It's no secret that you can hack Canon cameras firmware with 3rd party hackers like Magic Lantern to push higher dynamic range and bitrate. Nikonhacker is looking to bring the same performance to their ecosystem. Their new set of hacks (for 11 cameras) allows you to push 1,080 video at up to 64mbps. While these hacks are still in beta, the results look promising. Their D7000 hack allows you to boost the stock bitrate of 24mbps to a whopping 64mbps. They also have hacks for the entry level D3100, D3200, D5100, and D5200 that allow all of them to output 54+mbps.
Below is their list of available firmware patches along with the changes they'll bring.
D3100
Remove Time Based Video Restrictions
Change Time Based Video Restrictions to 17:28
Non-brand Battery
Liveview Manual Control ISO/Shutter - BETA
Video 1080 36mbps Bitrate - BETA
Video 1080 54mbps Bitrate - BETA
D3200
Non-brand Battery - BETA
Video 1080 36mbps Bitrate - BETA
Video 1080 54mbps Bitrate - BETA
Multi-Langauge Support - BETA
Remove Time Based Video Restrictions - DOES NOT WORK CORRECTLY
D5100
Remove Time Based Video Restrictions
Video 1080 36mbps Bitrate - BETA
Video 1080 54mbps Bitrate - BETA
NEF Compression Off
NEF Compression Lossless
Remove NEF Nikon Star Eater, for Astro folks
NEF Oversampling, IGNORE,its for Astro folks testing - BETA
Jpeg Compression - Quality (vs. Space)
Non-brand Battery
Live View Manual Control ISO/Shutter
Live View HDMI & LCD Clean
D5200
Video 1080 40mbps Bitrate - ALPHA
Video 1080 57mbps Bitrate - ALPHA
D7000
Remove Time Based Video Restrictions
Remove NEF Nikon Star Eater, for Astro folks
Live View HDMI & LCD Clean
Live View No Display Auto Off - BETA
Video 1080 24fps 36mbps Bitrate - BETA
Video 1080 24fps 49mbps Bitrate - BETA
Video 1080 24fps 64mbps Bitrate - BETA
D300s
Remove NEF Nikon Star Eater, for Astro folks
D300
Remove NEF Nikon Star Eater, for Astro folks
D800
Remove Time Based Video Restrictions - BETA
Video 1080 36mbps Bitrate - BETA
Video 1080 54mbps Bitrate - BETA
2 minute Time limit based video - ALPHA
D800E
Video 1080 36mbps Bitrate - BETA
Video 1080 54mbps Bitrate - BETA
D600
Video 1080 36mbps Bitrate - BETA
Video 1080 54mbps Bitrate - BETA
D4
Video 1080 36mbps Bitrate - BETA
Video 1080 54mbps Bitrate - BETA
[Via DIY Photography]
25 Comments
This is great news! Though the "BETA" sadly makes me suspicious and I'd be very careful about trying this on a camera that costs more than $200.
Nothing to worry about the BETA development--- Happy April Fool's.
I have the 64 mb hack running on my D800 for a few days, works great!
don't understand why fstoppers decide to post it on April 1, cause most people will glance at it and move on thinking its a joke, which it is clearly not.
whats the hack like? about to get a d800 or 5d MKiii...
How is the hack? about to get the 5d iii or d800 primarily for filmmaking...
Nothing gets released without it been tested, we run the risk with our own cameras
before releasing patches into the wild, there is odd times we will ask the public to try
patches as we don't own these cams, this is only when we know the patch is safe.
If this isn't an April Fools Joke, then I'll be happy.
you can be happy
Thanks for the reminder that it's April Fool. I bet its the Canon people who are behind this. haha.
it's real
Hi Lars, i would be happy that its real :)
NikonHacker is real, i've been using their patches on my D3200 for a while. However: it is april 1, so it might be a joke. Than again, the released this article on their website at feb 23. And the patch on feb 26.
https://nikonhacker.com/
https://nikonhacker.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1866&sid=b83edb7c32ce4fc595…
i've been shooting Raw on my D7000 for 9 Months now... lol
Do share lol
This is not a joke.. i have been following this for some time now.. shocked this story is just being picked up now. If you do not believe me refer to my comment posted two weeks ago trying to tip off Andrew Reid to take on the story. https://vimeo.com/88826657
I want to remap buttons!!!!
As far as I am aware this is not an April Fools Joke as they released this info on 26/27 March, First article on the subject was back in Feb. I am surprised it has taken this long to appear on a Mainstream website.
I've tried out the D7000 patch. It works fine, it gives clean LCD display/HDMI out, but it's not switchable at the moment. When the patch is installed you get zero information overlay on the LCD/HDMI out, with no way to show anything on the rear screen other than the image, or menu screen. The only way to get the information overlay back is to reflash the firmware back to the original again. This isn't ideal, but it's a start. As for the increased bit rates. I tried all of these with a pretty unscientific test clip and I personally couldn't see much improvement in quality over the original. I've been shooting with D7000s for a while and whilst there are some annoying limitations, no LV histogram, audio monitoring and having to switch out of LV to change aperture. I'm still happy with the overall quality of the video I can get from it.
D3100 54mbps Bitrate wow!
What is NEF Nikon Star Eater ?
Same here. I'm dying to know!
The Nikon Hacker project is very real as to how much accomplishment they have achieved since I dug up news of its existence a few years ago, I am not sure.
Either way no point in Canon hogging all the moddable goodness.
Nikon has a Hot Pixel Suppression (HPS) filter that runs in software, for older camera (4+ years age) the filter would kill pixels much brighter than any neighbor pixels. This was referred to as the Nikon Star Eater problem in the Astronomy circles as single pixels are stars sometimes.
What about the Nikon D7100???
I love this hack, it drastically improves video quality. Unfortunately since doing this hack, my camera no longer functions on Capture One. Has anyone else had this issue?