Viofo A129 Pro Dual Dashcam - 4K Front + 1080 Rear

jokiin said:
point was you're not going to be able to examine it frame by frame and know what ISO was used, moot point though as it's not the issue anyway, it's a bug that's fixable, most likely they just weren't aware of it
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Use of H265 is not in the manual anyway, so maybe it isn't even a bug?
Works fine in H264.
 
jokiin said:
point was you're not going to be able to examine it frame by frame and know what ISO was used, moot point though as it's not the issue anyway, it's a bug that's fixable, most likely they just weren't aware of it
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Seems I find any frames related bugs,and I don't wear glasses haha..🤓
 
I assume it can't be card related as in daytime is working fine with the same card..
 
A few more samples on cloudy weather.I think best exposure settings for me are -2/3 on front and 0 on rear.On the front camera even with -2/3 EV setting,I still see some strange artifacts on the asphalt on specific light conditions,seems to be related with the exposure I think?The rear is too dark,I will try to rotate the rear camera to see less sky(also CPL filter and window tint doesn't help),this will help a little.Also in my opinion,I think the exposure needs some more tweaks inside firmware.
Firmware: 1015
Resolution: 2K 60fps F+FullHd 30FPS R
EV Front: -2/3
EV Rear: -2/3
Bitrate: High
WDR OFF
CPL Filter: ON both Front+Rear,rear factory tint.

20191020_171034F.MP4

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20191020_171034R.MP4

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20191020_171433F.MP4

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20191020_171434R.MP4

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↩ It's a new day, it's a U Day.... ↩

Just 3 minutes between hers and mine...

 
Interesting video I found. I am not sure how accurate is this but it seems that the A129 Pro doesn't handle motion blur well compared to the A119 v3. Now, I really can't decide if I should just get 2x A119 v3 (front and rear) or the A129 Pro duo. I probably need to test both myself..

 
BokChoy said:
Interesting video I found. I am not sure how accurate is this but it seems that the A129 Pro doesn't handle motion blur well compared to the A119 v3. Now, I really can't decide if I should just get 2x A119 v3 (front and rear) or the A129 Pro duo. I probably need to test both myself..

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Not sure that video is fair, the A129 Pro sees best at greater distance than the A119 V3 when there is motion blur, but that video is comparing them at the same distance. However the A119 V3 does often win in lower light or higher speeds, the A129 Pro wins in brighter light or slower speeds. It is hard to decide which is best overall, especially if you live somewhere dark, best to decide on other features like only the A129 Pro having dual synchronised recordings on a single card, bluetooth remote control, wifi, buffered parking mode, higher bitrates etc.
 
Nigel said:
Not sure that video is fair, the A129 Pro sees best at greater distance than the A119 V3 when there is motion blur, but that video is comparing them at the same distance. However the A119 V3 does often win in lower light or higher speeds, the A129 Pro wins in brighter light or slower speeds. It is hard to decide which is best overall, especially if you live somewhere dark, best to decide on other features like only the A129 Pro having dual synchronised recordings on a single card, bluetooth remote control, wifi, buffered parking mode, higher bitrates etc.
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I am getting no plate capture at night on my new A129 Pro duo from the front with any rate of movement. All plates are blurry at night. Yet to try with my CPL filter which I have sitting here.

Here are my night experiences so far as posted in another thread a few moments ago:

The rear camera can see peoples faces and plates of the car behind me when stationary with a tinted window at night - that's rather good. Kinda bad motion blur when moving though. Street lights create a lot of 'flare' (front and rear cams) if that is the correct way to say it.

One big thing: At night the front cannot capture any license plates when there is any movement. Either they are blown out from headlights or just blurry. There is a lot of motion blur on paused frames shown on plates and street signs. My A119 Pro does a better job in this regard. That aspect is disappointing for me on the A129 Pro Duo. I expected some plate capture when moving but nothing really.

I will say you can see a lot at night on the front cam - plenty of vision (great!), just a lack of details / clarity on signs and plates.

Footage is also more grainy on the A129 Pro than my A119 Pro at night. Like a high ISO grainy effect. It is a brighter picture than the A119 Pro but that dashcam has a CPL fitted.

I am yet to install the CPL on the front - hope it helps. I am considering running an A119 V3 along side the A129 Pro for night drives but I shouldn't really have to. I know the 4K dashcams are generally poor at night but yeah I had some hope it would capture night plates like my A119 Pro does in my other car.

Now I also get some DAB interference since the install. I took care to route the rear camera cable down the opposite side of the car away from the DAB gear. I use to have rock solid reception now it drops out under semi open carparks which it did not do before.

