Kodak Reels / Reelz firmware modification and increased video bitrate

[Steve Matarazzo]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to share that I figured out how to modify the Kodak Reels (Reelz) firmware to increase the video bitrate and produce a higher quality image. This increases the average video bitrate significantly. The default video bitrate value of the stock firmware is 6,400 (~8 Mbit), I've been able to push this to 16,420 (~23 Mbit).

At times the difference can appear subtle when zoomed out, but the extra video information helps to cut down on compression artifacts and pixelation. This is especially visible if you will be cropping or zooming the image in a video editor program later on. Overall this helps to reduce blocky artifacts if you use the Kodak Reels built-in sharpening feature above the "-1.5" setting.

I've made a video showing the different video results with the firmware and how the sharpen setting may introduce more compression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ33d4vDPbY

I'll be exploring more to determine what other software fixes can be accomplished. So far I've only been able to increase the video bitrate. I haven't had success increasing the image resolution or modify the FPS, but I'll keep tinkering with it.

If you are interested in trying out the modified firmware (or want a backup file of the original firmware) you can learn the the technical details of this process here. Generally speaking tinkering around with firmware can be risky. However, in my testing I've flashed the device nearly 100 times and even when it got cranky, I was able to feed it the default firmware and it was back to normal.

Happy tinkering! 😁
-Steve

[Daniel Bottom]

Well done Steve. Making a breakout board, unpacking firmware from EEPROM, and hunting around in a hex editor changing bytes, adjusting checksums and reflashing is an extremely skilled thing to do. I read your write up on the other forum with great interest. This I can see to be of great interest to those that use the Kodak / Wolverine scanners.

P.S. One of the parameters may be using a "signed short" type.

[Steve Matarazzo]

Thanks Daniel!

I've done some works since my last post, but without too much success. If I adjust the capture resolution to something closer to the camera's limit (3280x2464) I can visibility see more detail on the preview screen. However, capturing a file fails and freezes the system. The default 1728x1296 is a long way away from that, which is why when doing tests it seems high contrast text scenes get pixelated.

I also realized the focus ring on the camera (which is thankfully not too hard to access) was also slightly off. However with the lower resolution there isn't too much of an improvement to be made.

So there must be some hardware or software limit that isn't allowing higher resolution captures, which is a real shame.

Also, I learned that a version 2.0 of the firmware is on some newer Reels models. Anyone with this new version should not use my modification, as there are reports of incompatibility. If anyone has a device that says "2.0" in the "About" menu, please let me know.

I'm really standing on the shoulders of giants tinkering with the firmware. I only pieced together similar instructions and figured out how to package things up, but I'm afraid someone with better software skills will need to do anything further. But who knows, I'll keep at it and see what happens!

[Antoine M. Desjardins]

Hello Steve,

I noticed that this scanner, even with the manual exposure setting, automatically adjusts the exposure from frame to frame. In some cases, this creates a video that has a lot of flicker. I am wondering if you ever noticed the possibility to prevent this by modifying the firware.

Thank you,