M230 with bitrate hack

M230 with bitrate hack
Messing around with settings from a M225's USP.BIN file produced strange results on a M230. After narrowing it down to forumer.com/viewtopic.php?p=27903#27903>the single setting that increased the bitrate, I got rid of the brightness problems, but the bitrate is far higher than I witnessed on a M220 (which produced roughly 10MB per minute). On the M230 however, a 42-second clip took up an incredible 15.8MB of space! Here is part of that clip This undoubtably makes the M230 the undisputed "king of quality" (yes, it's a higher bitrate than even the M225 uses!). Now if only it had more flash storage... 8)

that is astonishing quality. :twisted: windows media player shows it as giving 3372Kbps , but even so, if you try 640x480 this could be as good as a higher priced digital recorder so putting 7F at offset x1c0 and 00 at x1c1 gave you that high bitrate? wow! its interesting, the M200 has that value at that location already, but i'm guessing PD changed many things around in the two M200 and M230 (M225) usp.bin's - i think this is a big find on your part - well done! too bad the imager is still so lacking in the detail this hack can give Hex location - M225 ----- M200 1AA: ....... 78 .......... 6C 1AB: ....... 08 .......... 0F 1B1: ....... 02 .......... 03 1BA: ....... 1B .......... 00 1BF: ....... 3C .......... 60 1C0: ....... 00 .......... 7F 1C1: ....... 02 .......... 00 1C3: ....... 1E .......... 14 1C6: ....... 84 .......... 86 1C8: ....... 80 .......... 40 1C9: ....... 02 .......... 01 1CA: ....... E0 .......... F0 1CB: ....... 01 .......... 00 1CF: ....... 1B .......... 1E 1D0: ....... 05 .......... 06 1D1: ....... 23 .......... 19 1D2: ....... 00 .......... 20 1D7: ....... 06 .......... 28 1D8: ....... 10 .......... 32 1D9: ....... 0B .......... 00 1DC: ....... 10 .......... 04 1DE: ....... 00 .......... 04 1E2: ....... 08 .......... 10 1E3: ....... C0 .......... 5C 1E5: ....... 10 .......... 0A 7FE: ....... F0 .......... 00 7FF: ....... 7F .......... 00 27 difference(s) found.

Excellent bit crawling GotAnMp3! Now why would any one want an older Coach 7 model? Note the only currently hacked model 230s required either key-catch or continuous-power (both originating as ideas from the ex moderating eye).

Wow! That's impressive GotAnMP3... You've been working on overdrive lately!

so putting 7F at offset x1c0 and 00 at x1c1 gave you that high bitrate? wow! 7F 00 is the default setting, I changed it to 00 02, matching the setting present in the M225's USP.BIN. Don't thank me, thank PureDigital for giving us a bunch of known-good settings to play with from the M225. 8) And yes, it works at 640x480 - I just wanted to post something that's slightly less massive.

Does this cut down your recording time or is it still around 20 minutes? This is of course using the default resolution.

Does this cut down your recording time or is it still around 20 minutes? This is of course using the default resolution. At the default resolution on a M230, you'll run out of space in about 5 minutes (calculated, haven't actually -*test*-('")ed it). I left the soft limit and hard limits unchanged from default. The M220 seems to generate 10 megs per minute with the same settings, so I'm guessing roughly 12 minutes before it fills up. There is a way to get that kind of quality and have more recording time: someone's gotta figure out a working method of upgrading the flash chip. :twisted:

Even if we can't get a new flash chip for a while, once we figure out how to modify the firmware, we could stream video. The ideal trick would be to pre-write the unlock word to \"unlocked\" like the PV2, so we could use the Aiptek drivers without futzing around. If we could get the cam to stream 640x480 with that quality, we might be on to something. :)

HEX Setting (0001) Resolution (320*240) Data rate (182kbps) Generated File size (10.7mb) HEX Setting (0002) Resolution (320*240) Data rate (215kbps) Generated File size (12.6mb) HEX Setting (0003) Resolution (320*240) Data rate (166kbps) Generated File size (7.36mb) HEX Setting (0004) Resolution (320*240) Data rate (182kbps) Generated File size (7.80mb) HEX Setting (0005) Resolution (320*240) Data rate (169kbps) Generated File size (10.0mb) HEX Setting (6400) Resolution (320*240) Data rate (101kbps) Generated File size (3.92mb) HEX Setting (7F00) Resolution (320*240) Data rate (121kbps) Generated File size (4.82mb) All video lengths on -*test*-('")s are 1.00 minute each. These are only some of ones I tried. Maybe someone can figure out the equation to figure out how these numbers are used.

Here is something unusual. If I use the same hex value 00 02, but I change the resolution to 640*480, I get a data rate of ~413kbps. As above, using that same 00 02 setting, 320*240 yields a data rate of ~215kbps.

so putting 7F at offset x1c0 and 00 at x1c1 gave you that high bitrate? wow! 7F 00 is the default setting, I changed it to 00 02, matching the setting present in the M225's USP.BIN. Don't thank me, thank PureDigital for giving us a bunch of known-good settings to play with from the M225. 8) And yes, it works at 640x480 - I just wanted to post something that's slightly less massive. Ahhh - so its "0002" - very good, how many did you brick till you found out just those were to be changed? :( or were you able to re-program the flash after bricking it? (oops i forgot the 2k page size on this M230's flash chip) i'd like to see a video at 640x480, with this hack, it must be awesome :) any chance of it?

Ahhh - so its "0002" - very good, how many did you brick till you found out just those were to be changed? :( or were you able to re-program the flash after bricking it? (oops i forgot the 2k page size on this M230's flash chip) Since I used the M225's USP.BIN as a starting point, I didn't brick any camcorders until I started with trial and error settings. The one I bricked (with "0000") is still bricked. i'd like to see a video at 640x480, with this hack, it must be awesome :) any chance of it? I'll post a video during the day...

Here is a 25 second video of one of my Dwarf Hamsters. http://media.putfile.com/640-480 640*480, 411kbps, 10.2 mb's Sorry in advance to dial-up users. I have DSL and mine still takes a couple of minutes to load.

Here is a 25 second video of one of my Dwarf Hamsters. http://media.putfile.com/640-480 640*480, 411kbps, 10.2 mb's Sorry in advance to dial-up users. I have DSL and mine still takes a couple of minutes to load. oddly enough, its not too much better than the lower res one @ 384x288 i guess its because of the imager's limited detail :( pulling it off my temp cache folder i ran it through windows media player, as with the other one, and it said its @ 3354Kbps around the same as the lower res one so i think this is the max the imager can go

The only noticable difference I saw was way less blockiness from the encoding. I have already gotten used to the 320*480, so that's what I mainly use. It greatly benefits from the high bitrate. It looks almost crystal clear.

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