Viofo A119S videos

[jokiin]

Man, right now maybe I am the only one in the world which have an A119S and I don't have the SG9665GC V3. Maybe jokiin can obtain it too so he can make such comparison, but I think he will not make such thing because he is representing Street Guardian.
You need to wait maybe 3-4 weeks to obtain such comparison.

enjoy,
Mtz

we are also doing some IMX291 based product, for sure the IMX291 can do things the IMX322 can't, newer technology tends to bring more advanced features and performance

 

[wonic]

Hi,

one question: The A119s hat 1920x1080, the A119 2560*1440? So the A119 would have better day videos, or not?

Thx.

 

[Mtz]

1. Yes.
2. Possible not.

enjoy,
Mtz

 

[Sutton]

1. Yes.
2. Possible not.

enjoy,
Mtz

A119s is better night vision?

 

[Mtz]

Yes, but not very big difference. Here are some videos.

enjoy,
Mtz

 

[Sutton]

For some videos you have also Viofo original video sample download links. The videos are not encoded in any way so them will reflect original quality.

Viofo A119S A119 A118C2 A118C original video sample download night

Viofo A119S A119 A118C2 A118C original video sample download day

Very low light conditions:

enjoy,
Mtz

Thanks for the samples ... My opinion that the A119S night time is much better when I saw side by side. My own A119 I find that the sides (left and right) night time with no street lighting , both side are completely blacked out But as my wife reminded me that if a car was to hit me in the front left or right sides at night with no street lighting their car would have head lights and lighting up my side of impact. And the day time I did find again that the A119s was tiny bit better. It seemed that the A119s is more sharper daytime and the A119 seemed a bit faded with the comparison.

 

[Mtz]

My sample is not with final lens, I already know this, so I expect even better quality because I expect Viofo to put even better lens not poor lens than my sample. This is the reason I didn't uploaded more videos with A119S.

enjoy,
Mtz

 

[wonic]

@Mtz: So better videos with lower resolution? Thought the A119 videos are quite good with max resolution...when the A119s has s a lower res., the video should be poorer. Or makes the lens here so much difference?

 

[Mtz]

Better Lens + Sony + FullHD can (not 100% sure) be better than Other Lens + OV4689 + 2K. We will see the reality I hope in 2 weeks.

enjoy,
Mtz

 

[jokiin]

@Mtz: So better videos with lower resolution? Thought the A119 videos are quite good with max resolution...when the A119s has s a lower res., the video should be poorer. Or makes the lens here so much difference?

lens does make a difference although all else being equal I feel the IMX291 @ 1080p performs better than the OV4689 @ 1080p does, of course the A119 with OV4689 has some higher resolution options available which work better for that sensor also

 

[Sutton]

Better Lens + Sony + FullHD can (not 100% sure) be better than Other Lens + OV4689 + 2K. We will see the reality I hope in 2 weeks.

enjoy,
Mtz

Ill know right away with night vision with the A119s if either side of car is brighter in a no lighting situation. That's my only con about the A119.

 

[uski]

One thing people forget easily is the exposure time.

IMX291 (used on the A119S) has bigger pixels, which means it needs less light to get the same level of brightness.
As a result, the exposure time is shorter, which means less blurry videos.
When looking at small objects like license plates, it is extremely important.

This is the reason why I'm really waiting for the A119S because I believe it will offer better license plate visibility.

Another thing is the dynamic range.

The dynamic range is the different levels of light the sensor can render on the final picture, without overexposing or underexposing.
Unfortunately Sony doesn't specify the dynamic range of their sensors, unlike other competitors, so it's not easy to compare, but generally newer sensors feature a better dynamic range.

This is also very important for night videos, where sometimes you see everything except the license plates which are overexposed due to the low-beams lighting them.

I am waiting for more sample videos to assess if the IMX291 used in the A119S really has a good dynamic range or not, but I'm optimistic so far.

PS: So when evaluating night-time videos, generally the "look" of the video is not important. Because in case of an accident, what's going to be useful is not that the video "looks good" (like color balance), but what data can actually be extracted from the video. It is very important to keep this in mind when evaluating dashcams, it's not a television camera, but more a technical product meant to collect information in case of an accident (and also for fun, cheers to Redditers from /r/Roadcam ;D)

 

[Sutton]

One thing people forget easily is the exposure time.

IMX291 (used on the A119S) has bigger pixels, which means it needs less light to get the same level of brightness.
As a result, the exposure time is shorter, which means less blurry videos.
When looking at small objects like license plates, it is extremely important.

This is the reason why I'm really waiting for the A119S because I believe it will offer better license plate visibility.

Another thing is the dynamic range.

