A119 first impressions

Saw Techmoan reviewed the DDPAI m6 plus, impressed by the night time performance. I did some comparison with the A119, seems M6 plus is bright, but not good as my expected.
A119S beta vs M6 plus


A119 latest IQ vs M6 plus


Original Video:
A119: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22493212/A119/compare/A119.MP4
M6 PLUS: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22493212/A119/compare/M6 PLUS.mp4

 

@FoxOffer : Hello, you wrote A119S: are you saying that the above screenshots are taken from the A119 which is using the Sony sensor?

 

Most likely... A119S sure seems pretty good... Would love to try that one out

 

Only the first one picture is from A119S sony sensor, the 3rd picture is from A119 OV4689 version latest IQ. I did comparison between A119S/A119/M6 PLUS together.

 

@FoxOffer : Thanks for the quick reply!
As I see in your screenshots, both the A119 and the A119S-beta have a sharper image compared to M6 Plus, looking to the car plate numbers.

 

Regarding IQ, we mainly focus how to see clearly for the car plate number, so maybe the M6 plus is brighter than A119, but if you pause or just check the car plate number, it is not so clearly than A119.

 

In the first pair of pic, AE table made A119S become dark. That's why we can see number plate in A119S but can't see number plate in M6 plus. You may chose others pictures which can show a quality of sensor. Example: pictures when running/parking in a dark street with a little light will be good like the sencond pair of pics.
Anyway, we can't judge a dashcam by a few pictures. I am downloading the vid. Thank you.
PS: Do you have any footage at night by A119S ? I don't see any link here.

 

This is exactly what I meant in my previous post.

 

some people prefer things that look more natural, that doesn't always mean the detail is better though

 

Is a sensor of A119S has WDR ? I think all of sensor has a high dynamic range like sonny sensor must has WDR funtion. why don't you turn on the WDR on A119S and using AE table just like M6 Plus. By this way, we can have a brigher image and still can read number plate

 

We haven't decided the lens for A119S, so it is not ready to show the video sample.
Yes, it is better to check the original video of A119 and M6 Plus.

Regarding the A119S, I thought some area maybe too dark.
While I talk with engineer, they told me the M6 PLUS gamma setting is much different compared to A119.

 

different hardware has different characteristics also

 

Collecting more light using WDR or a longer exposure time will result in more motion blur so may not be desirable if trying to read plates on moving cars. Look at the wheels of the moving cars in the above images.

 

The M6 plus have less contrast, and the car plate number is not so clearly.
The Sony sensor have WDR, and have much ability to collect more light, will add more bright in night video to see how it performs.

 

It may be a problem with a sensor like ov4689, but i remmeber have read somewhere in dct, the unit cell size of sensor using in A119s is bigger than IMX322. So it's not take too much time to collect enough light.
But it's all the theory, can't tell it's good or bad. Consider it's a suggestion i give to them, they will have to test to see how it will be in real.

 

The A119 and M6 plus use same sensor OV4689.
The M6 seems brighter , one reason is it use very low contrast.

 

You can see from the motion blur on the wheels of the moving car in the M6 image that it has used a longer exposure than the A119s and that has given a lot of the extra brightness.

We want to avoid motion blur, so if you can brighten the dark areas by using more gamma instead of a longer exposure then it will give a better result if it doesn't make the image too noisy. I guess noise on this sensor is very low so you can probably use a lot of gamma.

I think the WDR on these sensors also increases the motion blur because it does the bright and dark exposures as separate frames so there is a significant time difference between when the bright light and the dark light is collected which means that it looks blurred when you combine them if there is movement in the image - don't just test it with images with no movement, accidents only ever happen when there is movement!

 

Then what's the cons of using very low contrast ? it has to some reason why others manufactures don't use very low contrast on their dashcam ?

 

i believe what you are talking about is HDR. It's diffirent from WDR.
"WDR is short for Wide Dynamic Range. The WDR technology is applied for viewing the image smoothly under the condition of severe light contrast. Broadly speaking, it stands for the possible range of certain changing object or an area the minimum value and the maximum value spans that can be seen. WDR allows an imaging system to correct for the intense back light surrounding a subject and thus enhances the ability to distinguish features and shapes on the subject.

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. HDR photography is a kind of post-processing technology. It can reach the shooting outcome that normal combination of aperture and shutter cannot do by compositing various photos of different exposure and conducting tone mapping. The advantage of HDR photography is that it can keep original details to maximum extent and demonstrate the original vibrant colors."
http://www.anc.cn/faq/vehicle-data-...d-whats-the-difference-between-them-e012.html

 

Using low contrast, so the dark area is not too dark, that's why M6 plus is more bright in some area.