640x480 @ 30fps mode

Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 441

USP.BIN is turning into a VERY IMPORTANT file

With a small change, i have modded this cam to always record in 640x480@30fps

640x480 @ 30fps mode

simply change
000001c0h: 7F 00 62 14 1E 00 86 00 40 01 F0 00 00 00 00 1E ; .b...â€ .@.Ã°.....
to
000001c0h: 7F 00 62 14 1E 00 86 00 80 02 E0 01 00 00 00 1E ; .b...â€ .â‚¬.Ã .....

0x0140 = 320
0x00f0 = 240
0x0280 = 640
0x01e0 = 480
0x00E1 = 30 thought it was the FPS, but lowing to 0x0019 (25) actually increased the video bitrate

also found a 0x0014 which = 20, but that is apparently not the maximum record time length... Sad

Joined: 08 Aug 2005 Posts: 23 Location: Plano, TX

Now that's cool I'll have to give that a try.

Joined: 05 Aug 2005 Posts: 68

any sample video yet? wondering if the 'quality' will suffer at the bigger size..

Joined: 22 Aug 2005 Posts: 14

How long will it record, though, at 640x480x30? Do you get a lowered max recording time?

Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 441

it seems about the same quality, but at higher res (giving the impression of higher quality)

Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 441

the max record time isn't calculated, it's stored somewhere, and i haven't set it down to actually record continuously. Though, i suspect that it will actually run out of space before the 20 minutes is up.

640x480 is 4 times it's normal resolution, and it normally can store over twice the maximum it claims. So maybe 10 minutes is a guess, but i honestly don't really know. I'm looking at filesizes of half a meg for 5 second clips.

Joined: 22 Jul 2005 Posts: 506 Location: Salt City

What program can I open usp.bin in to make the change? I tried notepad and wordpad but I don't think that's what I want to be in. Awsome news.
Thanks

Joined: 08 Aug 2005 Posts: 23 Location: Plano, TX

Did you have to write a 0 byte filed on top of usp first? Then write the modified file. Or did you just try the overwrite?

EDIT: Also, did you know the same line exists @ 1C0 of FSP.BIN? There are major differences in these files USP and FSP - but that line (and a few others) is the same.

Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 441

You need a hex editor to edit the files

i haven't had to upload a 0 byte file for anything on any of my cams, thats a "your milage may vary" type thing.

Yes, FSP is a blank ,uninitialized, version of USP, most of the settings are probably just the same as a normal cam, though i didn't compare USP to FSP to see what beside the serial number and key may be different.

As for uploading it, thats the tricky part, the cam has to be turned off with a USB command, or it'll overwrite the file. I'm sure BillW will add a shutdown button to Ops tomorrow. And ofcourse when i get the time (working on another university report) i'll seriously overhaul SaturnDownload.

Joined: 13 Aug 2005 Posts: 6

caterpillarclub wrote:

What program can I open usp.bin in to make the change? I tried notepad and wordpad but I don't think that's what I want to be in. Awsome news.
Thanks

Notepad and Wordpad are ascii only editors and usp.bin is a binary file. I once knew a guy who tried to edit executables with notepad. It's actually kinda funny, the guy went by the name "saturn" and here we are hacking the "saturn" camera Smile

Anyway, it took two weeks to explain to him about how Notepad and Wordpad won't save a binary file the same way it went in. The character for doing a line feed (enter key) has a numerical balue of a 10 or a 13 (i think 13, it's been so long), depending on the operating system. This is why if you open up a text file made on some operating systems, you get that weird box where a linefeed should be. Windows will actually use both the 10 and the 13 when saving a file. So when you go to save a binary file, it'll insert a 13 anywhere there's a 10. This can completely shred a binary file and render it useless.

The point is, NEVER EVER use notepad or wordpad or any other text editor on a binary type file. When hacking such files, use a binary editor only. Anything else will mangle the everliving crap out of the file. Besides, you can't even see half the bytes in a text editor, so how would you know what to change? Or for that matter, how to input half the funky characters?

The best thing to do is to use a binary editor of some sort. The most common binary editors are hex editors, but there are a few dec (base 10, the numbers humans are used to) editors out there. Corscaria uses one called "AXE". The guy that made it is dead and so the registration codes aren't being issued anymore, so you have to put up with a nag screen, but it's worth a little nag screen.

Joined: 22 Jul 2005 Posts: 506 Location: Salt City

AXE worked great to edit the file. I need to hang tight till we get the OPS command to shut down the camera?

Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 441

well if you know how to compile, it's easy to add the button yourself, so easy infact, that i bet BillW will have an update for Ops 2 minutes after he wakes up.

