using fast full frames lenses + speedbooster. Do you think you’d be able to investigate if we can get ISO less than 100?

Here’s a video sample:

The hack only work with FW 0.31.--With the other FW you risk a frozen or Kill your cam

The individual hack only change a very specific resolution. The cumulative hack only combines several resolutions.

Find out for yourself which : Resolutions - Frame rate and formats hack supports .

If you don't know exactly what you're doing with a hack, you risk turning your camera into a brick

Hack only Firmware 3.1 only the exact Size and fps Lower Fw Kills the Camera ...Overheat

@orey10m....jump thru the hoops like we all did

@Bob_Hawk

We have nice separate topic for this lens - http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/15754/42.5mm-f1.8-xiaoyi-macro-m43-lens/p1

In hack topic it will be few people who will find your note.

Imagine back then, when that was much more important.

Finally, something that was needed when the camera cane out.

Has anybody manged to overclock the circuites to get 4kp48/50 at 2.41:1 ratio (to help reduce the amount of overclocking needed), or to try a little under rez window at 2.41:1 to get it closer again to normal?

One of the developers told me the camera uses a 1080 HDMI part a long time ago, and that's why it's limited to 1080. If only the camera could have done 200mb/s 4kp50/60 with a little better pixel format, with clean HDMI out, can you imagine what a camera it could have been?

Unzip the File and Copy the ash File from Folter to micro cf Card ........And use it

!!!!!!!! to learn what you are doing .... read the chat history from the beginning.

!!!!!! that's hard ... but that's how you learn

storyboard has answered all your questions at least once already

Ok I just went to my SD card and opened the autoexec.ash and this is what I have on my card.

Strangely whats showing here doesn't show the # that are present at the beginning of each paragraph.

change VBR max percent from average bitrate

writeb 0x04136E94 0xA0

4K UHD 29.97 fps

writel 0x044CAF00 0x03E7FFFF writel 0x044CAF1C 0x00000001 writeb 0x044CAF20 0x03

4K UHD 24 fps

writel 0x044CAF54 0x03E7FFFF writel 0x044CAF70 0x00000001 writeb 0x044CAF74 0x03

HD 239.76 fps

writel 0x044CB0F8 0x03E7FFFF writel 0x044CB114 0x00000001 writeb 0x044CB118 0x03

HD 59.9401 fps

writel 0x044CB1A0 0x03E7FFFF writel 0x044CB1BC 0x00000001 writeb 0x044CB1C0 0x03

4K DCI 25 fps

writel 0x044CB3EC 0x03E7FFFF writel 0x044CB408 0x00000001 writeb 0x044CB40C 0x03

4K UHD 23.976 fps

writel 0x044CB494 0x03E7FFFF writel 0x044CB4B0 0x00000001 writeb 0x044CB4B4 0x03

4K DCI 24 fps

writel 0x044CB788 0x03E7FFFF writel 0x044CB7A4 0x00000001 writeb 0x044CB7A8 0x03

4K UHD 25 fps

writel 0x044CB92C 0x03E7FFFF writel 0x044CB948 0x00000001 writeb 0x044CB94C 0x03

FullHD 50 fps

writel 0x044CB980 0x03E7FFFF writel 0x044CB99C 0x00000001 writeb 0x044CB9A0 0x03

FullHD 25 fps

writel 0x044CB9D4 0x03E7FFFF writel 0x044CB9F0 0x00000001 writeb 0x044CB9F4 0x03

HD 50 fps

writel 0x044CBA28 0x03E7FFFF writel 0x044CBA44 0x00000001 writeb 0x044CBA48 0x03

FullHD 25 fps

writel 0x044CBB24 0x03E7FFFF writel 0x044CBB40 0x00000001 writeb 0x044CBB44 0x03

HD 119.88 fps

writel 0x044CBD1C 0x03E7FFFF writel 0x044CBD38 0x00000001 writeb 0x044CBD3C 0x03

FullHD 24 fps

writel 0x044CBE18 0x03E7FFFF writel 0x044CBE34 0x00000001 writeb 0x044CBE38 0x03

I have the camera updated to .031 and I have tried downloading the zip file and I have tried getting the file using the raw button then "save as" and I am still only getting 57837kbps.

