Mini 0806 vs Mobius ActionCam - 4 May 2015

Firmware might be able to create the illusion that videos appear a bit sharper but there is no way firmware can increase the depth of field which is entirely an optical phenomenon inherent in the lens.
 
Mini 0806 MK2 using Nigel's firmware: 3 minute video: Bit rate: 24,116, File size: 545.5 MB
Mobius using v2.37 firmware: 3 minute video: Video data rate HIGH, Bit rate: 18,204, File size: 415.4 MB

Ambarella loses a lot of detail at lower bitrates, there's no tricks to the firmware other than increasing the bitrate which shows good benefit on that platform
 
While that would help a bit, it will only be a bit. The 0806 does use WDR to bring out the detail in the shadows which is what causes the extra blurring of plates at speed, there is a compromise to be made and the 0806 is set up to be a dashcam so in general will do a better job when used as a dashcam. Also the 0806 calculates the exposure based on the area covered by the road and ignores the sky, happy to let it be over exposed, while the Mobius will try to include the sky, again the 0806 is better configured for use as a dashcam than the Mobius.

Good post anyway, they both do a good job, and which one is best will depend on the situation and conditions.


In your response, apparently meant to explain away @richcam's report that, "the Mobius manages to record number-plates of oncoming cars at higher speeds whilst the 0806 tends to blur them", you offer the explanation that, "The 0806 does use WDR to bring out the detail in the shadows which is what causes the extra blurring of plates at speed, there is a compromise to be made and the 0806 is set up to be a dashcam so in general will do a better job when used as a dashcam."

It certainly sounds from this remark that you are completely unaware that not only does the Mobius have WDR (including a unique dedicated low light WDR function), it also has image adjustment capabilities far beyond that of any other dash cam on the market, including 128 level exposure, contrast, saturation and sharpness settings as well as extensive color options (including B&W) in addition to comprehensive white balance options including 3 customizable WB modes selectable through full 256 step RGB tables.

So, if the Mobius is capturing license plates from oncoming vehicles at higher speeds with less motion blur, how is it that "the 0806 is set up to be a dashcam so in general will do a better job when used as a dashcam"? The fact is that the Mobius is highly capable as a dash cam and this is evidenced in its enormous popularity in that role.

To the best of my knowledge, @Nigel you don't own a Mobius and have had no hands on experience with one so I'm not quite sure how you can make pronouncements about how it functions or what exactly it will do. For example, to say that tilting a Mobius (or any dash cam) downwards so there is less sky in the image, "would help a bit, it will only be a bit" when you have no personal experience with one seems uninformed or (as seems so often the case) biased towards the 0806. The exposure benefits of including less sky in dash cam footage have been discussed and well demonstrated countless times on DCT. In fact, this is essentially what is happening in the above examples where the 0806 is using the 2560x1080 cinema framing mode (and probably it's center weighted metering) to exclude larger portions of the sky. If both comparison images were to properly include the same amount of sky in them the exposures would be a much closer match, not "only be a bit".

The 0806 is indeed a great little dash camera (except for the lack of a super-capacitor option, speaking of "better configured for use as a dashcam";)) and indeed has numerous excellent features quite specific to dash cams compared to the general purpose nature of the Mobius. However, the bottom line is that any advantages it has over the Mobius in image quality are mainly due to its more advanced and higher resolution chip.
 
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Cheers Dashmellow, and yes I totally agree with what you have said about the Mobius should be pointing down a little more, the thing is that I use the Mobius in more than one car and the windscreen rake is different on all of them so the inevitable happens occasionally when moving it between vehicles, and with not having an LCD screen to line it up, it tends to be best guess. I tend to be rushing around in the morning so don't have much time for perfect alignment!

BTW, is a good tip about using the small LCD TV with RCA inputs, will have a look to see what Amazon and Maplin have on offer.

You don't need anything fancy or expensive for aiming a Mobius. You can buy small 12V 3-5 inch LCD monitors on Amazon or eBay for around £13-21 like THIS, THIS, or THESE. Most can be switched for reverse cameras or normal AV input. You can buy a small LCD TV with an internal battery and AV inputs for perhaps around £50-70 like THIS.
 
no single product is perfect, trying to explain away the benefits others have is in no way helpful in improving products, more constructive to learn for others than it is to constantly bash them or deny they do some things better
 

I think that should be fine. It looks much like the ones I posted about earlier. The main thing is to confirm that it can switch the mirrored image intended for a reverse back-up camera to a normal view for a dash cam. Most can and some simply have a switch, others have a different scheme. The one in your link seems to imply that it's done by choosing one of the two RCA plugs but that seems a bit vague as often one plug is video and the other is audio so, like I say, just make sure before purchasing. There are dozens of these things on the market to chose from. Of course, the drawback with these little monitors is that they need a 12V power supply whereas a battery powered LCD TV is more convenient. In my case, because I have super-capacitors in the Mobi in my vehicle I used a powerbank to run the camera and use the supplied AV wiring harness to hook it up to the TV and the battery bank.
 
