Advice needed LS460W

Nigel Jones

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Although I purchased the L460W 26 July 2014 it was not until recently when I had upgraded my computer and monitor to support HD that I realised the image quality of recordings does not appear to be as it should (after having viewed videos of the L460W on You Tube) and hope that someone could advise if I need to return the camera under warranty.
If this is the case and if it is agreed by the seller who I bought it from to replace mine with the same model should I accept the replacement (would need to know if has a better image quality than the one I presently have) or ask for another model such as the DOD LS430.

The pictures given below were mainly recordings resolutions of 1920X1080 but I have also included one picture of a recording set at 720P.

Any help or advise would be appreciated. It may be a couple of days before I can reply to any advice as I do not have internet at home and rely on the local library and only able to get there a few days a week so please be patient!!

Kind regards

Nigel.




Day View1 Lg.jpg
(1920X1080)
Looking towards the church on the right and of the view ahead appears blurred

Day View2 Lg.jpg

The arch of the bridge blurred also tree to the right and branches on the left.
1920X1080


Day View3 Lg.jpg
View ahead to the left side blurred
1920X1080

Day View4 Lg.jpg

1920X1080

720P.jpg Quality appears poor.
(720P)
 
The focus can be all over the place with these - I had two and the second was much better than the first.

What you're also seeing here though is potentially a side effect of the bad British weather - as soon as the grey days start to come in the quality of all dashcams goes downhill as they're upping exposure / ISO / gain due to lower levels of sunlight and that causes some blurring.

To be honest they all do it to some degree - others either give a much darker picture in this weather or if they're bright they're usually also blurred for things like numberplates.

It is hard to tell from those screenshots exactly how bad it is but you may want to reduce the angle slightly - a side effect of the Sony Exmor sensor is that when the gain is boosted a bit to brighten the image the trees can start to appear blurry and you'll get that white sky effect. All the manufacturers are still working on this at the moment to get the best out of these.

There was a new firmware posted for the LS460W today - but if you've got focus issues on street level it might be best to just get HDigital-Eye to swap it out for you under warranty.
 
Very many thanks for your quick reponse, just have a few minutes left on the internet but briefly photo 3 is a reasonably clear day about 4/5ths cloud cover.

Can you please advise how to get the firmware for the LS460W that has been released as I could try that and see if it makes any difference.

With it coming up to Christmas think I will hold off from contacting HDigital_Eye until the mad postal rush is over then if there is no difference in quality will ask if they could exchange it under warranty as you suggested.

You suggested in reducing the angle slightly, would this be mean to point the camera downwards more or even position the camera towards the bottom of the windscreen as mine is presently up by the rear view mirror.

Again, many thanks for your help and like to add that I have found this site and forum extremely interesting and informative.

Kind regards
Nigel.
 
Just point it downwards a little bit so you've got less sky and more road - usually a 60% road / 40% sky split works best but I've got to admit with various windscreen angles and so on it's worth trying maybe 50/50 and then 60/40 and so on until you're happiest with it.

The firmware is here:

11.11.2014

If you download that zip file and extract the firmware file (FWA8S711.bin) to the top level of your memory card it should upgrade itself next time the car is powered on with that memory card inserted :)

I know my initial LS460W did have problems with the focus changing in the heat - I'm keeping a close eye now to see if the same thing happens when they get cold!
 
Many thanks for the advice and also of the link to download the firmware.

Will see if that improves image the quality first before approaching HDigital_Eye.

Again,many thanks.

Nigel.
 
Any new FW updates? O where can I get the latest?
 
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