60fps during the night

[Alexcrist]

Hello,

About a month ago I bought A229 Plus Duo solely because of the 60fps capability in Duo mode. But I'm not happy with the results. Is there any chance that Viofo will try to stabilize it in the near future? As it is, I'm sorry, but it's barely usable. The hardware/sensor are 100% clearly capable, but the firmware has no reasonable control over the exposure. It literally permanently changes exposure, going from almost complete darkness (when a car comes from the other way) to all the way blown-out max ISO for absolutely no reason and no benefit. And LITERALLY doing this every few frames, up and down and up and down and soo on. For every single sparkle in the image, it goes down and immediately back up to max.

A sample recording:

And for comparison, the same area with A129 Duo:

I'm also very disappointed by the sound recording. Very distorted, sometimes difficult to understand even basic speech in the car. Coming from years of A129 with absolutely impeccable sound (even music), the sound on 229 Plus cannot even be compared.

All in all, I really hope that someone at Viofo can stabilize the firmware, because it's too late for me to return it. Otherwise I'll just have to use 30fps, which I could have done just as well with my old camera (but even 30fps on 229 Plus is worse than on 129, because it still goes almost dark when having oncoming traffic, which 129 never did), so simply money wasted...

P.S.: Don't get me started on HDR... let's keep focus on 60fps in this thread, please.

 

[Nigel]

And for comparison, the same area with A129 Duo:

But which one is best? It might depend on what you want to do with the recorded video, for example, making movies, or reading license plates?

If it doesn't adjust fast enough to a bright license plate then it may not be readable.

I assume you are not reading plates though, because 60fps is not best for that.

What is the reason for wanting 60fps at night?

to all the way blown-out max ISO for absolutely no reason and no benefit.

There is a big benefit in max ISO, it gives less motion blur, which enables plate reading. But if that is not important to you then yes, maybe you need a different exposure setup. So again, what is your purpose for the video? Maybe we can get an optional exposure mode added...

I'm also very disappointed by the sound recording. Very distorted, sometimes difficult to understand even basic speech in the car. Coming from years of A129 with absolutely impeccable sound (even music), the sound on 229 Plus cannot even be compared.

I think it is missing a bit of sample rate compared to your A129, not sure about distorted though.
Where on the windshield do you have it mounted?

 

[Vortex Radar]

Yeah hm I see what you mean. I wonder if that's an intentional decision to try and boost exposure when it gets dark to help you better see in the shadows and when things get brighter (ie. headlights in your face) it cuts down quick. That said, it's odd to see you report that it only happens with 60 fps though and not with 30 so I wonder if it's a bug or something?

 

[Nigel]

so I wonder if it's a bug or something?

It could be intentionally different to 30fps to give people a choice, or because someone asked for it to be like that.
Different people do want different things.

 

[JardaB]

You are obviously expecting miracles that even a professional DSLR couldn't do (and you don't have the minimum basic knowledge of how a camera works).
For 60 fps, the exposure time has to be about 1/120 and that's just not good enough in the dark. There the time required is in the order of 0.1 and 1 second

The high frame rate does not bring any big positive for the image quality even in daylight. It is not an action camera where such a feature is expected and its use is in daylight and sunlight

 

[viofo]

Hello,

About a month ago I bought A229 Plus Duo solely because of the 60fps capability in Duo mode. But I'm not happy with the results. Is there any chance that Viofo will try to stabilize it in the near future? As it is, I'm sorry, but it's barely usable. The hardware/sensor are 100% clearly capable, but the firmware has no reasonable control over the exposure. It literally permanently changes exposure, going from almost complete darkness (when a car comes from the other way) to all the way blown-out max ISO for absolutely no reason and no benefit. And LITERALLY doing this every few frames, up and down and up and down and soo on. For every single sparkle in the image, it goes down and immediately back up to max.

A sample recording:

And for comparison, the same area with A129 Duo:

I'm also very disappointed by the sound recording. Very distorted, sometimes difficult to understand even basic speech in the car. Coming from years of A129 with absolutely impeccable sound (even music), the sound on 229 Plus cannot even be compared.

All in all, I really hope that someone at Viofo can stabilize the firmware, because it's too late for me to return it. Otherwise I'll just have to use 30fps, which I could have done just as well with my old camera (but even 30fps on 229 Plus is worse than on 129, because it still goes almost dark when having oncoming traffic, which 129 never did), so simply money wasted...

P.S.: Don't get me started on HDR... let's keep focus on 60fps in this thread, please.

Do you use the latest firmware?

