Official TZ10 Hack Project Discussion

trevmar

Vitaly, I am really looking forward to some manual control in video. It is important to be able to force a camera to open its shutter for about 1/30 second when you are taking a 30p video, so that the motion-blur is convincing. That is why my ZS7 is on the shelf, and my LX5 is in my pocket :) But I would love to be able to use the ZS7 zoom again...

Vitaliy_Kiselev

>Vitaly, I am really looking forward to some manual control in video

You need to wait on this one.
TZ10 do not have any manual video routines build it.
So, we must understand how to make it.

oscillian

I sold my TZ10 for 300 bucks :) and got the HX9V instead to go with my GH2. Good luck with the hacking!

lfarah1971

Hi people ! I need help.
I try update my tz10 com saved firmware from Ptool (only check version increment (10) and all languages) but not sucess. My Tz10 not have the language menu icon.

This messages in the pictures is displayed
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Not happem !
Sorry my terrible english and thanks !
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Vitaliy_Kiselev

I got it (sorry but i removed huge pictures).

Vitaliy_Kiselev

You have Japanese camera.
They have disabled language menu.

I updated PTool just few minutes ago.
All must be working ok.
Before and after flashing check Video Out menu item (it sets TV output standard).

lfarah1971

Thanks Vitaliy !!!

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@lfarah1971

Please, check video out menu.

lfarah1971

Vitaliy, video out menu.
Im at work now... I dont tested if work in my tv.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

>Vitaliy, video out menu

Thanks.
Originally Japanese cameras do not have it :-)
It'll be later used to add PAL/NTSC switch.

manuterra

Vitaliy,

thank you very much for your work on this!

I have seen that you added a lot of video related stuff, but I have seen no photo related stuff. Could you please tell me if saving in RAW instead of JPEG is possible (if the code is there but it needs patching or if there is no code present for that?). Thank you.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

>Could you please tell me if saving in RAW instead of JPEG is possible (if the code is there but it needs patching or if there is no code present for that?). Thank you.

I don't know, it is too soon for that.

Brian202020

Being able to save to RAW would seal the deal for me personally. Right now I'm undecided on the purchase since I own a GoPro for lightweight video and a Lumix DMC-LX2 that shoots RAW for lightweight stills. The TZ10 with the video hack and the amazing zoom range is almost enough to get me to buy, but not quite.

MrAnthony

Got my ZS7 (known as the TZ10 outside the U.S.) yesterday and immediately applied the latest version of the hack to it. The firmware is easily found on the Panasonic website, so it was incredibly simple to load the firmware into the Ptool program and adjust the settings. Ptool offered up the choices so I picked a 32 mbit video setting and a 50 mbit overall setting. The ZS7 is limited to 720p (a hardware limitation, apparently) but my test videos showed some incredibly good quality at 27 mbit rate. A 4 gb card will only record for about 24 to 27 minutes at that rate, but thank you, thank you, thank you!! Having a pocket video cannon (no pun intended) with sterling quality really makes it much easier to travel.

Rambo

Can anyone confirm the TZ10 power OIS works in video mode, i mean the full POWER OIS?

Thanks.

MrAnthony

Well, there's some kind of optical image stabilization going on, because when I'm at 12 zoom and shaking like crazy, the video moves very gently, resisting my motions. So yeah, there's OIS. And the OIS demo is in the menu and it shows it working.

itismeonline

MrAnthony,

I'm sure a lot of us (especially me) would appreciate it a lot if you could compile a brief list about what video related features are made available after the hack. Also a brief writeup about how to go about installing the hack on our TZ10/ZS7 cameras.

You are someone who seems to understand what to do with Vitaliy's amazing hack... hence my request. Thanks in advance.

MrAnthony

It's not that hard, and I don't have much time this morning, so here's how to do it in a quick summary.
1) create a directory (I called mine "Hack") on your computer
2) download the latest ptool to that directory (it's a zip file) and unzip it to get the executable file.
3) get the latest Panasonic firmware for the ZS7 from Panasonic's website and download/unzip it to the same directory as your executable ptool.
4) run ptool. It'll ask you to load the firmware. Point it to the downloaded firmware from Panasonic.
5) at that point, the choices are yours. Read each choice carefully in the ptool and modify at your discretion. I'll try to make some screenshots or something later.
6) save it with a slightly different name than the Panasonic firmware (what I did was to simply change the last number of the Panasonic file).
7) copy it to a camera formatted SD card.
8) insert into camera that is off, set camera to play, turn camera on, and say yes to loading firmware. Don't press buttons while new firmware is loaded.

Done.

v10tdi

I tried the MJPEG 4:2:2 color space option and the resulting video was garbled, especially in the lower frame. I did not enable changes the size of the MJPEG frame. I'll try some more tests on this later.

In a separate test, the AVCHD settings referenced by MrAnothony (including 30fps) have very positive impact on the quality of the movies - at least from my test. For grins, I placed SDHC card in my Panasonic Viera HDTV and it was able to play the "hacked" AVCHD file with no problem.

v10tdi

Tested MJPEG Color, 720p 30 4:2:0->4:2:2 color sampling (no other changes except version increment) and resulting video is garbled/banded. JPG attached.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@v10tdi

422 patch problem is common on all new cameras.
Try setting low resolution mode with this patch enabled.

v10tdi

Thank you. Confirmed that only the QVGA will record using the 4:2:2 patch. Each of the other MJPEG settings resulted in garbled/banded picture.

Might want to add that caution to the hint. 422 patch hint only mentions potential problems with 1920x1080 resolution.

MrAnthony

@itsmeonline: Okay, I've attached some screen grabs to help you out.

The first grab is the ptool before the original firmware is loaded. Just click on load firmware and point it to the directory where the ZS7 firmware you downloaded from Panasonic is located.

The second grab shows what ptool looks like after the firmware is loaded. As you can see, the choices pop up, along with a very nice help box that makes suggestions. You need to enter the numbers you want right into the black box.

Myself--I didn't bother with mjpeg this weekend and I went straight to AVCHD settings.

Finally, after you're done tweeking, you need to save. The third screen grab shows three different files. The top one is the unaltered firmware; the middle one is the executable from Panasonic which created it; and the bottom one is the re-named hacked firmware ZS7__v14.bin after I applied the changes above. Notice that there are two underscores (e.g. __ not _) after the ZS7.

Then, just copy the saved firmware to a formatted SD card, insert into a camera, turn camera to play, and turn on. Then follow the prompt to change the firmware. You're done.

itismeonline

@MrAnthony: Thanks so very much. This will come in extremely handy for a number of us here. Your explanation (with images) is wonderfully lucid and easy to comprehend.

Gerondo

Hi there,
what is the benefit of using a hacked tz10 (for now) instead of using tz20 you buy in the store?

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