What the heck am I doing wrong?

-> Go to the file you want to download.

-> Click to display the content within the GitHub UI.

-> press upper right on RAW key .--> pic 2

-> Right click -> Save as ... -> pic 3 and change the name From--> autoexec.ash.txt !!

--> To -> autoexec.ash <-- delete the ending -> .txt !!!!!!!!   Tip ---> create a folder with subfolders with the respective name !!! because all files are called autoexec.ash

E1 CFG Data-->linux type cfg. data type not load in forum... call me i send with mail

Just found this thread -- pretty amazing work, storyboard.

For those having problems creating their own autoexec.ash file, in Windows I had to delete the carriage return characters, but keep the new line characters. I also made sure the last line was followed by a new line. Either way, it worked after I made those changes.

If just copy/pasting from Github, Windows might insert /n/r. I used Notepad++ to remove them by replacing /r with nothing. I've attached my custom ASH for example that works; it just needs to be renamed appropriately.

Side comment/question/request,

It was mentioned on page 10 that Storyboard saw support for 4K over HDMI? For the life of me I haven't been able to get 4K to work over HDMI yet with the E1; just 1080p. My 4K capture device works great with my Panasonic G85, clean 4:2:2 4K out over HDMI, so I'm not sure its an issue there.

Considering how hot my ZCAM E1 gets when recording to SD card @ 4K, I'm hoping to instead record over HDMI to try to reduce the load on it; perhaps do some real-time noise reduction with my Nvidia RTX prior to compression.

cofhal

You can check the bit rate of a recorded file by looking at its properties. On the second tab of the details it should show you the bit rate stock it should be around 60,000 if the patch is working 100,000

let us know what you find?

Guys, sorry for my big delays between messages. I'm very busy with "true-resolution slow motion" hack. Still can't find what registers I need to change for MN34230 sensor. Where can I find documentation for this Panasonic sensor? Any ideas?

This still doesn't work for me @kurth :( I was doing that already (saving the fiel from RAW) and if its line return related, my files were already using UNIX format line returns (I use Notepad ++ all day and this confirms it was already in that format).

How bizzare, what could I be doing wrong... my understanding is that with the 'Cumulative Patch' file (not edited after downloading) I should be able to select any standard 4k format for video recording and it will just work. Am I missing something there? Are there other settings in the camera that need to be set to specific things ?

You don't still have the download of the firmware do you in case its different to the one currently hosted by zcam ?

I downloaded the v31 from the zcam site a few weeks ago and have just gotten around to trying this and it just doesn't seem to work. I get peaks of 65/70mbps occasionally but it still seems to be recording at around 60mbps on the whole. Did zcam release anew version of the v31 firmware that stops this from working or am I using a setting that doesn't work ? To clarify, I'm using the cumulative patch from the github page.

@storyboardcreativity, my mistake: I meant to say that in FW 0.30 only HD video is output to HDMI. I have not yet tried 4k HDMI output with FW 0.31. In any case, the HDMI output is always an uncompressed signal, correct?

@storyboardcreativity, Will the Z-cam E1 WITH the cumulative patch output 4k over HDMI? It does not with the normal FW 0.31. Also, could a similar patch be used for the Z-CAM S1 VR ? It has four lenses and SONY Exmore sensors...

@RussianBlue, I very often use my own patches for making videos and never had problems with overheat before (I always record 4K + record with external HDMI recorder). I can try to check it soon.

@Bob_Hawk, wow, I did not think that somebody can donate me for my development. I don't even have patreon or anything else. I'll think about it. Thank you!

About "auto_wifi" mod - I think, it's not difficult. I'll try to do it very soon.

Storryboard I would like to thank you for your excellent development and donate me financially

25 € in any case

if that with the automatic wifi when turn on or the complete display of the internal dispay on HDMI output

Does this work worth 50 € for me as an amateur

PayPal ...or other Way

My Tricki Crop Video intrest for 1" or 2/3" lenses

I've noticed that when pipe sends 1536x288, from sensor we get 1536x384. Seems that we still can increase resolution for capturing slow motion.