 

[Panzer Platform]

Hello,

About a month ago I bought A229 Plus Duo solely because of the 60fps capability in Duo mode. But I'm not happy with the results. Is there any chance that Viofo will try to stabilize it in the near future? As it is, I'm sorry, but it's barely usable. The hardware/sensor are 100% clearly capable, but the firmware has no reasonable control over the exposure. It literally permanently changes exposure, going from almost complete darkness (when a car comes from the other way) to all the way blown-out max ISO for absolutely no reason and no benefit. And LITERALLY doing this every few frames, up and down and up and down and soo on. For every single sparkle in the image, it goes down and immediately back up to max.

A sample recording:

And for comparison, the same area with A129 Duo:

I'm also very disappointed by the sound recording. Very distorted, sometimes difficult to understand even basic speech in the car. Coming from years of A129 with absolutely impeccable sound (even music), the sound on 229 Plus cannot even be compared.

All in all, I really hope that someone at Viofo can stabilize the firmware, because it's too late for me to return it. Otherwise I'll just have to use 30fps, which I could have done just as well with my old camera (but even 30fps on 229 Plus is worse than on 129, because it still goes almost dark when having oncoming traffic, which 129 never did), so simply money wasted...

P.S.: Don't get me started on HDR... let's keep focus on 60fps in this thread, please.

Where is @Mtz when we need him most? lol

 

[Alexcrist]

Do you use the latest firmware?

Yes, latest, V1.1_231208. But it was the same with the original firmware on the camera, V1.0_230922
Sorry, forgot to mention that.

Yeah hm I see what you mean. I wonder if that's an intentional decision to try and boost exposure when it gets dark to help you better see in the shadows and when things get brighter (ie. headlights in your face) it cuts down quick. That said, it's odd to see you report that it only happens with 60 fps though and not with 30 so I wonder if it's a bug or something?

It happens also on 30, but it's less pronounced. An example:

All that "boosted exposure" manages to do is turn blacks into greys and hide all details behind hard-to-understand grain. That's literally all it does.

During the video, there are portions that are (almost) perfectly exposed. Everything is there: details, sharpness, contrast, the entire area covered by the headlights is visible on video. Where it's black, it's black, nothing can be done about that. This is why I said the hardware is clearly capable, it's just not controlled properly.

After the 2nd screenshot, just after the right-side wall ends, the exposure blows up and reveals nothing extra. As I said, if just turns black into grey and details into grain.

If that exposure, or maaaybe just a tiny bit more, would be kept constantly (including when headlights are encountered), everything would be perfect. That's what I would have hoped I'd get from this new camera. Of course I can deal with some extra grains compared with my old A129, if I can get the 60fps benefit in return. But the current behavior is a bit ridiculous.

The high frame rate does not bring any big positive for the image quality even in daylight.

[irony] Yes, of course 60fps is useless. BTW, Why don't you use 12 fps?

Of course in this pair of examples, no license plates (since it seems the Universe revolves around license plates ) are clearly visible with 60fps, but are clearly visible with 30

And of course, in the middle of the night, the speed limits, town limits, and any other sings are not clearly visible with 60fps and are clearly visible with 30.

For someone who's just a tiny bit over-confident in his knowledge, you're a just a tiny bit wrong. But hey, I have no clue how cameras work, I'm just a humble photographer since...I don't know...15 years.
[/irony]

 

[Alexcrist]

Oh, one more detail: all my screenshots and videos are done with exposure bias -0.3 from the camera and with a CPL filter. So the examples above may have looked even more closer to perfection with exposure set to 0. But these are details, they don't affect the overall behavior. The same results were observed with exposure 0 and no filter, but I don't have footage anymore from that time.

 

[JardaB]

the correctness of the exposure measurement can be significantly affected by the use of a CPL filter. Maybe less than PL filter.

 

[Alexcrist]

the correctness of the exposure measurement can be significantly affected by the use of a CPL filter. Maybe less than PL filter.

The same results were observed with exposure 0 and no filter, but I don't have footage anymore from that time.

Also, when I said "all videos", I meant also the A129 video, which was done with a CPL filter.

 

[Alexcrist]

2 more examples:

For the life of me, I don't understand why it needs to continuously bounce the exposure like that in the first part of the video.

Because of the snow, it doesn't bounce as much. Somehow, even with other headlights it doesn't go dark anymore (minutes 0:40-45, 1:35) - it still goes darker, but not that much. On average, this is what I'd expect from it, so again: the hardware is clearly capable. It's still very annoying that it still bounces, and it still goes nuts between minutes 1:20-1:25, but overall, if this exposure was always used, I'd have nothing to complain about.

 

[Nigel]

Try adjusting the lens angle up a little, it is recommended to have the horizon at the centre of the image, so 50% sky and 50% ground, you appear to have not enough sky and too much of your car.

I'm wondering if the auto exposure is being affected sometimes by the bright reflections off the front of your car when at other times it is very dark in that area.