The dynamic range is the different levels of light the sensor can render on the final picture, without overexposing or underexposing.
Unfortunately Sony doesn't specify the dynamic range of their sensors, unlike other competitors, so it's not easy to compare, but generally newer sensors feature a better dynamic range.

This is also very important for night videos, where sometimes you see everything except the license plates which are overexposed due to the low-beams lighting them.

I am waiting for more sample videos to assess if the IMX291 used in the A119S really has a good dynamic range or not, but I'm optimistic so far.

PS: So when evaluating night-time videos, generally the "look" of the video is not important. Because in case of an accident, what's going to be useful is not that the video "looks good" (like color balance), but what data can actually be extracted from the video. It is very important to keep this in mind when evaluating dashcams, it's not a television camera, but more a technical product meant to collect information in case of an accident (and also for fun, cheers to Redditers from /r/Roadcam ;D)

Very good summation

 

[kamkar]

the exposure time is shorter, which means less blurry videos.

In theory yes, but i think the new cameras will still drop to the same 1/30 second current cameras use in low light, but the new cameras will then have brighter footage in low light.
But if new cameras like M2 can do real 60 FPS and not frame double 30 FPS then thats a lot better than the useless double frames, but i think if you run new cameras at 1080/30 then they will also drop to the slowest possible 1/30 second exposures to ensure the footage is as bright as possible, but it would be nice if you could set 1/60 second at slowest exposure for 1080/30 footage, but i fear thats only going to happen for 1080/60 settings.
Even making the exposure 2 X faster at 1/60 second will not matter much at the faster speeds, to really get good captures you will need 1/250 second exposure timings at the least, and thats not going to happen any time soon.
But off course 1/60 will change things for slower movement, but thats really not what you see in most dashcam footage.

For a camera to use a even higher exposure timing it will have to be much more light sensitive than the IMX291 cameras

 

[uski]

In theory yes, but i think the new cameras will still drop to the same 1/30 second current cameras use in low light, but the new cameras will then have brighter footage in low light.

It's a complex topic I agree.

Technically you could do more than 1/30s exposure at 30fps, by doubling frames. And you can do trickier stuff, like with the IMX290 (PS: yes I mean 290 and not 291), where you actually combine different frames at different exposures using software algorithms to do WDR (which is excellent for dynamic range but usually comes at the cost of increased motion blur).

I totally agree that dashcam manufacturers should have a feature to limit the exposure time to a given value. Generally I prefer a slightly darker video but with less motion blur.

This might be achieved through the exposure compensation setting, but it depends how it's implemented. Generally they do it with the shutter speed, but sometimes they do it by changing the gain which doesn't change the exposure.

We'll see what VIOFO has done with the A119S and if they're listening they can probably take our comments into consideration

Another thing I don't like with daylight videos, is the auto-exposure algorithms. Generally, they do it with the entire frame, or a rectangle around the center of the frame. So you get a very nice blue sky, but a very dark road. I'd rather have the automatic exposure over-expose the sky slightly and show a slightly brighter road, by shifting the auto-exposure area a bit the the lower part of the frame. But this can come at the cost of increased motion blur if they do it at low brightness levels too.

So a hard limit of exposure time would be a great setting. Such as forcing the camera to not do ever more than 1/100s (for example), even if the auto-exposure algorithm would like to.

 

[viofo]

I totally agree that dashcam manufacturers should have a feature to limit the exposure time to a given value. Generally I prefer a slightly darker video but with less motion blur.

This might be achieved through the exposure compensation setting, but it depends how it's implemented. Generally they do it with the shutter speed, but sometimes they do it by changing the gain which doesn't change the exposure.

For Novatek platform, you can choose to double frame and have brighter video at night, or no drop frame and smoother video.

The final A119S lens will be upgraded to the 7G F1.6 lens, smaller distortion than the earlier sample that @Mtz got.
Anyway, we have used the one of the best lens in the market.

 

[gretl4]

A hard limit on shutter speed would be great but also multi-exposure HDR like the D201: @1:44

 

[Nigel]

For Novatek platform, you can choose to double frame and have brighter video at night, or no drop frame and smoother video.

The final A119S lens will be upgraded to the 7G F1.6 lens, smaller distortion than the earlier sample that @Mtz got.
Anyway, we have used the one of the best lens in the market.

• F1.6 gives 33% more light than F1.8,
• or 2x the light/half the motion blur of the F2.2 used in a lot of dashcams,
• or when the F2.8 used in most action cameras needs 1/30 second exposure time, the F1.6 will give 1/100 second = much less motion blur and true 60 fps instead of frame doubling.

 

[broadbean]

I've gotta stay away from this thread and just learn to love my A119. LOL

 

[Viking]

A hard limit on shutter speed would be great but also multi-exposure HDR like the D201: @1:44

Does all the video have the same bit rate, now we compare.
Dome D201 say high bit rate, so could that be the difference?