Just could bypass tuning system of E1. Now video is not resized in 120 fps and 240 fps mode (you get real 1536x512 and 1536x288 videos on sd-card). It can help to reduce amount of artifacts (because pipeline before was: sensor -> pipe -> resize -> MCTF -> h.264 -> sd-card). There were a lot of artifacts after video resizing. Now next target is to reduce steps between sensor lines that are read during capture (because now video seems "flattened" vertically).

Why does eric such a shit !! The sensor had a 2x2 mode for 1080p and a 3x3 mode for 720p240 I have a suspicion In one of the earlier versions before 0.31, Zcam had shown a great 720p240 video with a bursting water-filled air balloon ??? it would be interesting to check the last update and the version of IZugar, which still sells the e1

@storyboarrdcreativity have you any cance the 4k24 push to 4k30 ? , and Auto Switch on wifi ...this was a Killer Future For E1 with Defekt Displays

He have nothing intrest on Zcam E1 Update

@storyboardcreativity

Try Z-CAM :-) They have big shortage of people.

How can I check that the patches are really working? I copy these to the microSD but when I turn on the camera I don't see any changes.

on 1080p30 its lower / 1080p60 50-60Mpbps / record on 4k and you come to 80to90Mpbps

Sorry Unfortunately, full HD 30P 60P is missing

@PeterLesbo see the download link in this Facebook post from Z CAM https://www.facebook.com/groups/175043642931144/permalink/564716383963866/

Note: Don't install on iZugar model E1 or you will lose the 1:1 aspect ratio for VR180/360.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev, no, I can't. E1 can play only 4:2:0 AVC MOV files and show JPGs (4:2:2). No any way for me to show RAW files or anything else.

"when you choose "720P 240 FPS" mode, actual readout from sensor is 1536x288! " Isn't it 1546x384 cropped down from 3x9 binning output (1576x394)?

Hey, does anybody need to view all screen OSD from LCD on HDMI? (I mean menus, settings and etc.)

@Bob_Hawk, I need 24p HDMI out because I record in 24p. I don't know what to do =/

24p it's nothing the framerate komm from Monitor on Auto

The Video out on the E1 it's Max 1080p on 4k its only 1080P

You can Record 4k 25 and Monitor 1080p 50

@Vitaliy_Kiselev, is it possible to view files on E1?

@samuelcabral, I'm not sure about it. Data is packed as 4:4:4 but it can be 4:2:2 from DSP. We need somebody to test it because my recorder can only write 4:2:2 to SSD

GUYS!!! GREEN SCREEN IS TOTALLY FIXED! Blackmagic Shuttle 2 wants YUV 4:4:4 signal out from camera's HDMI, but in E1 it's forced to RGB. I've made it to use YUV 4:4:4 through HDMI - result you can see in pictures below. Some little things left, like make sure it's real 10-bit color. I'll upload fix to my repository: http://github.com/storyboardcreativity/Z-Camera-E1-Reverse-Engineering

I need some help from E1 users. Do you have any problems with HDMI out? On my 0.31 version I have frozen picture on LCD when HDMI is connected and after some idle time HDMI out signal is frozen too. Is it ok? :D

@ Vitaliy_Kiselev

I see! Thank you.

Do you know the statistics for the HDMI out? Is it 10bit from the sensor or 8bit from the chip? Could I use a 4:2:2 external recorder?

Sorry for the silly question.

Hi! New here. Thank you so much for this!!

Can anyone tell me if this affects the HDMI output at all?

I use my E1 connected to a capture card on my PC so higher bitrate HDMI out would be amazing!

@rjhinde, I wrote a letter to Z Cam with some questions about slow motion on E1. It will be better if it's possible to read only top sensor part (still 1536x288, but without subsampling). It can make quality much better.

I got my E1 with the Izugar Fw 0.28   after the update to the then official 0.29 fw a few features disappeared company policy?

Hey, guys! New info about E1 firmware internals: when you choose "720P 240 FPS" mode, actual readout from sensor is 1536x288! Than frame is interpolated to 1280x720 and encoded. So, it looks like a foul play from Z Cam :)

I actually looked around the older firmware before encryption and couldn't find anything resembling a key (which is not to say it doesn't exist). It may actually be in a part of the camera not changed by firmware (which would mean breaking it would be pretty much permanent).

