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NX500 - tethered shooting - simple "hack"

Started Feb 8, 2016 | Discussions
OP otto k Senior Member • Posts: 2,252
Re: USB hack for remote trigger?

FWIW, you can mount a remote filesystem from your Linux over the net (I tried NFS and it works but you have to build the missing kernel modules). There are two issues with this: it is quite slow (max ~5MB/s, NX1 is much better as it has faster Wi-Fi support) so you have to use low-ish bitrate (40Mbps max for me) and the camera hangs if it loses the connection or you enter the playback after recording (latter happens apparently only on NX500 amd it is a bug, it will hang if you delete a photo from the shell and then enter the playback as well).

If you really want to do this I strongly recommend using AP mode on your laptop and not connecting over an existing Wi-Fi AP or router as it's faster and more stable.

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foot Veteran Member • Posts: 4,805
Re: USB hack for remote trigger?

otto k wrote:

FWIW, you can mount a remote filesystem from your Linux over the net (I tried NFS and it works but you have to build the missing kernel modules). There are two issues with this: it is quite slow (max ~5MB/s, NX1 is much better as it has faster Wi-Fi support) so you have to use low-ish bitrate (40Mbps max for me) and the camera hangs if it loses the connection or you enter the playback after recording (latter happens apparently only on NX500 amd it is a bug, it will hang if you delete a photo from the shell and then enter the playback as well).

If you really want to do this I strongly recommend using AP mode on your laptop and not connecting over an existing Wi-Fi AP or router as it's faster and more stable.

Thanks for responding.

btw, what is 'AP mode on your laptop' ??

I'm thinking of using my raspberry pi 3B+ computer, my laptop is a creaky old win8.1

One thought I had is the ability to immediately rename and organize the vlog video files. I really hate having to go back and figure out which file is which

I'm just reading that the open source OBS program supports PTP/MTP so I might give that a go. I also read that I should be able to directly (sorta) send the video from my smartPhone (goggle pixel android) into OBS

I did manage to get my Logitech c270 webcam working with the raspberry pi but unfortunately I couldn't get the video/audio to properly and reliably synch. Maybe OBS could help with that also

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flip 21
flip 21 Senior Member • Posts: 1,439
Re: NX500 - tethered shooting - simple "hack"

otto k wrote:

Hi. To best of my knowledge NX500 is not supposed to be used tethered by USB to PC, that was left as a domain of NX1 as professional model. When you connect it via USB cable to PC it automatically switches SD card to mass storage mode and disables any camera operation (at least my NX500 does when connected to Linux).

What follows is a very simple "hack" (it's not really a hack) that enables the use of camera via PTP/MTP protocol - enabling use of camera while still having access to all image files (and possibly remote control, see later) in real time.

First of all thanks to tecnoworld for providing old versions of firmware that proved easier to work with when compared to current versions.

Second thanks goes to Samsung engineers that made many nice things in firmware I'm trying to access. You guys rock. Your management guys - not so much.

To use NX500 (might work for other recent-ish models - looking for volunteers - I don't see how this could damage the camera in any way) in PTP/MTP mode:

1. Create text file with just a line break (CR/LF - simple enter in Notepad will do) named info.tgw in the root of the SD card.

2. Insert SD card in camera

3. Connect camera via USB cable to PC

4. Turn on camera

That's it.

You should see a series of green dots on the left side of the camera indicating factory/development/custom mode is active (see picture).

Series of green dots on the left indicates special mode

info.tgw file instructs the camera to start the daemon process in background and wait for PTP/MTP commands from the computer.

Under Linux I can easily access the DCIM folder with any file browser and see how the files are being written to the card in real time (I use a slow class 4 card and shot RAW files - you can see the size increasing). This enables one to automatically copy files off camera (at ~18MB/s for this card) to PC for further editing. Only difference I found was that photo size was grayed out in the menu (it's 28MP) - JPG works, RAW, works, modes work, even video files (BTW, they are written down 4MB at a time - nice for streaming offload to PC).

Unfortunately, I can't trigger shooting or any other setting from command line (neither gphoto nor libptp support Samsung) - maybe Lightroom or other program could also control the camera - volunteers wanted.

Here is output of gphoto:

gphoto2 --port usb: --abilities
Abilities for camera : USB PTP Class Camera
Serial port support : no
USB support : yes
Capture choices :
: Image
: Preview
Configuration support : yes
Delete selected files on camera : yes
Delete all files on camera : no
File preview (thumbnail) support : yes
File upload support : yes

So, it should support full remote control but I lack any software that works with samsung cameras.

That's it for now, I'm still trying to get the camera to CS Mode to remove video limit (and play with other things) but that DOWN-OK-UP-OK-RIGHT-EXP+OK shortcut from service manual does not work at all in any configuration (it's possible it was dropped for production firmwares or that is requires some special software).

I would like to hear:

1. Does this work under windows?

2. Does this work with NX1/NX300/NX2000/NX3000 (Tizen based cameras)?

3. Does remoting work under windows?

Cheers,

Otto

Otto, can't you make so that it is possible to record audio, with an external mic, via the USB port? Like the go pro, etc... or at least the possibility to connect the Samsung EM10, via the shoe socket, to the NX500? Like we did on the NX300? Thanks

OP otto k Senior Member • Posts: 2,252
Re: USB hack for remote trigger?

AP - Access Point - that's the mode where your computer's Wi-Fi card acts as a Wi-Fi access point (it's called connection sharing or similar, I don't use windows so can't help you directly).

