resolution vs frames per second?

[roadkill401]

I have my A119 on order from Amazon and hopefully it will be here by the end of the week. While i wait, I figured to ask about setup. I do most of my driving during the day time and am getting the dashcam to protect myself from eager police who like to hand out tickets for failing to stop at stop signs.

Is there any advantage to a high frame rate setting over a high resoltion setting? Planning on using a 64gb SD and will have the GPS base installed

 

[m0fo]

From my point of view, 60fps for a dashcam is quite useless. I would rather go on camera's native resolution (either 1080p for A119S or 1440p for A119) with 30fps than on anything with 60fps.

 

[DT MI]

For your stated purpose 720p@15FPS would be sufficient so you should be just fine with whatever you choose to go with.

 

[SawMaster]

Try the different settings and see which you like best

Phil

 

[Siley]

60fps (as 720p 120fps) need more light then native 30fps. I tried 1080@30, 1080@60 and 1440@30. and for me is best 1440@30. 1080p is downsize because 1440 is native and 60fps was good only in perfect sun day.

 

[SawMaster]

And now you are more knowledgeable about your cam and what to expect with it- Well Done Siley

Phil

 

[roadkill401]

Thanks Siley for your insight. The light receptors are very small and I wondered if it was like digital cameras. The industry keeps on making a higher and higher pixle count cameras but I wonder if it actually translates into a better image in the end. The play is on the amount of blur that you will get. As the dash cam is effectively moving relative to the image that it is taking, given you are losing the potential amount of light between each frame captured, but then again the total amount of movement of each of the objects in the captured frame is also less as the exposure time of each frame is half.

I get this is not a high end digital movie camera that we are working with. I know from watching too many movies that most action shots on the screen have tremendous amounts of blur with multi-thousand dollar cameras, how would one expect a $100 dash cam to be crystal clear.

I guess it comes down to just giving it a try but likely i will not be able to tell the difference between any of the options.

 

[Bruce Largent]

Hey Roadkill, hopefully you have already received your A119 by now. I just got mine a couple of days ago. Today was my day off so I went out and tried the different resolution settings. I also wanted to know: Resolution or FPS? I found the detail was best on the highest resolution of 2560 x 1440/30 fps. I was able to read the license plates of close vehicles but could not do so on lower resolution settings. BTW, the user manual can be confusing as some of it is NOT correct. Reach out if some of doesn't make sense.

 

[Cobber]

Is there any advantage to a high frame rate setting over a high resoltion setting?

I tried both the highest resolution and 1080@60 settings. I then took screenshots of the paused video when cars were passing in the opposite direction. While the image quality was great at the highest resolution, I could not read the licence plates. The faster 60 frames per second made the plates and other roadside signs clearly readable.

I am no expert on photography, but it seems logical to me that capturing more images per second would yield better results for moving objects, or passing stationary ones at speed.

Compare the two cropped screenshots. The first one is at hi-res, the second at 1080@60 with driving speed at 80kmh (160kmh combined)

 

[sfnetwork]

I tried both the highest resolution and 1080@60 settings. I then took screenshots of the paused video when cars were passing in the opposite direction. While the image quality was great at the highest resolution, I could not read the licence plates. The faster 60 frames per second made the plates and other roadside signs clearly readable.

I am no expert on photography, but it seems logical to me that capturing more images per second would yield better results for moving objects, or passing stationary ones at speed.

Compare the two cropped screenshots. The first one is at hi-res, the second at 1080@60 with driving speed at 80kmh (160kmh combined)

View attachment 28789 View attachment 28790

Well, the way I understand it, hi resolution at 30fps will get better details from far away when not moving too fast and better light at night and 1080 60fps will be better catching details closer when objects moves faster (more frames) but will require more light at night so weaker at night...

 

[Feitelijk]

the play is on the amount of blur that you will get.

Yes!


And that is why 60fps shows less motionblurr than 30fps. it shouldn't if the exposuretimes were the same. Like during bright conditions but at night, the cam cam't resist using as much time between frames for exposure as possible. Which means the motionblur on 30fps will be twice as bad as on the 60fps.

 

[Gibson99]

I tried both the highest resolution and 1080@60 settings. I then took screenshots of the paused video when cars were passing in the opposite direction. While the image quality was great at the highest resolution, I could not read the licence plates. The faster 60 frames per second made the plates and other roadside signs clearly readable.

I am no expert on photography, but it seems logical to me that capturing more images per second would yield better results for moving objects, or passing stationary ones at speed.

Compare the two cropped screenshots. The first one is at hi-res, the second at 1080@60 with driving speed at 80kmh (160kmh combined)

View attachment 28789 View attachment 28790

to me it looks like the red car is at least twice as far away as the white ute, which easily explains why its plate is blurry. you can see your hood/bonnet in the second photo but not in the first. and the angle of the vehicles is different, which also suggests more distance.

a better test would be to go to a carpark or something, pick a spot where there are various vehicles at different distances, then take some short videos at each resolution setting. THEN you can objectively compare the two. no, it won't help with determining the difference for motion blur or whatever, but it will tell you how far out a given resolution can actually capture details like plate numbers.

only way to really compare is to have 2 or more identical cameras running side by side but with different settings on each one.

 

[Cobber]

Here are some different snapshots so you can see the car at different distances and angle. None show the number plate clearly. I wish I had some more videos saved at the highest resolution, but this was the only one I kept.

 

[Arun]

Very interesting. 60FPS clearly better. Time to play with my resolution settings!