If it's just spelunking for features, though, I am already able to do that without breaking the firmware. There's another backdoor in. Is there one in particular that you're interested in?

If you can find an older E2 firmware package, they didn't bother with any sort of encryption. You can just unzip it and look around. The newer ones use zip encryption - so it's not entirely unbreakable, but much more time-consuming if you care to do it.

The E2 firmware is mostly just a ucLinux OS. The camera-specific stuff (mostly) is in a single executable file. I haven't seen any reason to mess with it, though, since the current quality/features are already fine.

@storyboardcreativity

Make sure to make it public. And also look for E2 firmware :-) may be some knowledge can be used.

at 4k30 and 100mbs1gop hack the temperature displayed in the ios app rises to 41 degrees and remains stable there, at 1080p30 the temperature is lowest 35-38C , at 1080p60 it is almost back to 40C, this comes from the way the sensor is read out. The sensor is cooled over the front and the bottom plate, I taped the hoset and the ground with 1/4 thread on a large file plan and screwed with thermal grease on a cage for cooling . the chipset sits behind the screen, which seems to produce less heat

@zcream, ok. I think, it's not a temperature problem. Because A9 is a SoC with ARM as a main CPU. I mean if temperature interruption comes, ARM will receive it (not DSP)

Temperature issue can be solved by removing outside plastic box, just keep the internal circuit and an external fan.. They did not design for airflow so that could be the issue.

Z-Cam supported the crappy E1 (that most people bought for $200 and then whined about how it wasn't as good as more expensive cameras) (I was on the kickstarter and it was a $700 camera for me - which I hated, sold, and never have to worry about again) with new firmware updates for longer than other companies supported much more expensive cameras. I wouldn't expect much more in the way of updates for the E1.

It also seems like a number of the problems with that camera came from their choice to use a third-party chipset which, itself, had a number of problems.

@CFreak, I've made first version of RTOS logging firmware version and... I bricked my camera :DDD

Camera still starts up without sd-card (when it can't find sd-card, it does not try to write log) - I can reupload old firmware. But it's funny :)

Well, they made a lot of promises and released a camera with a lot of issues (sync sound being one of them). Then release a new product and only support the E1 when resources allow. They never officially out up FW 0.31 on the E1 support page and make you download it through google drive. It's all a little suspect in my humble opinion. Keep up the good work @storyboardcreativity!

@Vitaliy_Kiselev, you said:

_ Yet I can try to talk about any small help._

@Vitaliy_Kiselev, any info about SDK?

Vitali .. or Zcam give the linux code Open Source

@zcream and @Vitaliy_Kiselev, I already have sources for another camera with Ambarella SoC (full SDK without DSP microcode sources). It helps me to reverse-engineer API calls (obviously, prototypes are the same). E1 sources can be very interesting because of some things I can't understand now:

• We can't set h264 bitrate higher than 65535999 (Real bitrate = our value % 65536000)
• For some reason ambash logging system to file does not work (but code exists and is executed for each command)
• Camera freezes after some time of recording when we increase VBR percent and overall bitrate is higher than 100 Mb/s (no messages, just freeze). Because of no any logging we can't understand the reason. But we know, that 100 Mb/s is NOT a highest bitrate possible (MJPEG works on ~200 Mb/s)

Bitrate problems are not in RTOS code. It's in DSP microcode. But I don't know, how to reverse it :c

@zcream

I can try to talk about any small help.

Perhaps @vitaliy_kiselev can get the source code from his friends at z-cam

@storyboardcreativity '>' and '>>' should work but not every shell command gives output.

Linux to RTOS communication is possible with dbus which seems to be disabled here.

@nutsey, yes. But it's difficult because I can't get ambash log (it does not write terminal history to file - reconstructing debug routines that were not compiled is very difficult).

(">" symbol does not work too - example: {command} > c:\1.txt)

"Do you work with E1 firmware too?"

Not really as I don't have the cam but I'm looking for a chance to get one used. I've got some experience with other Amba A7/A9/A12/H22 devices.

"I need real address in RAM because I work with memory map."

