Yi Ultra Dash Camera

[Dashcam Bandit]

Plate capture are so hit and miss, and its that way with any dashcam i have ever used.
Some days i am amazed why the camera have not captured any plates or far less than i expected it would, and other days where i have been sure today surely i can not read any plates, and then i get a surprise as i can read a lot of them.
My confusion are at a level where a suspect the automatic of cameras some times select some unfortunate settings to use, though they can only change ISO value and exposure time.
But that's how i feel, and its the same with the most expensive i have used and the most cheap ones i have used.

Plate capture i always test on a highway, and this mean both i and the oncoming car drive at least 80 km/h

This are the sjdash first on a good day then a bad day in the rain, and to be honest i dident expect it to work like that on a grey rainy day.

And the sjdash are not some super secret killer hardware, pretty normal if you ask me, and i am also sure sjcams dont have some super firmware team that can do things other cant do.

Personally i dont give much for plate capture, but it is just one parameter i use to gauge what i feel about a new dashcam.

Awesome quality for me....

 

[kamkar]

It is my firm belief that most 1080p dashcams can do okay / fine plate capture in the day time, but you have to be carefull the human eye do cheat it seem, cuz i have gotten bad plate capture on days where i was sure that the light was the same as yesterday and i drive same time of the day.
Thats so confusing for me but i do think its the human eye that thing it was as bright as yesterday, i have actually been thinking about getting one of those light mesure things photographers use so i can be sure of the light levels.
okay i also have other cameras in the windscreen to compare to, but that too to me give strange results some days.
This is sjdas Vs SG9665XS, first freeze frame are from SJdash and the following one from my SG9665XS

2 cameras side by side, the SJdash are the top one, the SG9665XS on bottom.

 

[rvcjew]

Mailed mine off to yi well see what happens anyone else with a US one have the that crazy flicker?

 

[Frenky Tan]

I contacted Yi with several ways , it seem do not have good support from them.

 

[rvcjew]

I contacted Yi with several ways , it seem do not have good support from them.

Where did you get your camera from?

 

[Frenky Tan]

I bought it from local reseller here in Malaysia

 

[rvcjew]

New camera arrived and has firmware .013 this time and flickers less but still has it but at this point it is as good as i'm going to get. App still does not have any firmware check area as well.

 

[edrt_]

I'm now rcording at 1080P 60 fps and while the framerate is more likely 50 or so fps I still think it is the best recording mode so far. 1520P is 26 fps (no 30 fps although advertised). The 60 fps mode helps with the blurriness (specially at night) and the drop in resolution is a worthy trade off.

I also contacted Yi on social media and they told me a new firmware was on the way but not ETA so far. Told me my camera could be faulty LOL.

 

[Wastedagen]

Hi Guys just joined as I've just purchased one of these from amazon for £61......£28 discount at the moment.

So my findings after one day of playing around with it is that it is a good camera for £61..... But for the original asking price I'd be more cheesed off....

Coming from a DOD LS360W camera, I think this is marginally better due to being able to record at 1080p/60. DOD could only do 720p/60...

Had to get a new one as the DOD would sometimes not start up.... I needed evidence one day and when I went to the camera it was off... Nothing recorded. So time to change.

I have to agree with the above post, at present the best resolution is 1080p/60. The max has too much stutter. It plays like a 15fps video.... Maybe this will get sorted in a future update, maybe I just need a faster card. I'm using the one supplied at the moment... UPDATE: (Nope, it's the sd card supplied.... I have switched to a better, faster card U3 as opposed to U1, and all stutter has gone...)

Out of the box I have. 013, (latest I believe), but how do you get the camera to check for latest firmware? The instructions say, as soon as the camera connects to Internet it will check for latest firmware. But when I connect the camera to my phone via WiFi, I get no Internet connection. Just file transfer ability..... So how does one get the camera to connect to Internet? Or is it done manually by putting the firmware file on the root of sd card......

But with that all said and done, the camera is a keeper, due to the price I paid and 1080p/60 recording.....Don't care about audio quality, never have, as I always disable it.