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 11:23 am

Ok, I'm awake now - nice discovery Corscaria! Personally, I'd much rather 12 minutes of 640x480 video than 20 of 320x240.

I'll try to get a new Ops out with "Powerdown Camera" or whatever later today.

In the meantime you can probably get the same effect by removing the batteries from the camera, replacing USP.BIN, then pulling the USB cable.

Obviously if you follow my or Corscaria's instructions here it's at your own peril.

Joined: 22 Jul 2005 Posts: 506 Location: Salt City

I downloaded axe and it worked great. I emailed the company to see if it was still available (was the guy dead) and here is his response:

Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated. I am simply waiting for
Longhorn to come out. It's a bit like death but more boring.

You can register AXE on the website www.jbrowse.com...

Joined: 07 Aug 2005 Posts: 74

Corscaria wrote:

it seems about the same quality, but at higher res (giving the impression of higher quality)

Umm, at 640x480, wouldn't it actually BE higher quality? Confused

: (Unless it drops frames)

Would like to see a sample video.

Joined: 07 Jul 2005 Posts: 16

ok I downloaded usp with ops6 made the changes 80-40 etc. save the file back to my hard drive the restarted axe loaded the file from the hard drive and checked it to see if the changes were made and all ok.
in the mean time opt7 came out so I opened up the cam with 7 clicked on the usp file and did a upload of the file on the hard drive then clicked the turnoff button and the cam turned off. took a video. tired to plug in the cam to the usb and PC says device failed to start. rebooted winxp. and same thing. I can still use the cam to rec. and playback. any though's?

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 4:07 pm

Ok, new Ops with "Powerdown Camcorder" button has been released, and I've confirmed Corscaria's hack. Sweeeeeet!

The upload didn't need any zero byte trickery. I really believe that the upload problems on p4 are initiated by an attempt to overfill the partition, but that's best discussed in another thread.

Also note that 512x384 resolution works with this cam, and it's a nice tradeoff between the limited space and better resolution. All other things being equal, 512x384 should be 2.5 times the size of a 320x240 video, and 640x480 should be 4 times the size of 320x240.

For comparison purposes, NTSC VHS is officially 352x240, NTSC SVCDs are 480x480, and NTSC DVDs are 720x480.

If anybody is going to experiment with other resolutions, I'd suggest that it may be safer to maintain the 4:3 ratio, and make sure that any values you use are a multiple of 16. (part of the MPEG 4 spec)

Corscaria, are you gonna write this up as a HOWTO? Smile

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 4:11 pm

howie270, not sure what happened. Try turning on the camcorder before plugging it into the PC. If that doesn't work, remove batteries and cable for a couple of minutes and try again.

Joined: 07 Jul 2005 Posts: 16

thanks bill it worked

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:43 pm

Ok, went out a lunchtime and shot a continuous video at 512x384. I tried to make it a pretty average case, keeping motion in the frame pretty much continuously. The camcorder ran out of storage space at 19:23.

I think this is a great resolution for regular PC viewing, but if I were going to transcode to DVD or SVCD I'd use the 640x480. That way you'll only get resizing "blur" in one axis.

Joined: 07 Aug 2005 Posts: 278

BillW wrote:

Ok, went out a lunchtime and shot a continuous video at 512x384. I tried to make it a pretty average case, keeping motion in the frame pretty much continuously. The camcorder ran out of storage space at 19:23.

I think this is a great resolution for regular PC viewing, but if I were going to transcode to DVD or SVCD I'd use the 640x480. That way you'll only get resizing "blur" in one axis.

Bill, did you have on the "past 25 minutes" mod? (PICT9999.avi)

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 6:08 pm

No, I didn't bother with it. It was my plan that if it hit the 20:00 mark that I'd just check the free space left. The camcorder was definitely out of space though, since the movie was ~120MB.

Joined: 22 Aug 2005 Posts: 14

0.7 crashes on XP for me. .6 works fine. I can send you my crash report if you want...

Joined: 21 Jun 2005 Posts: 57

BillW wrote:

No, I didn't bother with it. It was my plan that if it hit the 20:00 mark that I'd just check the free space left. The camcorder was definitely out of space though, since the movie was ~120MB.

can one of you throw up an example vid? I didnt bring my cam with me today!

Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 13

I just filled one with:
640x480 @ 30fps (minimal action)
Length: 1127.233 sec. (18:47 according to WinMediaPlayer)
Frames: 33817

Odd times: 1127 / 60 = 18.783... which is 31 sec. longer than what WMP shows...???

B1
Mod List:
Screens & Wav's
NO >25 min. hack (will try same with hack soon, stay tuned)