I can be wrong but it seems like the adj settings are loaded into memory before ambashell script. Anyway you can locate the memory offset for this byte by searching for the surrounding bytes as it is loaded as binary.

MCTF on/off control byte should be at 0x5A10D8 in 0.31 fw file.

@storyboardcreativity

16MB: 0x4000000-0x5000000

savebin c:\dump.bin 0x4000000 l 16777216

@storyboardcreativity

Could you please share a memory dump saved with savebin shell command?

@storyboardcreativity

Can film same lit wall and make noise statistics :-)

This would be perfect greenscreen camera with low nr and 422 mode mjpeg

@Bob_Hawk, MCTF = Motion Compensated Temporal Filtering (one of the noise reduction types). It's often used to increase frame quality when bitrate is reduced. In E1 menu we can't disable reduction - we can only set between weak/normal/strong noise reduction.

I'm close to find out how to disable MCTF in this camera. Seems to be a very good patch

Do you have the usb port to transfer files? I have not, I've tried with different cables and systems.

the camera detects that it has been connected but without any other action on the pc

@storyboardcreativity

a question, I do not look for better colors, only better image, believes that mjpeg ( same or lower bit rate ) is giving better result than mov?

I have faith that something can be done to have a better raw image, photos 16:9 format , better automatic focus (it gets worse even at 1080 60fps), i just use 4k 30fps, I understand that maybe the focus peak in the camera seems to be out of reach

grateful

Hdmi Monitor can Change Manuel relevant 720p and 1080p60 , over Record 1080p crop , 4k to 1080p60 fix Good use on my 7* Monitor with focus peaking

@kurth, you said:

@storyboardcreativity ....perfect ! You're the man...or woman? <...> And @storyboardcreativity....what were you running that got mjpeg at 200mbps ?

I'm man, does it matter? :DDD

About 200 Mb/s - I've made a patch, that helps to change MJPEG quality percent (to any value from 0% to 100%). Unfortunately, MJPEG's bitrate can't be controlled through this value, and bitrate depends on frame difficulty (it can work normally, but fall into "slow card" message on complicated scenes). You can find percent patch in my repository

@Bob_Hawk see https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4274713

@Bob_Hawk, "MB/s" and "Mb/s" are different:

MB/s - Megabytes per second

Mb/s - Megabits per second

Storyboardcreativity have you found data for a save Hack with 80 - 90mbs 1gop ? on Limit or litel bit under the Limit from SD cart I use with Hack -- SANDISK EXTREME PRO 64 or 128 with write max 90 MB/s
Without Hack -- works fine SANDISK EXTREME SD UHS-I 128Gb write max 60 MB/s Without Hack on 1080p60 works fine SANDISK EXTREME SD UHS-I write max 40 MB/s !!!! SANDISK EXTREME it`s to slow with Hack .....fail pics

With the hack one should consider a few things the camera gets a lot hotter with the 100mbs1gop hack. Attention Read the data sheet of the sensor !! The Hotter the sensor the more noise The Themeratur is significantly higher ! I'm getting an IR Digital Thermometer tonight and will make a video about it tomorrow .. I will also remove the battery from the camera and measure the power consumption without and with hack.

I'm at a small rock band at the mixer and dokomentation with the E1 our appearances ,while the E1 is up to 5 hours running on the power supply with Accu. Last Night Record 6x64Gb sd 2x128Gb Sd !! full

On this Time Record Without Hack ... So far with hack the risk is too high for me on this Time .

There are some E1 the heat dead Died weak point internal power supply and sensor is at 4K30p like times over 50 degrees C Hot.

I test bevor i kill my cam --- it by quickly removing the lens and IR measurement

Checked zLog mode with MJPEG - much better (with higher quality percent is much-much better)

@pureaxis, according to MN34230 datasheet: "Full scan 10bit mode (22.5 fps)"

all the photos whatever they are in dng have a size of 30.8 mb ... this seems strange to me ... I think something is not optimized ... the truth the quality should be better in less file size

thank you very much @storyboardcreativity, maybe out zlog, only normal mode you can make something, let's have faith of all the good things that come

Thank you for your answers

The difficulty is not having an external monitor for continuous video recording. I have noticed how deficient the automatic focus mode, I hope we can do something

in relation to having DNG photographs in 16: 9 format do you have any ideas?

any improvement for the great compression and lack of detail in dng?