Thanks in advance...

Update: After playing around with different micro Sd Cards, I have found that using a better card than the one supplied helps tremendously with the quality, smoothness, of the recorded files at 1520p.....

This is what I am using now....

 

[TonyCams]

We will have to buy an Yi Ultra Dash camera for comparison with the SJDASH+ ...

 

[Frenky Tan]

Plate capture are so hit and miss, and its that way with any dashcam i have ever used.
Some days i am amazed why the camera have not captured any plates or far less than i expected it would, and other days where i have been sure today surely i can not read any plates, and then i get a surprise as i can read a lot of them.
My confusion are at a level where a suspect the automatic of cameras some times select some unfortunate settings to use, though they can only change ISO value and exposure time.
But that's how i feel, and its the same with the most expensive i have used and the most cheap ones i have used.

Plate capture i always test on a highway, and this mean both i and the oncoming car drive at least 80 km/h

This are the sjdash first on a good day then a bad day in the rain, and to be honest i dident expect it to work like that on a grey rainy day.

And the sjdash are not some super secret killer hardware, pretty normal if you ask me, and i am also sure sjcams dont have some super firmware team that can do things other cant do.

Personally i dont give much for plate capture, but it is just one parameter i use to gauge what i feel about a new dashcam.

I smell suspicious about these two video you posted.
Does this really SJDASH? I don't think so...

 

[kamkar]

O yes its the SJdash alright, its the latest dashcam anyone sent to me, and i also managed to make it stop working it pretty fast so my post on it was cut a bit short.

https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/kamkar-on-the-sjdash.30141/

Sadly the mini 0906 and the SJdash died pretty fast on me, otherwise they would both have undergone a lot more use, its still a while until i expect new dash cameras to beat on

 

[Dashcam Bandit]

Nice comparision to Viofo A119 (with beta HDR firmware)

 

[wacko911]

1.01.017 version of the firmware

Firmware

The firmware update instruction should be as below:
1 Download the firmware to your PC / Laptop and rename it update_c15.bin
2 Copy it to your Dash Cam SD card and put the SD card into the Dash Cam
3 Plug the camera to a power source
4 Firmware upgrade will popup on the LCD screen and select to firmware upgrade
5 Wait for 1-5 minutes for the auto upgrade.

Credit to wackyraces on Hotukdeals. Just updated my UK Yi Ultra dashcam - no changelog so not sure what the difference is. Still h.264.

 

[Wastedagen]

1.01.017 version of the firmware

Firmware

The firmware update instruction should be as below:
1 Download the firmware to your PC / Laptop and rename it update_c15.bin
2 Copy it to your Dash Cam SD card and put the SD card into the Dash Cam
3 Plug the camera to a power source
4 Firmware upgrade will popup on the LCD screen and select to firmware upgrade
5 Wait for 1-5 minutes for the auto upgrade.

Credit to wackyraces on Hotukdeals. Just updated my UK Yi Ultra dashcam - no changelog so not sure what the difference is. Still h.264.

I saw something about this earlier in this thread, but thought it was for Chinese branded cams only... Anyone updated using this yet?

 

[wacko911]

I saw something about this earlier in this thread, but thought it was for Chinese branded cams only... Anyone updated using this yet?

I think the one earlier in this thread is the Chinese version and someone who installed it lost all the English menu. I've installed the one I posted on two cameras now and it's still in English. It does wipe your settings. Might try the Chinese one and see does it enable hvec as I can always go back now.

 

[Wastedagen]

I think the one earlier in this thread is the Chinese version and someone who installed it lost all the English menu. I've installed the one I posted on two cameras now and it's still in English. It does wipe your settings. Might try the Chinese one and see does it enable hvec as I can always go back now.

Ok cool.. Let us know how you get on... Hevc (h.265) would be better codec as it's smaller file sizes for same quality....
I will install the firmware you posted then since 2 cameras can't be wrong... Thanks....

Update: Firmware installed. All good... Just need to see if there's any improvement in video quality.