Any suggestions to increase clarity / reduce motion blur at night on the A129 Pro?

Yet to try some daytime capture.
 
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OzAdam said:
I am getting no plate capture at night on my new A129 Pro duo from the front with any rate of movement. All plates are blurry at night. Yet to try with my CPL filter which I have sitting here.

Here are my night experiences so far as posted in another thread a few moments ago:

The rear camera can see peoples faces and plates of the car behind me when stationary with a tinted window at night - that's rather good. Kinda bad motion blur when moving though. Street lights create a lot of 'flare' (front and rear cams) if that is the correct way to say it.

One big thing: At night the front cannot capture any license plates when there is any movement. Either they are blown out from headlights or just blurry. There is a lot of motion blur on paused frames shown on plates and street signs. My A119 Pro does a better job in this regard. That aspect is disappointing for me on the A129 Pro Duo. I expected some plate capture when moving but nothing really.

I will say you can see a lot at night on the front cam - plenty of vision (great!), just a lack of details / clarity on signs and plates.

Footage is also more grainy on the A129 Pro than my A119 Pro at night. Like a high ISO grainy effect. It is a brighter picture than the A119 Pro but that dashcam has a CPL fitted.

I am yet to install the CPL on the front - hope it helps. I am considering running an A119 V3 along side the A129 Pro for night drives but I shouldn't really have to. I know the 4K dashcams are generally poor at night but yeah I had some hope it would capture night plates like my A119 Pro does in my other car.

Now I also get some DAB interference since the install. I took care to route the rear camera cable down the opposite side of the car away from the DAB gear. I use to have rock solid reception now it drops out under semi open carparks which it did not do before.

Any suggestions to increase clarity / reduce motion blur at night on the A129 Pro?

Yet to try some daytime capture.
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I am testing 3 dashcams.The a119 v3, a129 pro front, and Vantrue X4 (True 4k, same sensor as A129 pro). The Vantrue is the worst of all 3. Terrible in low light. The a129 pro, even though has the same sensor as the Vantrue, performed way better than the Vantrue but the A119 v3 is the king of low light which to be expected because of the Starvis sensor and just 2k. Just look at this video from Youtube:

In daylight, I didn't see much difference between the 3. I will perform some more testings in daylight and low light and also experiment with different settings.
 
OzAdam said:
I am yet to install the CPL on the front - hope it helps.
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A CPL is going to cut 1.5-2 stops of light, so it's only going to hurt night performance. It might help with your flare issue, depending on exactly what is causing that. Tune your auto-exposure setting to match the brightness level of your A119. It might take -1 EV to match.

I don't think that the technical data is available, but I would guess that the A129 Pro sensor has a significantly lower max ISO (in order to keep noise under control) than the A119 V3, which is what explains the motion blur differences between the two cameras.
 
BokChoy said:
I am testing 3 dashcams.The a119 v3, a129 pro front, and Vantrue X4 (True 4k, same sensor as A129 pro). The Vantrue is the worst of all 3. Terrible in low light. The a129 pro, even though has the same sensor as the Vantrue, performed way better than the Vantrue but the A119 v3 is the king of low light which to be expected because of the Starvis sensor and just 2k.
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Whenever I see an image where I can measure the motion blur, the A129 Pro and A119 V3 measure about the same, often with the A129 Pro having slightly less motion blur. The Starvis sensor on the A119 V3 does produce a better image quality at night, cleaner with less noise, but the difference in plate readability is quite small. There seems to be more difference in low daylight, eg under trees when the A129 Pro does seem to have more motion blur and the A119 V3 normally wins, but then in better light, or when moving slowly (stopped at night) the A129 Pro will win.
relive said:
I don't think that the technical data is available, but I would guess that the A129 Pro sensor has a significantly lower max ISO (in order to keep noise under control) than the A119 V3, which is what explains the motion blur differences between the two cameras.
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I think they are actually using the same ISO most of the time, so motion blur measures the same, but the lower sensitivity of the A129 Pro sensor then means more noise in lower light.

The A119 V3 is currently the best low light dashcam I've seen, and the A129 Pro the best sunlight dashcam I've seen. Until the A129 Pro V2 arrives, we have to make a compromise choice based on day/night image quality rather than price, unless you run both cameras to get the best result day and night.
 
relive said:
A CPL is going to cut 1.5-2 stops of light, so it's only going to hurt night performance. It might help with your flare issue, depending on exactly what is causing that. Tune your auto-exposure setting to match the brightness level of your A119. It might take -1 EV to match.