I don’t think peaking is possible as it probably require coding new features. I’m just hoping for an open gate mode that captures full width of the sensor.

@MikeLinn, that's a very strange situation lol

I have a little inside from Z Cam - I spoke to one of the developers and he said that they don't like Ambarella SoC's very much. They said that their SDK is very buggy and they don't get any support from Ambarella. Now Z Cam change their vendor because of these problems.

You know that Z-CAM had been founded by ex Ambarella engineers, right? :-)

Is it possible to set chroma 422 in mjpeg mode? Perhaps 420 error is only for h.264

Finally bought a used E1, and it seems to have a native 4:3 mode in 2k, I wonder if the resolution can be bumped up like the GH4 all photo mode

Hey, have some news. H.264 is not limited by sd-card speed. I know, these words seems funny, but it's real. When I make card slower, H.264 recording says "slow card". But when I increase bitrate instead of slowing sd-card, I get camera frozen after some seconds of recording.

What can be the reason of this behavior?

I think, that there is a buffer between DSP and File-writing threads, that becomes full before file-writing thread catches blocks. I tried to change some bytes to non-instruction to watch behavior of camera when it reaches it. Same result. Camera is just frozen.

Got info from camera about sd-card frequency: it's 72 000 000 Hz (72 MHz). I use SanDisk Extreme 32GB card (UHS-I U3).

I'll try to increase frequency (now I have an ability to check, if it works or not).

@Vitaliy_Kiselev, as I see, half of the binary is made of debug strings :D

Yes, seems like Little-Endian ARM. It will take some time to understand, how it works...

The fact that the 1080p hack froze my camera, versus recording 10 or so seconds like the 4k hacks gave me pause, and I tried multiple times with the same result. But It's good to hear you've tested all of them and they work on your card. Yes...I know what card I need already, thank you. But I live in Mexico and just can't creditcard amazon to bring it to my door. I was able to successfully download it using edge, so it was a browser problem, but vimeo also was windowing a message that said " sorry we have a small problem" or something to that effect. @jleo...thanks for thinking of that possibility.

@kurth If Vimeo is truly admitting to you it has problems, then I will report that to them - exactly because I pay money so that you can download. What country are you in?

I have tested all these hacks and they work fine on my u3 V30 Sandisk microsd card. If you are going to up the bitrate, you need a faster card that is reliable.

I strongly recommend a V30 u3 Sandisk card. For example, the DJI Osmo Pocket web site has a list of recommended cards. That camera shoots at 100 Mbps, just like the E1 with hack. Your card is not listed, mine is.

ok....fast test. 4k, uhd 24p and dci 24p appear to be functioning, as well as 720/120p. But my 1080 24p freezes after 3 seconds. I've only got a class10 card, but I get 10-11 seconds of 4k before it stops, and when it stops, it gives me a "slow card" warning, unlike the 1080 which just freezes, and then I've got to shutdown the camera to unfreeze it. Hopefully someone with an extreme microsd card will test.

@markr041..problem is download has failed 3x. I think vimeo is having problems.

@storyboardcreativity ....perfect ! You're the man...or woman? @markr041....thanks for the test. I don't have a 4k monitor but I'm thinking I still see a little mud in the water. Could be my comp though. I'm on an internet comp not my workstation. I'd like to hear what @LPowell thinks. And @storyboardcreativity....what were you running that got mjpeg at 200mbps ?

@markr041, good job! Thank you for the tests.

Stress Test 4K Video at 100 Mbps: Flowing Water and Moving People

@storyboardcreativity Sorry, of course I meant the possibility for not 50-60 MB/s but 50-60 Mb/s for HD :)

@storyboardcreativity you came here originally for a reason....we all know why....you should stay here for the same reason. Github is for coders, not photographers, or videographers. Thanks. You did a great job. I personally would like to see a patch for the 720/120/240p. And for 1080p @100mbps. That might be where this little camera shines.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev, lol that means bugs will not be fixed. If they need it => they do it

And it's better if people post issues to my github (for example, if camera has bugs, I can try to solve them).