 

[wacko911]

Ok cool.. Let us know how you get on... Hevc (h.265) would be better codec as it's smaller file sizes for same quality....
I will install the firmware you posted then since 2 cameras can't be wrong... Thanks....

Update: Firmware installed. All good... Just need to see if there's any improvement in video quality.

So, it looks like the firmware I posted is the same as the one on the Yi website (CRC32 match).

And the restore (emergency) firmware and normal firmware are a CRC32 match. Depending on how the firmware is named must do different things during a firmware update (as someone used this firmware and ended up stuck with japanese language somehow). I'm too chicken to try installing the 'restore' firmware as it must overwrite the bootloader and maybe wipeout the english settings.

Either that or there is a an option in the chinese version of the app to enable h.265 which is hidden in the english version.

UPDATE: I de-compiled the Yi app and found a check in the setting screen to only show the H265 setting when CN was in the serial number. I changed this check to EU and was able to enable H.265 encoding.

So far so good, filesize went from 160mb to 60mb per minute of video, it was using the H.265 codec however the video unusable. It keep blanking out every 5 seconds or so going to white and freezing. It was still using H.264 encoding for the smaller 'preview' video.

Maybe there is a difference in the hardware after all?

Here is the modified version of the android app if anyone else wants to try it.

Yi App EU H.265

You need to uninstall the current version first and allow unknown sources.

For reference the file I modified was com\xiaoyi\car\camera\mvp\presenter\CameraSettingPresenter.java
Line 100
if (!TextUtils.isEmpty(this.cameraDevice.realmGet$deviceSn()) && this.cameraDevice.realmGet$deviceSn().length() > 8 && this.cameraDevice.realmGet$deviceSn().substring(6, 8).equalsIgnoreCase("CN"))
... to "EU"

 

[Wastedagen]

Nice try mate. Real shame on the outcome though. Maybe it's banking and freezing because it is trying encoded using 2 different codes at the same time.

Is there a way of encoding the preview file with h.265 also? Or s way of disabling the encoding of the preview?

I know disabling the preview doesn't really help when using the app, but for testing purposes it would allow you to see if the different codecs being used was the issue...

Or like you said, hardware. Maybe the cpu inside this model doesn't have the grapes to encode using h.265.......

Thanks for trying though..


Update:

Found this review where in China they call it the King Edition, and the international version is the Ultra!

https://jwtechreviews.com/2017/07/24/xiaoyi-yi-dashcam-2-7k-king-edition/

It shows they have the ability to turn on h.265.

From what I can see there no difference in hardware..... So why can't we use the h.265 codec....??

One of the images shows the app checking for phone compatibility for playback of h.265 files. But I would've thought most modern phones could handle this new codec.....

 

[wacko911]

Nice try mate. Real shame on the outcome though. Maybe it's banking and freezing because it is trying encoded using 2 different codes at the same time.

Is there a way of encoding the preview file with h.265 also? Or s way of disabling the encoding of the preview?

I know disabling the preview doesn't really help when using the app, but for testing purposes it would allow you to see if the different codecs being used was the issue...

Or like you said, hardware. Maybe the cpu inside this model doesn't have the grapes to encode using h.265.......

Thanks for trying though..

Update: Found this review where in China they call it the King Edition, and the international version is the ultra!

https://jwtechreviews.com/2017/07/24/xiaoyi-yi-dashcam-2-7k-king-edition/

It shows they have the ability to turn on h.265.

From what I can see there no difference in hardware..... So why can't we use the h.265 codec....??

One of the images shows the app checking for phone compatibility for playback of h.265 files. But I would've thought most modern phones could handle this new codec.....

Yeah if you have EU in your serial number use the app I posted above and it enables that menu option and it checks if your phone can play h.265 and enables it. (Uninstall current app first). You can always turn it off again. Could be an issue with my memory card but as it's writing less data I doubt it.

Anyone have the king version and confirm the preview video is also encoded in h.265?

Disabling the preview video would mean modifing the device firmware. That's risky and beyondy my ability unfortunately.