Xiaomi Yi Sports Camera - Custom Firmware (Base 1.0.7) - Bitrate Increased to 30Mbps all modes

I've added the ridiculous 30Mbps firmware to the first post - use at your own risk!

It's a full firmware that one so includes everything including the Linux partitions and is over 53MB unpacked.
 
Is it possible to auto record when the camera is connected to the power? i want to install it as dashcam
Recording works for me when connected to power supply.
Mike
 
I've added the ridiculous 30Mbps firmware to the first post - use at your own risk!

It's a full firmware that one so includes everything including the Linux partitions and is over 53MB unpacked.

Nice work ! :) Did you check how long will the battery last? (recording)
 
My Yi is just charging and I'll give this a go later - I did notice it definitely doesn't last as long going from the blue indicator to the 50% mark but I'll charge it back up and see what happens to get some timings :)
 
OK good news - in 1920x1080 @ 30fps using this custom firmware running at 30Mbps my Yi lasted for exactly 90 minutes :)

You really cannot argue with that!
 
OK good news - in 1920x1080 @ 30fps using this custom firmware running at 30Mbps my Yi lasted for exactly 90 minutes :)

You really cannot argue with that!

Wow! Now thats a good news :)
Im gonna update with your custom firmware and check it.

edit: works great, no problems with update and i notice in my camera:

"You will now hear a constant beeping for around a minute.." and blue light is blinking if firmware is updating <= after that red light is blinking and the camera goes off.

"...and ensure that you delete the \firmware.bin file" <= by my camera script or sth else removes firmware.bin automaticly

Thank for your work ! :D
 
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You just delete the firmware.bin file manually afterwards - no script needed when these work :)

There are a lot of you in Poland with the Yi already - it must be very popular there!
 
You just delete the firmware.bin file manually afterwards - no script needed when these work :)

There are a lot of you in Poland with the Yi already - it must be very popular there!

About firmware.bin <= i mean that i do not need to delete manualy firmware.bin file from the card after update because system did it for me.
There was no .bin file after 2 times of updating.

I think the popularity is due the price. For example hd hero 4 cost is about 80% of the average national salary and Yi about 10-20%...
It makes a big difference :)
 
Ah ok brilliant thanks - yeah just making sure here really so they don't get stuck in an upgrade loop :)

Wow that's mental - this thing is definitely going to take off everywhere at the prices they're going for - I'm guessing with the Xiaomi brand it will sell many more units than the SJ4000 ever did as it seems to have made news sites all over the world!
 
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Here's some small sample of this custom firmware i made today:


Raw video without youtube compression looks much, much better.
I didn't notice overheating. I'm pleased about very good video stabilization... (in my country the roads are full of holes).
Money well spent :)
 
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Wonder where are the audio bitrates located. 126kbps is no bueno
 
hello mister

you saved my cam, because I got bricked, beep beep bepp, via Android app, over WIFI update.

I copied your FW and then updated in a few sec-s.

question: what is the difference between the normal FW you linked, and the 30 mbps tweaked version?

which one to use?

I want it in 1080P 60 FPS for RC Drone. which one to use?
 
I'm glad it worked for you :)

To be honest I'd say try both - in 1080p 60fps the normal firmware runs at 25Mbps anyway so there's not as much difference as 30fps which jumps from 12Mbps to 30 :)

In 60fps you would get an extra 20% more video on your microSD card - in 30fps you will get more than double the video on the card
 
hello, mr, Reverend,

thx I am thinking on to try out the ridiculous pimped up version of FW.

my only question now: do you "THINK", that if I do not like the fw or the camera does not works with it, can I go back to the original version with the same method? putting it on the card and let the cam update itself?

thx, just wanna go sure here. thx for your work.
 
Exactly right - you can just swap between them at any time by putting the original firmware.bin file in the top level of the memory card - just always make sure that the filename is firmware.bin as that is what the firmware looks for when it boots up :)

If anything goes wrong I have the method for recovering the camera as well so you're pretty well covered!
 
okay, man.. thx for the feedback. yup, I was thinking too, the cam looks always for a file "firmware.bin"

interesting, that the unbrick method (does NOT worked for me) has a yifirmware.bin and a autoexec.ash filenames, I guess the ASH will call then the yifirmware. (does NOT worked for me).

please also, just for my infos: how does somebody (like you in this case) get himself and edits-tweaks the FW in a brand new device like this? normally we have to wait SOO long till somebody edits a FW like in android phone, or a router, or something other which has a FW in it. I think you do something similar for profession?

if yes, what other capabilities do you think is possible with this cam?
 
To be honest getting the firmware was easy - I just used network sniffing software so that I could analyse all the requests the Xiaomi application makes when they call home - that got me the address they use to check for the latest firmware version and then I could take it from there to grab hold of a copy of the file from their servers.

Once that was done a guy called @Tobi@s wrote some software called Ambarella Firmware Toolkit which we use for tweaking dash cameras - as the Xiaomi Yi is using the same Ambarella base I just decided to give it a go and it worked fine :)

If you're interested I did a video of how to use AFT here to change bitrates:

AFT / Ambarella Firmware Toolbox - How to use Bitrate Editor

The camera does have a Linux / Busybox shell available so if you know Linux you can write scripts to do anything you want really - you could connect it to your home wifi and copy files etc automatically whenever you got home - but it's quicker to just remove the memory card :)

As for your camera the camera itself does look for firmware.bin but that only works when the camera is ok - that is the reason I renamed to yifirmware.bin though as it means the camera doesn't try and grab the file but then realise it's not got the code on board to flash itself - the autoexec.ash method talks directly to the Ambarella boot loader which kicks in before the firmware loads - that has it's own firmware flashing tool which is what the script uses to flash the firmware back on.

What size memory card are you using? 64GB at a guess?

If so try formatting to FAT32 using something like this and copy the files back over again:
http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm

You'd need to create the DCIM folder after the format to copy the yifirmware.bin file in there but hopefully that should work.
 
nono, my mem card is now a 16 GB CL10, 100% ok tested good with read-write tools like h2testw_1.4 and speed should also be okay (chrystal disk mark) it is a no name ebay card. had a lot of fun while I shoot te card out of the camera, into the keyboard, had to totally disassemble the keyboard to get the card back :))))

I installed the tweaked version, but poor camera cant keep up or something because the android app (live preview) is laggy and does not refreshes.

I think I m going back now for the normal FW, but still, thank you man.
 
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