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I think that should be fine. It looks much like the ones I posted about earlier. The main thing is to confirm that it can switch the mirrored image intended for a reverse back-up camera to a normal view for a dash cam. Most can and some simply have a switch, others have a different scheme. The one in your link seems to imply that it's done by choosing one of the two RCA plugs but that seems a bit vague as often one plug is video and the other is audio so, like I say, just make sure before purchasing. There are dozens of these things on the market to chose from. Of course, the drawback with these little monitors is that they need a 12V power supply whereas a battery powered LCD TV is more convenient. In my case, because I have super-capacitors in the Mobi in my vehicle I used a powerbank to run the camera and use the supplied AV wiring harness to hook that up to the TV and the battery bank.
Thank you for answering my question in such detail. I have been confused about these things for awhile. I now have specific things to look for in these monitors. Thanks!
 
One of the major improvements to the video quality of the 0806 was achieved by Nigel increasing the bit rate, when I view the info on identical video footage between the 0806 and the Mobius there is indeed quite a difference.

Specs shown below:

Mobius A lens. 3 minute clip. Video format: MOV. Size: 415.5MB. Dims: 1920 x 1080. Codecs: H.264, linear PCM. Bit rate: 18,203
Mini 0806. 3 minute clip. Video format: MOV. Size: 545.5MB. Dims: 2560 x 1080. Codecs: H.264, AAC, Text. Bit rate: 24,121

Now that SD card capacities are growing ever larger, is there any reason why the bit rate couldn't be increased on the Mobius to improve the video quality because it's not too far away from the quality of the 0806 even if it using an older chip design, perhaps change the setting in the MobiusManager app to 'SUPER-FINE, FINE, STANDARD, LOW'.


Have enclosed a couple of snapshots taken when stationary in traffic a few days ago to demonstrate just how close these two cameras are. Am well impressed with both of them.

Mobius snapshot from video shown below.

4a-vlc-snapshot-2015-08-06-23h22m19s616.jpg

Ah... have just figured out why the forum software won't upload the 2nd image from the 0806, it's because the max forum upload image width is 1920px and the 0806 image width is 2560px which is strange because the forum software adds a button to resize the image to fullsize.

Can someone let the webmaster know about this so he could perhaps tweak the forum file upload settings :)
 
For my twopenn'orth. I'm using a 64gig card in my Mobius & have the bitrate set to medium. This gives me over a day's footage (looking at Friday's recordings, I have 2 hours from Thursday plus 8 hours from Friday) but increasing the bitrate gives me less than a day.
Some days, I see events all day long - so It's handy to have the whole day on one card.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that the 806 has two slots for SD cards, presumably this increases storage from 64 to 128gig?
If the Mobius team are reading this, maybe something to consider for the next batch? ( and maybe a decent lens extension (like the innov c3?)
 
Have enclosed a couple of snapshots...
Probably the best way to show this is to cut out an interesting area of the image and upload that instead of uploading the full image so that neither of the images gets resized and people can see both at original resolution without having to click to expand them. Posting one at original resolution and the other at 2/3rds original resolution as in your earlier posts doesn't show the real comparison.
 
Here are a few snapshots taken from video footage recorded using the Mini 0806 and the Mobius A lens.

In terms of trying to figure out which is which, the 0806 displays the date and time information in the bottom-right of the image whilst the Mobius displays the date and time in the bottom-left of the image. If you click on the image they will be resized to full-size which will enable you to compare them easier.

Am thoroughly impressed with both of them :)

And thank you to the DashCamTalk admin team for sorting out the previous issue I was having with uploading multiple images.

4b-vlc-snapshot-2015-08-06-23h26m53s750.jpg

4a-vlc-snapshot-2015-08-06-23h22m19s616.jpg 2b-vlc-snapshot-2015-08-06-22h29m28s540.jpg 2a-vlc-snapshot-2015-08-06-23h08m31s530.jpg
 
And thank you to the DashCamTalk admin team for sorting out the previous issue I was having with uploading multiple images.
Next challenge: get the 0806 images to upload at 1080 pixels high like the Mobius images do, instead of being resized down to just 810 pixels high. Then we will be able to see a proper comparison instead of comparing full resolution from one camera with a 44% size reduction from the other .
 
Next challenge: get the 0806 images to upload at 1080 pixels high like the Mobius images do, instead of being resized down to just 810 pixels high. Then we will be able to see a proper comparison instead of comparing full resolution from one camera with a 44% size reduction from the other .

Hi Nigel, thank you for pointing that out because I hadn't noticed, and I'm not sure what is going on here because I did upload the original files which when I checked the info on one of the 0806 images stated them to be 2560 x 1080 pixels, instead of the 1920 x 810 pixels shown on the forum, so can only assume the forum software has automatically resized the images of the 0806 due to their width, I also noticed that the file size has shrunk from 897Kb to 297Kb which is clearly unfair when trying to do comparisons of image quality between differing cameras.

Perhaps the forum webmaster needs to take a look at what is going on and perhaps tweak the settings once again...

In the meantime, if you would like to download the original images to compare them at original resolution, I've uploaded them onto Mega.co.nz, link to download them is https://mega.co.nz/#F!UFBzXYaa!RdNq-hIJ3G3-O6QphL_eqA
 
In the meantime, if you would like to download the original images to compare them at original resolution, I've uploaded them onto Mega.co.nz, link to download them is https://mega.co.nz/#F!UFBzXYaa!RdNq-hIJ3G3-O6QphL_eqA

Mobius still looks good, 0806 brings out some detail by overexposing and is less natural looking which some people don't like, dashcams aren't for cinematography though

would be interesting to see the new C2 lens Mobius compared
 
It would be easy enough to bump the exposure slider up a bit on the Mobius to more closely match the 0806, if so desired.
 
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