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Canon EOS 600D Samsung NX1000 Samsung NX500 Sony a6400 Samsung NX 30mm F2 Pancake +10 more
ttbek Veteran Member • Posts: 4,869
Re: USB hack for remote trigger?

otto k wrote:

AP - Access Point - that's the mode where your computer's Wi-Fi card acts as a Wi-Fi access point (it's called connection sharing or similar, I don't use windows so can't help you directly).

I thought many wireless chipsets don't support that in laptops though, no?  With a notable exception for Atheros. Or is it that you can still run the AP but just not in promiscuous mode?  I had a laptop working as essentially a wireless router a few years back, don't remember any of the setup anymore, lol.

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ttbek Veteran Member • Posts: 4,869
Re: NX500 - tethered shooting - simple "hack"

Been a long time, but I've started to pursue this a bit again:

https://github.com/gphoto/gphoto2/issues/329

Those are without the info.tgw Adding the file actually seems to reduce the info a bit, but is mostly the same.

gphoto2 --auto-detect
Model Port
----------------------------------------------------------
Samsung NX1 usb:006,006

gphoto2 --port usb: --abilities
Abilities for camera : Samsung NX1
Serial port support : no
USB support : yes
Capture choices :
: Capture not supported by the driver
Configuration support : no
Delete selected files on camera : yes
Delete all files on camera : no
File preview (thumbnail) support : yes
File upload support : yes

gphoto2 --summary
Camera summary:
Manufacturer: SAMSUNG Electronics Co. Ltd.
Model: SAMSUNG NX1
Version: V1.0

Capture Formats: Unknown(0000)
Display Formats: Unknown(b984), Unknown(b982), MP3, Unknown(b901), Unknown(b981), JPEG, Association/Directory, Unknown(ba05), Unknown(b906), Undefined Type, GIF, BMP, PNG, MS Wave, MS AVI, MPEG, ASF, Unknown(ba03)

Device Capabilities:
File Download, File Deletion, File Upload
No Image Capture, No Open Capture, No vendor specific capture

Storage Devices Summary:
store_00020001:
StorageDescription: Card
VolumeLabel: -20001
Storage Type: Removable RAM (memory card)
Filesystemtype: Generic Hierarchical
Access Capability: Read-Write
Maximum Capability: 63247089664 (60317 MB)
Free Space (Bytes): 57135595520 (54488 MB)
Free Space (Images): -1

Device Property Summary:
Battery Level(0x5001): error 2005 on query.
Property 0xd401: error 2005 on query.
Property 0xd402: error 2005 on query.
Property 0xd404: error 2005 on query.
Property 0xd407: error 2005 on query.

gphoto2 --list-all-config
/main/actions/opcode
Label: PTP Opcode
Readonly: 0
Type: TEXT
Current: 0x1001,0xparam1,0xparam2
END
/main/status/serialnumber
Label: Serial Number
Readonly: 0
Type: TEXT
Current: None
END
/main/status/manufacturer
Label: Camera Manufacturer
Readonly: 0
Type: TEXT
Current: SAMSUNG Electronics Co. Ltd.
END
/main/status/cameramodel
Label: Camera Model
Readonly: 0
Type: TEXT
Current: SAMSUNG NX1
END
/main/status/deviceversion
Label: Device Version
Readonly: 0
Type: TEXT
Current: V1.0
END
/main/status/vendorextension
Label: Vendor Extension
Readonly: 0
Type: TEXT
Current: None
END

gphoto2 --capture-image-and-download

*** Error ***
Sorry, your camera does not support generic capture
ERROR: Could not capture image.
ERROR: Could not capture.
*** Error (-6: 'Unsupported operation') ***

For debugging messages, please use the --debug option.
Debugging messages may help finding a solution to your problem.
If you intend to send any error or debug messages to the gphoto
developer mailing list <gphoto-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>, please run
gphoto2 as follows:

env LANG=C gphoto2 --debug --debug-logfile=my-logfile.txt --capture-image-and-download

Please make sure there is sufficient quoting around the arguments.

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OP otto k Senior Member • Posts: 2,252
Re: NX500 - tethered shooting - simple "hack"

I have tried everything I could think of (on NX500) and, finally, given up on tethering this way. It just seems Samsung did not implement the functionality in the camera.

There was a tethering SDK for NX1 a while back, but they requested developers sign an NDA so we have no additional information.

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ttbek Veteran Member • Posts: 4,869
Re: NX500 - tethered shooting - simple "hack"

Hmm, is mtp not what they ended up using for the Samsung Remote Studio though?  It connects only over USB.  Maybe we can examine that.

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p2f New Member • Posts: 1
Re: NX500 - tethered shooting - simple "hack"

Hi Otto,

I just got a NX500 and was amazed with results.

Interested in therering the camera via a laptop (wifi, USB), I found your great contribution for modding it. The team add so much options that I don't need anything to fulfill my dreams.

Surprisingly, modding the NX500 was easy and the wifi thetering via webserver is quite effective. But even if all works fine : menu, parameters, taking videos, etc..,  the only thing not working is to shot still silent pictures. Clicking the shutter button seems working: the design changes to pushed but nothing appends.

Am I missing something?

Windows 10, Mod 0.9, slient & no lens config (simple adaptor with an old manual lens).

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aserts New Member • Posts: 1
Re: NX500 - tethered shooting - simple "hack"

I placed a file in the root of NX500 and see the green dots. How can I use it as a webcam?

OP otto k Senior Member • Posts: 2,252
Re: NX500 - tethered shooting - simple "hack"

You cannot.

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