@AdvUser, yes, 100 Mb/s 4K 25 fps possible. I'll do this patch soon. But 50-60 MB/s is not possible now due to UHS bus (I try to overclock it, but it does not work now).

gracias!

@rjhinde....thanks...did that but can't see where notepad++ saves to .ash...not in save file as, nor in preferences. Is it language>actionscript ? Nope....that ain't it !

What I like to have explained is how to combine 2 or more .ash files on the card ?

@kurth, thanks - I figured it had to be a line return thing and found the raw button eventually. I think that there may well be others like myself who are not regular Github users and will fall into the same trap.

Now, what configuration changes are possible and what values are acceptable?

Hello. Alot of us would love to see this applied to the 2432x2432 firmware! Is 60fps on 2432x2432 still impossible for the E1?

Hello it is possible for E1 a pach to make the file at the high frame rates 120FPS soo save the recording at 120Fps in the playback but with 30FPS is played back for slow motion

@storyboardcreativity - I don't have the camera in front of me, but if using it as a streaming device my memory is you can output 720p and 1080p through the mini hdmi port? Just wondering if the faster bitrate can be pushed out here?

I don't use facebook. No account and don't want one.

Anyway, I found the 0.31 FW by googling.

Thanks for the patches, I'll give them a try.

Z CAM E1 new firmware release 0.31.

• 4K 24fps audio sync bug fix.
• Shutter setting reset bug fix.
• Revised ZLog with LUT.
• Minor bug fixes.

Upgrade procedures:

1) Make sure a fully charged battery is put in the Z CAM E1.

2) Download the latest firmware release: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XSUJiRV0bo_ebzkuOCF5hKgEtZqY4MQR?fbclid=IwAR1Oap3FFF4vErBCUDxdPxhZNeD7UN3pcPWTUAsJvqG4jnSVrCCEXaSxmGk

3) Save the firmware file E1Fw.bin to root directory of the Micro SD card.

4) Insert the Micro SD card to Z CAM E1 and turn on the camera.

5) Choose “Version” in the Setup menu, then select OK to proceed with the upgrade.

LUT for ZLog: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jm5OYzotpEZp83rzh99fKSs4AWGShX0Z/view?fbclid=IwAR2BQSmboSKbRyponZQGXLREKzNO965aNR97TAAkSmoMF6wNbU1cRopdSD0

@Chumby, thanks. I'll do these patches for you soon.

@spacewig MJPEG files are about 133 Mbps in DCI 4k @ 24p

Out of curiousity, what bitrate are the MJPEG files?

@spacewig, yes, it does real 24p.

Tip: if you need, you always can use "Interpret footage" function to change framerate of 23.976 fps video.

About 1080 100 Mb/s: yes it's possible. What framerate do you need?

1080 24p always reads as 23.96 fps in Premiere pro. Does 4K 24p actually shoot at 24 frames per second?

Just tried to make a firmware with 100 MHz patch for micro-sd card. Seems like it does not work - recording 120 Mb/s footage freezes after ~7 seconds after start.

@storyboardcreativity Without the patch it only does 30 Mbps, but it does give you a full sensor 4:3 readout at a resolution of 2304x1728 (same angle of view in stills mode), i'm guessing the MJPEG patch triggered a bug in this mode.

@storyboardcreativity A new firmware would be great with all those patches included, I tested the MJPEG patch today and i got a bit rate of 133 Mbps in DCI 4K. You're right the 2160p mode is actually 2880 x 2160p it's not just cropped but it's also not 4K. But i did come across something very interesting in the 1728p mode it tried to write the footage @ 479 Mbps, but couldn't write onto the card, popped up with a message saying, the card is slow. Video: MJPA 2304x1728 29.97fps 479812kbps [V: IMAGINE VISION .JPG [eng] (mjpeg, yuvj420p, 2304x1728, 479812 kb/s)] Audio: AAC 48000Hz stereo 128kbps [A: IMAGINE VISION AAC [eng] (aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, 128 kb/s)]

@Greenidge, 2160P24 is NOT a full sensor readout. You can compare any still shooting mode and 2160P24 - difference is visible (angle of view is very different). 2160P24 reads only center of sensor.

