What it looks like at Jonny's end! Where is the "Add Manual Controls & Extra Frame rates button"? 
When I first got wind of this, I was very, very interested! I’d always thought that surely as soon as the Canon 5D MKII Firmware Update that gave the user manual control over ISO, Aperture and Shutter speed came out, somebody would take up the reins and find a way to port that over to it’s baby brother the Canon 500D. It never happened. I guess by the time the Canon 7D came around, most people had seemed to forget about the fantastic little 500D.
Canon seemed to have forgotten about it, no firmware update with manual controls ever came and now with the release of the 550D, which has all that we wanted in the 500D and more, it seems it’s slipped totally from the program.
Enter Jonny Petts. A likeable lad from Kent in the UK. He’s a friend on Facebook and when I saw his status update that he was beginning work on a 500D Firmware Hack, naturally I thought I should suss it out and see just what was going on. I built this site around videos I shot on the 500D and there’s still alot of people out there who would jump at the opportunity to have manual control of their settings and shoot at different frame rates with this little gem, so good on Jonny eh? Three cheers!
So after having a bit of chat with Mr. Petts, here’s the deal, I’ve included the whole thing here because, quite frankly I understand about 16% of what he’s saying!
Ok, well i have a firmware from the 500d and the 550d. I am also comparing what Magic Lantern has done with the new 5D MK II firmware update to the new 5D MKII to see if I can see what they have done.
But what I am ultimately trying to do is use dissect_fw3_2 to expand the firmware into flasher/firmware then to reverse the flasher (after loading it into IDA to find out how to decrypt the firmware image). After I have done all of this, I will be able to attempt porting the desired functionality into the 500D firmware from the 550D’s firmware.
This is going to be a long and painful process and could mess up the 500d, but I am willing to do it for the sake of others, as it will benefit all of the 500D users out there and could save some people $200 instead of buying a 550D.
Did you get that?! You’d be forgiven if you didn’t get it all! So here’s the scooop. . .
Jonny’s first objective is the revered 24P. Many 500D users (myself included) have found dinky workarounds for the manual controls, but are still horribly crippled by that awful 30P and the useless 20P in 1080 mode! I believe he is also looking to implement the 60P and 25P functionality as well. No word on 50P, but we’ll see how that develops, I’m sure if it’s possible we’ll hear about it.
Next up is the manual controls, obviously the new 550D has full manual control over the Shutter, ISO and Aperture. It was such a pain shooting video with the 500D, this would really be a godsend!
Since the 500D doesn’t have a microphone input, the disabling of the AGC is not such a huge issue, but I think that Jonny plans to contact Trammel Hudson (Author of the 5DMKII Magic Lantern firmware) to get his take on things. I’d be interested to know whether people see this as an important thing considering they can’t connect external mics.
I’ll be following Jonny’s progress very closely here, so if you’re interested, stay tuned. If you have anything to add or know a thing or two about hacking the firmware on Canon camera’s and would like to get in contact with Jonny, leave a comment here and I’ll make sure he gets it! Wish him luck guys! I would have loved this to happen when I had one of these camera’s and I can’t wait to see how it goes!
Jonny would like to give a big shoutout to the Cinema5D Forum users. Apparently they’ve been instrumental in getting this project up and running. Smiles all round!
More soon. . .
**UPDATE** Want to catch the first update on Jonny’s progress? Here it is!
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Trammel Hudson himself has said on that the main success with the Magic Lantern on the 5D2 is with audio not video, see this post on DVinfo http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eos-rebel-t2i-eos-550d-hd/473788-magic-lantern.html#post1495173 he does go on to say if he could obtain a body for a 550 he would prefer to work on that as 500D has no external mic input.
550D (body only)is $920 Aussie at the moment from DigitalRev with free delivery and no GST/Customs, I’m ordering one right now, that’s a bargain.
Rambo
Damn i hit enter before i was finished.
I guess the long suffering 500d owners deserve to get at least the same features as the 5D, being one of the early adopters of VDSLR’s for shooting video. But gees how do you keep up, with the new GH2 coming soon (reportedly with new codec), who knows what will be next king of the VDSLR’s. One advantage i see is that the Panna GH1 was designed as a video camera in a stills body, not just a still camera with a video feature and i can’t see Canon going this direction. But who knows.
