A329 Improvement Wishlist

[Paul Iddon]

I think from a lot of forum posts for all dashcams, that optimal night time video is among the most asked for, i.e. clarity and plate readability in the dark (whether on street lit or rural roads). Its certainly better now than its ever been, but there is room for improvement as we all know there is.

Cost factors will still prohibit advances in getting night vision where so many would like it to be.

Maybe the A329 will take a step in that direction, but we won't know for a while until the specs and pre-release samples reach all our testers.

 

[Dashmellow]

I think from a lot of forum posts for all dashcams, that optimal night time video is among the most asked for, i.e. clarity and plate readability in the dark (whether on street lit or rural roads). Its certainly better now than its ever been, but there is room for improvement as we all know there is.

Cost factors will still prohibit advances in getting night vision where so many would like it to be.

Maybe the A329 will take a step in that direction, but we won't know for a while until the specs and pre-release samples reach all our testers.

I've mentioned this before a number of times on the forum but it bears repeating again in light of your post. When I purchased my first dash cam in 2010 daytime footage was fairly serviceable and even impressive for the technology at that time but nighttime video capture was essentially useless. With bright headlights you might see a few yards of grainy footage in front of your car but that was about it!

Now. even though I live in a rural area where I often drive in pitch black conditions on roads with no streetlights I get quite serviceable footage with my headlight coverage. (rear camera is still useless in total darkness though)

 

[kamkar]

Other storage than SD cards, or at least a option to be able to do that, say like a USB plug you could plug a portable hard drive into and then add to or override a internal SD card.
I have a camera that can record 4K in 100 mbit,,,,, and the files it cough out, well fine for just gapping a few recordings on a SD card, but for substantial numbers of files and data set size i would prefer something else, and not least faster.
Though i can plug my camera into my PC and browse it thru the USB plug and playback its fine footage just fine, even 4K / 120 footage ( have not tried 8K yet )

And i would personally like to see AV1 encoding as i have that supported in hardware on my PC, i have also requested the makers of the 3 editing softwares i have that they bring in the option to export in AV1

But really i dont have much, i trust Viofo have ears and eyes, and maybe listen / watch us people in here and elsewhere if they are low of ideas to bring forth.
As we have seen on the Apple phones lately, if you dont really bring anything new to the table, well sales will suffer at least among the hard core fans,,,,,, though i must also admit i dont quite understand / believe this myself CUZ come on it is just a damn phone, and people should use those less and not more.
Personally i do not really want AI in anything.

 

[Dashmellow]

Personally i do not really want AI in anything.

But AI wants YOU kamkar!

It's coming for you!

It's coming for all of us. I say that after getting a series of weird phone calls lately from the AI robot at my local corporate pharmacy about a prescription renewal I didn't ask for and don't want but I got nowhere trying to argue with this new monster. It was very helpful but uncooperative and eerily sinister.

 

[Dex_]

I'm a bit late in discussion about long boot-up time but want to add my 5 cents.

Firstly right after power up boots loader and initialize hardware - it is like BIOS on PC. Not sure can we improve something here as I can't costs time consumption here.

Next runs Linux KERNEL - and delay here very depend on how many time Viofo spend on configure kernel properly, that kinds of kernel module loads before main ELF file run (that do all work). Some modules can be compiled as external so files, other as internal for kernel and it make sense on boot time also. I worked on some device based on Debian Linux with sensor LCD, keyboard and external memory. And right from scratch it is boot up in 2 minutes. After my optimizations it is boot up in ~20 seconds period. Properly config for kernel before it compilation make sense. It is first point for optimization.

Then kernel is loaded we finally execute main ELF file - "cardv". I may show you logfile how it is starts and that it doing, look into attachment.

As you may see in "zmdlog.txt" file Linux kernel finished loading and runs cardv at 09:00:35. But first video file was started at 09:00:42 So checking and running thing like Bluetooth, LCD, GSensor, try up Ethernet connection with rear cam, check SD-format reminder timer, init AI Engine for speech recognition - everything waste at least 7 seconds. Are we really need all of this things before start recording? We may decrease it before start record at least from main sensor and initialize most of this things a bit later. It is second point for optimization.

