A139 vs A129 for 2CH setup

Mio NoVue

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The VIOFO I have is the A119v3 and at the time it was the best cam for clarity.
To get it out in the open early doors for any skim readers - my priority is evidence & identification. I'm not in to making beautiful videos etc. My dash cam is purely to identify the guy who hit me & did a runner for example & as we're on the move then having the best chance of making out a moving license plate is absolute top priority.

I had one near miss a few years ago where someone was nailing it over the brow of a hill as I was coming up it & they had to swerve out of the way as they were on my side of the road. They narrowly missed me & when I pulled the SD card to get their plate, even when I went frame-by-frame it was just useless. Maybe these new cams would've also failed in that situation but I want the best chance.

It's been some time since I looked at the A129 series & I can't remember which is best for clarity. From memory it wasn't the most expensive but the middle of the road one?? That was before the A139 came out (told you it was some time ago). IIRC 4k may sound great but it didn't produce the best results with my criteria - 2k was better??

* I also don't know if firmware updates have changed anything across the board or not (such as making ones that were once not as good just as good as dearer ones?).

So I was just wondering, going purely front & rear setup, which would be the better choice cam where identifying other vehicles is the priority - the A139 or one of the A129 series?

* I'm hoping 2 singular A119v3s isn't the answer as I prefer 1 cam to do all.


** Oh and I would prefer a parking mode option.


From looking at that link, some units offer "parking mode" some offer "buffered parking mode" and some offer "advanced buffered parking mode" - (according to the brief summary at the start of each link). Whether they all offer the exact same parking mode or not, I don't know.
 
The A119 V3 is still one of the best cameras available from any manufacturer for evidence recording, and even the latest cameras are still using the same sensor, so if you are just looking for an upgrade, it might make sense to wait for a sensor upgrade, rather than buy one of the current ones.

Of the cameras currently on sale, my favorite is the A139, which is available in a 2 channel version, although at the moment I think it is also the most expensive 2 channel option. In UK weather, I don't really recommend the A129 Pro, although it is the best for movie making, so the A129 Plus is the alternative. Might be worth a look at the T130.

If you wait a little while, there will be a new A119, and a new 2 channel Viofo camera arriving soon, and for your use I would recommend the 2 channel, only issue is that the timescale is currently unknown, but information should arrive soon. Information on the new A119 will arrive very soon!
 
The A119 V3 is still one of the best cameras available from any manufacturer for evidence recording, and even the latest cameras are still using the same sensor, so if you are just looking for an upgrade, it might make sense to wait for a sensor upgrade, rather than buy one of the current ones.

Of the cameras currently on sale, my favorite is the A139, which is available in a 2 channel version, although at the moment I think it is also the most expensive 2 channel option. In UK weather, I don't really recommend the A129 Pro, although it is the best for movie making, so the A129 Plus is the alternative. Might be worth a look at the T130.

If you wait a little while, there will be a new A119, and a new 2 channel Viofo camera arriving soon, and for your use I would recommend the 2 channel, only issue is that the timescale is currently unknown, but information should arrive soon. Information on the new A119 will arrive very soon!
Thanks very much.

From what you say then, and I value your opinion highly here, it'll be best to just wait it out.

I've a couple options I'm currently toying with. The cheapest is obviously put the A119v3 up front and switch the Mio Mivue 618 to the rear as 'owts better than nowt' and I'd prefer the better cam to be forward facing.
Only thing there is the Mio is a suction mount and on my rear window the heating elements mean either it's going over one of them or it's going to be off to the far corner, which isn't ideal

The other is to buy a second A119v3 which I had thought about, and run that in the rear in place of the Mio.
Again that's not ideal as I hate wires on show so I'd have to run that to the fuse box & have 2 dash cams piggy backing somewhere in there

But to possibly complicate things further, I'm considering a wireless car phone mount so that I don't need wires to charge my phone. As I say, I hate wires on show so I would be thinking about hard wiring this in.
So there'd be piggy backs all over the place.

Ideally I'd only have the 1 cam & the wireless car mount hardwired.
 
I've a couple options I'm currently toying with. The cheapest is obviously put the A119v3 up front and switch the Mio Mivue 618 to the rear as 'owts better than nowt' and I'd prefer the better cam to be forward facing.
Yes,

2nd cheapest would I guess be a 2nd A119, maybe the new model for up front and use the older one for the rear, that will give you a few improvements over the current model.

3rd would be to get a 2 channel camera. This doesn't really save a cable, since the rear camera still needs a cable, just that it goes to the front camera instead of to the fuse box, or to an accessory power socket in the boot. 2 channel cameras are a little more convenient since they write the front and rear files to the same memory card and synchronize the file starts, but as far as evidence goes, there isn't much difference, in fact 2x A119 is better than most dual cameras since you get 2x 2K resolution and most dual cameras are 2K+FHD.

If you really want to avoid wires then the Viofo T130 2 channel is an option, it has a rear facing camera, intended for recording the cabin, in the front camera case, so doesn't need a wire to the rear, however you are not likely to read the license plate on any vehicles behind due to the extra distance being a bit too much for FHD resolution, it does however record people driving into your rear so is reasonable for evidence.
 
I'm purely guessing here but I'd imagine that you'd be able to grab a reg plate from the rear with a poor camera much easier than from the front as 1) the vehicle is immediately behind you & not off to the side and 2) going in the same direction as you. When I've pulled the SD card from my wifes Mivue 698 it's been a little easier to detect plates from the rear rather than front cam.

I currently have a 2x 1CH cam setup and it can be a bit of a nuisance when you're trying to connect up footage - finding which file links in with which file, as even when you have them both set to 3min clips, they don't always start and end at precisely the same point.
I would be satisfied with a decent 2CH setup for ease of use even if 2x 1CH (A119v3) would give better clarity. I'm hoping these new cams you mentioned can up the game of the 2CH setups.

Do you have any idea what's going to be different about these new cams or do you know nothing beyond the fact that there's going to be new cams?
 
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