@Greenidge, just checked - it writes 24 fps, not 23.976. I'll make a patch with bitrate and GOP for it.

@CFreak Are you in the upper midwest in the US? It sounds like my family and friends at home in MN are getting dumped on too.

One thing that can be also useful is transfer some patches to Yi M1 (that uses similar config).

We had some reference to decoding/encoding firmware (it had some small bugs) in Yi M1 topic.

@storyboardcreativity yes I can provide some, next time I am near my studio computer, today we are getting snow & iced in, and my current daily work is for a client at another location, so it may take a few days to get to the footage. I shot a MacBeth color chart of every camera for that job under a tungsten light and utilizing the in camera 3200 degree kelvin settings, so that test footage would be the most informative for you. In post (Premiere Pro cc2017) I used an eyedropper tool to white balance each camera to the white patch on the MacBeth chart and the E1 was the farthest out of them all (Sony FS5, 2x AX100, GH4, E1).

@CFreak, can you provide comparison between GH4 and E1 footages? It will be very interesting to watch.

Greenidge, yes, Ambarella allows 240 Mb/s. But I don't know, how to overclock SD-card UHS bus. Did anybody see any other Ambarella firmware with same SD-card hack?

Another part is adjustment of noise reduction.

@storyboardcreativity I'm in South America for another 6 weeks and it's all on my computer at home. From what I remember, it usually just looked pretty bad in comparison to the other cameras I was using as A/B cameras (Sony/Panasonic) and even in log mode, it was not very forgiving to even slight over/under exposure issues. I would expect that at 150% of the shipping bitrate, it would look a lot better. 60 megabits just isn't great for 4k footage.

@eatstoomuchjam, can you give me an example of your footage, that you did not like? I'm just interested, what can be solved in firmware to make it better.

4:3 aspect ratio allow for the use of 2x anamorphics, also uses the entire sensor since the GH4 has a 4:3 sensor.

@pureaxis, well, why don't you want to use other resolutions? Or you need 60 fps?

Here is MN34230 (GH4 and E1 sensor) datasheet: https://industrial.panasonic.com/content/data/SC/ds/ds4/MN34230PL_E.pdf

I can try to find hardware access to sensor and change constants, but... I'm not sure 2.7K 60 fps is possible.

GoPro Hero 5 can shoot in native 2.7k 2704x2028 in 4:3 aspect ratio so I was wondering if the E1 can support that too

Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 4096x2160 24fps 101036kbps [V: IMAGINE VISION .AVC [eng] (h264 high L5.1, yuv420p, 4096x2160, 101036 kb/s)] Audio: AAC 48000Hz stereo 128kbps [A: IMAGINE VISION AAC [eng] (aac lc, 48000 Hz, stereo, 128 kb/s)]

These are stats from a test I just did in DCI 4k 24p with the patch applied. 101036kbps = 101Mbps (so the bit rate is definitely better than the default 60Mbps) The colour space is yuv420p which is a 4:2:0 colour space, if that can be bumped up to a yuv422p (4:2:2) colour space, it would make this a killer camera.

I used this patch (4096x2160 mode 100 Mbps bitrate patch), can't tell if it's All-Intra or Long GOP

@LPowell

Made patches for 3840x2160 29.97 fps. Check github: https://github.com/storyboardcreativity/Z-Camera-E1-Reverse-Engineering

Try to use it, seems stable. Screenshot with 100 Mb/s bitrate is attached below.

can the hack do a 2.7K 4:3 mode like the GoPro 5?

Great work, storyboardcreativity! Can you release a VBR patch for 3840x2160 in 30p (and preferably 25p and 24p as well)? I'd also be interested in an All-I patch for 1080p mode in the same framerates. I'll be happy to reciprocate as a Beta tester, if that would be helpful.

@Greenidge

Yes, I've done MJPEG and All-Intra patches too. But they now still record in 8bit 4:2:0.

If you need, I can increase bitrate and make All-Intra for any recording mode (now it's done only for 4K DCI 24 fps). My next task is to get 4:2:2 (but I'm not sure it's possible - it will take much time to reverse encode-related code).