Next point is that we do then we loose power on ACC pin of HK - we shut down everything if not use parking mode. Why we did not use sleep mode for Novatek processor and other components like GPS, GSensor and others? GPS module does not use RX-pin but it have this pin and have ability to receive command from Novatek processor to go in sleep mode and wakes immediately and other useful command also. In deep sleep mode power consumption of many components is very low. It is not parking mode - dashcam do nothing, image sensors, Gsensor, ADC, flash and RAM memory - everything in sleep mode with low power consumption, may be even some blocks can be totally power off except processor and RAM to store current state. We may stay in it really long time - 24 hours for example (I believe in a few days). Of course HK is still monitor car battery voltage level. If voltage level drops at defined in HK level dashcam will be turn off. If not, after turning back voltage on ACC pin everything wakes really fast. It is same behavior as for other car modules like multimedia, dashboard and many other modules that wakes up really fast right after ignition. It is allows to do quick boot up at every day car use. It is a main and third point for optimization.

Or as somebody notes about modern PC and notebooks - it is boot up really fast. PC use now speedy SSD drives that improve read\write time but low boot-up time can be possible because sleep mode (again) and even if we really power down PC - operation system (Windows\Linus\MacOS) creates on drive file with copy whole used memory with already running OS. And at next power-up OS just read this file from drive to RAM. It is hibernation. And it can be fourth point\another way for optimization of boot time.

 

[kamkar]

Well i am OK with things getting smarter, like for instance in a dashcam with a huge storage, i would appreciate if it could keep track of what footage i had already backed up so i did not have to DL the same again.
But i would not call such a feature AI, but a brand might do that to ride the AI buzz.

But yeah things get smarter all the time, but i will never need a pair of underwear that can tell me " you just soiled yourself " There is a time and place for everything, also dont need a fridge that can tell me what is inside and when things expire, that have simply never been a problem for me or anyone i know.

it is like BIOS on PC

My PC have a fast boot option in the Bios, and it do significant make the boot procedure faster. but i dont use it CUZ it is fast enough for me as is.
But i have of course tried it, CUZ building new computer and setting it up, and,,,,, of course me being me add a slight overclock, i fell over the feature in the BIOS and my brain was instantly " wat is dis "

 

[viofo]

Other storage than SD cards, or at least a option to be able to do that, say like a USB plug you could plug a portable hard drive into and then add to or override a internal SD card.
I have a camera that can record 4K in 100 mbit,,,,, and the files it cough out, well fine for just gapping a few recordings on a SD card, but for substantial numbers of files and data set size i would prefer something else, and not least faster.
Though i can plug my camera into my PC and browse it thru the USB plug and playback its fine footage just fine, even 4K / 120 footage ( have not tried 8K yet )

And i would personally like to see AV1 encoding as i have that supported in hardware on my PC, i have also requested the makers of the 3 editing softwares i have that they bring in the option to export in AV1

But really i dont have much, i trust Viofo have ears and eyes, and maybe listen / watch us people in here and elsewhere if they are low of ideas to bring forth.
As we have seen on the Apple phones lately, if you dont really bring anything new to the table, well sales will suffer at least among the hard core fans,,,,,, though i must also admit i dont quite understand / believe this myself CUZ come on it is just a damn phone, and people should use those less and not more.
Personally i do not really want AI in anything.

Using USB 3.0, can make the files transfer much faster.

I saw AV1 listed in the roadmap, maybe we still need to wait for 2 to 3 years.

 

[Dex_]

That about wishlist for A329 I do not have any special expectations.
If A329 will have 2 channels with modern Starvis 2 sensors, LCD screen, high bitrates for rear camera and better HDR than for A229Pro and better passive cooling it would be fine for me.

My wishes depends mostly on better Sony sensors. Any other improvements can be done with current hardware in A229Pro if Viofo continue work on firmware part.

PS I really wish to see opensource code to build firmware by myself. Or other way to be part of Viofo engineer team to move my FW mods on better level. Do you have open vacancy for remote programmer job?

 

[Dashmellow]

My wishes depends mostly on better Sony sensors.

I would like to see a dash cam with larger Starvis 2 sensors perhaps matched with a different class of lens than the traditional M12 lenses we are familiar with on dash cams, possibly even a type C pancake lens.