Rambo
The rumour is that Canon are now looking at using one of the DSLR Sensors in a video camera that accepts EF mount glass. They’d have to save some of their tricks for that pony I’m sure.
As Chuck Berry once sang “Go Johnny go” I can’t wait
Thanks for spreading the word Christian
And there were the rumors of Canon testing a camera with HDMI external recording for better colour space (good hack for 5D and crappy colour space). I would sooooo love eyepiece recording however. There was a suggestion of resurecting the semi transparent mirror for the task.
Just the 60fps recordings with full manual controls, and this world would be a better place !
Good luck Jonny Petts!
WOOW! i cant believe it! finally! come on jonny!
i will give u a son jajaja
Any progress? Can’t wait!!!
Ya know Magic Lantern took mooooonths to make, literaly hundreds of hours. I wouldn’t be holding my breath just yet.
I have spoken with Jonny. He has heard from Trammel and is hoping to get seriously stuck in over the coming week. We will have an update sometime this week.
Wow!
Great news to hear something about this progress. Really hope the hack is possible with the 500D hardware. Love my first little eos dslr – but it was a sad day for me the 550D came out after all the petitions were.
Go! -Jonny Pets- Go!
Just try , I love you.
please don´t stop this. there are thousands of people who would go crazy to get manual control on their filming… gogo gadget!
Or go crazy for 24 and/or 25fps.
Best of luck dude coz all of us counting on u
In the 60-ties they used to say ‘If you couldn’t make it, fake it”. I need desperately 1080-24p, and manual video control on my 500D because If I don’t I might not nominate for Oscar next year.If i fail nominating I’ll make a documentary film about Canon, which doesn’t provide its costumers/consumers with appropriate firmware for 500D. No one will listen to our appeals unless we protest and talk to the media. We have right to do this. We’ll make negative advertisement and internationalize this issue. You know how bad is when this issue goes on TV!
What do you say if each of us appear in youtube, and ask from Canon to provide firmware update as we demand. Come on guys,each of us will record a video sequence of 10-15 seconds and one of us will join these into one video file, where we present ourselves and demand from Canon a firmware update. Each of us will say “Save Canon 500D – with the firmware update”.
Ohh maan! That sounds sooo awesome…that would make things so much more fun.
Go for it! We re with you!
Good luck jonny, and save the world
Can’t wait.
hello wassup with firmware?
WOW
You can have my sister if it works
Thank you for doing this.
I’m trading my nikon d40 with two lenses in for one of the canon 550′s. Is there any news on ML for 550? What a gem of a camera!
It’s hard to say Ken.
Once the Canon 5D had been hacked, Canon here in Australia rolled back all servicing to their head office in Sydney. They did not allow third party Service Centres access to the Canon software that allows you to dig around inside the camera. I know this as I was unable to get my 7D serviced anywhere but at Canon Australia Head Office in Sydney and this is what I was told by numerous companies who used to be Authorised Canon Service centres.
So they are obviously trying to wrap it up a little tighter and that in turn will make it harder for people like Jonny and Trammel to produce these lovely hacks. Here’s hoping!
a contribute to build the firmware
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Adding_support_for_a_new_camera
OMG!!! Unlock my 500D please. I was so frustrated when 550D was released !!! Just 2 moths after I purchased the 500D. Is there a way to put some pressure on Canon to upgrade our 500D’s firmware?
Hey looking forward to the hack if it’s possible. Love this camera as you can record in .mov.
Also has anyone tried this camera with the Canon 50mm f1.8 lens you can pick up for about £90. Its practically noiseless in low light, well compared to my canon xh-a1 £2000 camera it alot less noisy! Who would have thought!!!
It won’t be upgrade, Canon is not mother Teresa. They want to sell their 550D. For me, that biggest lack for the 500D is not manual control (that could EVENTUALLY be leveraged by some hacked firmware), but the lack of an external mic :’(. Speaking about that, is there an easy way to record good quality sound ? I mean, maybe syncinc sound and video is ultra hard :/.
Any news ?
apparently not -_- *sigh*
Good things come to those who wait!
I heard from Jonny today, just need to get the post up!
Hi Christian,
Where is that update to Jonny’s firmware project?