 

[Vortex Radar]

I'm just a humble photographer since...I don't know...15 years.

Nice, a fellow long time photographer.

As you know frame rate and shutter speed are different things, though they can be loosely related. What do you see as the reason to choose 60 over 30? I haven’t seen many compelling reasons to do so. The only thing is potentially getting faster shutter speeds in some cases if the camera can force 1/60 per frame instead of 1/30, doubling the ISO in the process, but I haven’t seen any tests that show that being a real world benefit. Dashcams don’t give us manual exposure settings like that (at best maybe exposure compensation controls) and so selecting 60 fps provides the dashcam an option for faster shutter speeds, but it certainly doesn’t guarantee it.

Jumping to 60 also means you lose HDR which is a big deal, you have larger file sizes and need 2x the bitrate to keep the same quality per frame, if you keep the same bitrate than you capture 1/2 as much data per frame, shooting at 2x the frame rate can sometimes lead to a hotter camera and worsen heat issues, etc.

60 fps is smoother and you get 2x as many frames for slowmo which is nice, but again I haven’t really seen any good examples of why people really need 60 fps over 30.

All other things being equal, sure shoot at a higher frame rate. Why not? Given that there are many trade offs to do that though, IMO 30fps with HDR as needed is a better balance.

I could be wrong of course though. What do you think?

 

[Alexcrist]

I haven’t really seen any good examples of why people really need 60 fps over 30.

I could be wrong of course though. What do you think?

I posted above 2 pairs of examples, 30v60, both day and night. If those are not compelling enough, I got nothing else.

And HDR is not the subject of this topic and I don't want to go down that rabbit hole here. Viofo advertises 60fps and I expected it to deliver, that's why I bought it.

Try adjusting the lens angle up a little, it is recommended to have the horizon at the centre of the image, so 50% sky and 50% ground, you appear to have not enough sky and too much of your car.

I'm wondering if the auto exposure is being affected sometimes by the bright reflections off the front of your car when at other times it is very dark in that area.

The lens angle should indeed make it brighter or darker, but it should still keep it fairly constant. Funny enough, the local Viofo dealer told me to turn it even lower than this.

And yes, the exposure is clearly affected by any minor sparkle in the scene. It's just too eager to adjust to everything instead of keeping a (semi)constant average. And of course, during pitch-black night, it should expect that large parts of the image are black. That's what night is I don't see a reason to try to max out the ISO just to turn black gray.

 

[Nigel]

And yes, the exposure is clearly affected by any minor sparkle in the scene.

That is not true, it is looking at the road, assuming that you have pointed it in the correct direction. If you have pointed it too low then it will set the exposure based on your car, or the reflections on it, instead of the road, which may be what is causing your issue.

Try pointing it so the horizon is at 50% image height... that is what the auto exposure has been calibrated for.

I posted above 2 pairs of examples, 30v60, both day and night. If those are not compelling enough, I got nothing else.

The 60fps does have 60 frames per second. It has more image noise and less sharpness than the 30fps because it has had to halve the exposure time, thus double the ISO. More ISO is not good for low noise or sharp images. Also, assuming the videos are at the same bitrate, it will only have half the number of bits per frame, thus half the information per frame, which may also be reducing the sharpness of the image.

For someone who's just a tiny bit over-confident in his knowledge, you're a just a tiny bit wrong. But hey, I have no clue how cameras work, I'm just a humble photographer since...I don't know...15 years.

Good thing you are not a videographer!

By choosing 60fps you are trading spacial for temporal resolution, you don't get both without the memory card overheating.

I still don't know what you are aiming to achieve, but for normal dashcam use at night, it is best to use the HDR setting on this dashcam, set it to Auto HDR if you don't want HDR or do want 60fps during the day.

 

[Alexcrist]

It's nice that people try to convince me that it doesn't work after I posted multiple videos in which it clearly works, correct exposure, clear details, less motion blur.

Again: I posted CLEAR samples. For everybody's eyes. Heck, you can even test your "theories" and go out and try it.

I'm just curious of Viofo's reply right now. Hope dies last. For anyone still tempted to deny reality, you can please post somewhere else. Thanks, and Merry Christmas!

 

[JardaB]

Yes .. sure it works in the daytime, in the sun and possible ? on a well-lit city road. Have you tried the videos where you can see the readability of car number plates?
Beautiful "landscape" shots are not conclusive.

 

[Alexcrist]

@viofo: If you attempt to fix this issue in any way, please, please don't to it by adding a ridiculous amount of denoise, like you did for HDR. That would make things a lot worse, even unusable. Noise levels as they are now are perfectly acceptable if you just fix the exposure. Thank you!

 

[JardaB]

difficult to fix the exposure in constantly changing lighting conditions