I don't think that the technical data is available, but I would guess that the A129 Pro sensor has a significantly lower max ISO (in order to keep noise under control) than the A119 V3, which is what explains the motion blur differences between the two cameras.
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I shall try adjusting the EV down, thanks for the tip.
I will be running a CPL to reduce reflections so I guess I have to deal with the trade-off but I was expecting as such. I do a lot of night driving so I want something optimised for this.

The streetlights and headlights have large halos around them, lots of glare. My A119 Pro with the CPL filter reduces this fair amount but has a darker image. I know they have very different sensors so it’s not a great comparison.

As I said I am impressed with the overall A129 Pro night vision. You see everything nice and bright but details are smeared so signs and plates are unreadable.

On the A119 Pro during the day I can pause and get 99% of plates from both sides of the road. This is what I am hoping I get from the A129 Pro. Yet to try in the day.

At night I still get somewhat clearer and less motion blur from the A119 Pro over the 4K. I get hints of characters and some plates vs no plates in motion.


Nigel said:
Whenever I see an image where I can measure the motion blur, the A129 Pro and A119 V3 measure about the same, often with the A129 Pro having slightly less motion blur. The Starvis sensor on the A119 V3 does produce a better image quality at night, cleaner with less noise, but the difference in plate readability is quite small. There seems to be more difference in low daylight, eg under trees when the A129 Pro does seem to have more motion blur and the A119 V3 normally wins, but then in better light, or when moving slowly (stopped at night) the A129 Pro will win.

I think they are actually using the same ISO most of the time, so motion blur measures the same, but the lower sensitivity of the A129 Pro sensor then means more noise in lower light.

The A119 V3 is currently the best low light dashcam I've seen, and the A129 Pro the best sunlight dashcam I've seen. Until the A129 Pro V2 arrives, we have to make a compromise choice based on day/night image quality rather than price, unless you run both cameras to get the best result day and night.
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In the above video in BokChoy’s post by BC Hobbyist and you see plates in some situations, mostly following cars in front. I don’t get this on the A129 Pro, plates are just whited out or fuzzy.

There also appears to be less image noise (sensor as you said) also as well as greater contrast – might be the CPL in his video. But is not a huge difference honestly after comparing a similar city scene.

Wondering if it would be worth running two to get the best of both worlds. Will doing so make it that much more likely to get some important details if needed with running an A119 V3 next to the A129 Pro?
 
Hey OzAdam, my A129 Pro has the same halo/glare effect from street lights or lights in general at night. It's like big rings appearing - my old Blackvue DR650s never had this so thought it might've just been my dusty windshield causing this to happen. Tad concerning that you're experiencing it too!
 
I CU2 said:
Hey OzAdam, my A129 Pro has the same halo/glare effect from street lights or lights in general at night. It's like big rings appearing - my old Blackvue DR650s never had this so thought it might've just been my dusty windshield causing this to happen. Tad concerning that you're experiencing it too!
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Notice how everything is nice and bright at night on the captured video? Sounds like either bumping down the EV or adding a CPL might take care of the glare rings. I will be fitting one tonight and seeing how it does. My windshield isn’t that clean but it’s not bad.
Yeah it has large glare rings from streetlights and headlights. The A119 Pro with a CPL does the same so it is not out of character but it is somewhat reduced on that model when compared.

Can you make out any plates and details at night when you freeze frame?
 
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Nope, no plates unfortunately.

Also, I've got my dashcam set to low-bitrate recording in parking mode but it turns off after about an hour in the hot Aussie sun. What about yours? Does it remain on?
 
I CU2 said:
Nope, no plates unfortunately.

Also, I've got my dashcam set to low-bitrate recording in parking mode but it turns off after about an hour in the hot Aussie sun. What about yours? Does it remain on?
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Same here. Lots of image, no text visible.

I am yet to use parking mode as my battery is stuffed and sits at 11.7 volts when the engine is off.
Sounds like it is getting hot and shutting off.
 
OzAdam said:
Notice how everything is nice and bright at night on the captured video? Sounds like either bumping down the EV or adding a CPL might take care of the glare rings. I will be fitting one tonight and seeing how it does. My windshield isn’t that clean but it’s not bad.
Yeah it has large glare rings from streetlights and headlights. The A119 Pro with a CPL does the same so it is not out of character but it is somewhat reduced on that model when compared.

Can you make out any plates and details at night when you freeze frame?
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I bumped the EV down a little bit and also used a CPL. It significantly decreased the light halos or glares even with a dirty windshield.
 
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