I just caaaaaaaaant wait!
Let us know if you need any help and/or beta testers. Lot of anxious 500d users that are willing to help over here.
What’s up with the “More soon…”
The update is up now!
Sorry where ? do you have an URL ?
http://www.highdefedition.com/2010/04/canon-500d-firmware-hack-progress-report-1/
Could this be just a bad joke? Christian is desperate to get hits on his blog? Just my humble opinion…
Fair comment Mircea, but I don’t rely on false information to drive traffic to my site.
If anything, speaking so openly and supporting the hacking of Canon products is ultimately in direct opposition with the stance of many bloggers out there who are very chummy with Canon. Although I would ultimately like to be on Canon’s christmas card list one day and be privy to pre-release testing and info complete with NDA’s and the whole she-bang, if that means I must ignore exciting developments like this that my readers will be interested in, I guess I’ll just have to do without.
Ever since I drew attention to my 7D Autofocus issues and now this hack, Canon Australia, who were always interested in sharing my work with their twitter followers, have pretty much ignored everything I’ve sent their way. . .
So whilst you’re entitled to your opinion, I take exception to it. If you had taken the time to take a look around the web, particularly the Cinema5D forums, you’d see this isn’t some farce intended to take advantage of people.
Do your research before you look the fool!
No hard feelings though, stick around, follow what’s going on. I can understand your skepticism somewhat, but now that you’re an approved commenter, I’d appreciate you don’t use that privilege to slag me off.
I apologize Christian. I meant no disrespect. You gave me hope and I wanted more right now
Regards,
Mircea
Thanks mate, I appreciate that. I have my fingers crossed for Jonny and the gang too!
so, I ran across this: *LINK REMOVED* ………….says it is a firmware hack for the 500d. Any thoughts?
Sorry Sean, I had to delete that link mate. It was a fake warez site and not actually a link to a Canon 500D Firmware hack.
These sites use any google search string to create the name of the link. Chances are it’s taken a shine to the Canon 500D Firmware Hack string because it has the word hack in it. For instance if somebody searches google for “Bread and Butter Pudding Recipe” the warez site would generate a page with 4 links using “Bread and Butter Pudding Recipe Full download” or “Bread and Butter Pudding Recipe Full version” etc.
As much as I wish it were true, sadly that link was fraudulent.
My god !
If i can do anything to help, let me know!
I support your great work! Keep us posted…
I cant waitt !! i am very happy who some try to hack 500d ! keep going !
[...] from the Magic Lantern Canon 5DMKII Firmware, to the Canon 500D. The original post can be found here, but if you caught that, read on for the [...]
I would gladly pay $100 for this! (just need 24fps). Thanks!
Any news on 500d firmware hack update for 24 fps? I have seen forum posts on this but all posts die around March/April. Is this still going ahead? What happened?
As a 500d owner looking for a 24fps upgrade I will happily support the cause
Still no progress
Good things come to those who wait. The last time I asked Jonny for an update, he said the progress was going very slowly. I’ll be doing another update when there is something worthwhile to report, at this stage, I haven’t heard of any great developments.
Slowly goes the progress. Keep your fingers crossed!
when you bought a 500D did you read the specs? It clearly stated 20fps.
Of course, we read the specifications. But then the camera was released was it actually no alternatives.
IM EXCITED…I HOPE THEY GET A NEW FIRMWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is there a page to donate? I’d glad offer money. I really would love this for my T1i!
@Nick +1.
I too would be happy to donate/contribute if it helps at all to get this finished!
I hope jou can finish the hack. I bougth the 500d and a few weeks later the 550d was there
. I hate canon for that!
God luck
[...] [...]
3 months now. like it’s gonna happen…
Keep me posted – very interested…
Maybe outside of the scope of what you are doing here but if you could find a way to get the camera to fire the external flash when in live view mode or to be able to Autofocus from the shutter button. it would fix two huge bugs in canons attempt at live view
i hope one day a new firmware exists
i go sleeping and tomorrow there it is its a dream
I also would donate – it wouldn’t be any problem if the HACK turns real!!!
Keep working pls!
We are very pleased of your work.
Marta
One more 500D user waiting for the firmware.
Hope one day it will be done