BlackVue DR750S-2CH

Is the "parking mode" any better than the previous versions? I don't think anyone with a previous version(s) was happy with the sensitivity of the camera in parking mode which made it virtually useless.
i found it seemed to be better in the past. my first dash cam was a dr550, then a 650, followed by a cloud compatible 650. sometime during those years the parking mode stopped switching to normal recording as soon as you started driving. not sure what happened with their firmware, but it was especially bad with the 490, which they claim should be fixed in the foreseeable future. i wish they would just go to a ACC/Batt switching mode like their 750L and 490L models.
 
i found it seemed to be better in the past. my first dash cam was a dr550, then a 650, followed by a cloud compatible 650. sometime during those years the parking mode stopped switching to normal recording as soon as you started driving. not sure what happened with their firmware, but it was especially bad with the 490, which they claim should be fixed in the foreseeable future. i wish they would just go to a ACC/Batt switching mode like their 750L and 490L models.
The latest firmware for the 650S fixed the delayed exit from parking mode issue.
And you can wire up the 650S to just be powered via ACC and not have parking mode at all. You don't *have* to wire it up to be powered all the time.
 
The latest firmware for the 650S fixed the delayed exit from parking mode issue.
And you can wire up the 650S to just be powered via ACC and not have parking mode at all. You don't *have* to wire it up to be powered all the time.
For me personally that defeats the purpose of buying a blackvue cam though. The automatic parking mode is the main feature I care about. If I didn't use it there are many other cameras with better video quality for lower price.
 
For me personally that defeats the purpose of buying a blackvue cam though. The automatic parking mode is the main feature I care about. If I didn't use it there are many other cameras with better video quality for lower price.
Agreed. Perhaps I misunderstood your reference to "...ACC/Batt switching mode...". I'm unfamiliar with the models you referred to.
 
Agreed. Perhaps I misunderstood your reference to "...ACC/Batt switching mode...". I'm unfamiliar with the models you referred to.
oh yea I suppose explained it very poorly. But what I mean is the 550/650/750 non-LCD models require the power magic pro to be hardwired, but they switch to parking recording and normal recording using the g sensor only I believe. so you could just plug the blackvue 650s into something like a battery jump starter battery pack if it has a 12v cigarette socket and get parking mode to start. but the 750L and 490L models have the low voltage cut off and timer built in, so you just need a cable that goes directly from the camera to your fuse box, as opposed to having the power magic pro as an inbetween device to hardwire them. Those cameras switch by detecting when the car is on or off (why i said acc/batt), where the other models that require the PMP switch based on its internal g sensor.
 
it's all words, need raw video for the preliminary analysis
 
For me personally that defeats the purpose of buying a blackvue cam though. The automatic parking mode is the main feature I care about. If I didn't use it there are many other cameras with better video quality for lower price.

I purchased my DR650GW-1ch for the form factor, GPS, WiFi (which never worked as I assumed) and adequate picture quality. I find the parking feature to be totally worthless.. one might just as well have it record (save to SD) continuously There is no combination of settings that does a reasonable job of detecting movement. But.. to each their own..
 
I purchased my DR650GW-1ch for the form factor, GPS, WiFi (which never worked as I assumed) and adequate picture quality. I find the parking feature to be totally worthless.. one might just as well have it record (save to SD) continuously There is no combination of settings that does a reasonable job of detecting movement. But.. to each their own..
I found if you park in high traffic areas then yes it's like you're recording non stop. But you can turn the motion detection off and just use the impact sensor so if someone hits your parked car you still get the buffered 10 seconds prior to the impact plus 20 seconds after.

The downside with recording non stop is depending on the bit rate and memory card size you could park your car in public at work, and by the end of your 8-9 hr shift already record over the entire memory card.

Blacksys does offer more customization for the motion detection tho, you could for example turn motion off from the front camera, and only set motion detection to the middle of the camera, stuff closer to your car.
 
... Blacksys does offer more customization for the motion detection tho, you could for example turn motion off from the front camera, and only set motion detection to the middle of the camera, stuff closer to your car...
Only on the 750S? Maybe there's hope this firmware improvement will make its way to the older models. That'll address a lot of complaints.
 
Only on the 750S? Maybe there's hope this firmware improvement will make its way to the older models. That'll address a lot of complaints.
blacksys not blackvue, i know its very similar haha. the CH-200 from blacksys offers the customization of motion detection zones. each camera has 12 zones you can turn on or off. many home security cameras offer a similar feature. i think finevue or lukas (or both, cant remember) offer the feature too. I suppose it was very random to bring up another company's cam, i just wanted to to point out how other companies have tried to solve the motion detection issues.
 
Look at the samples under driving conditions and you can't read plate numbers are the Interstate Green signs till you are right on top of them, Just my observation.

Sorry to weigh in negatively, but I too think the image quality looks disappointing.

Looking at 49 secs here from the Dashcam Store's Video:


The car passes and pulls immediately in front but even then at 1080p60, the number plate appears unreadable. I also noticed the same issues with the Interstate signs as Lola. There seems to be a lack of focus and sharpness comapred to many dashcams at similar distances.

Something else not mentioned so far, is the Starvis pictures on the Blackvue website show massive grain (noise) and loss of contrast with Starvis on:

blackvue-dash-cam-dr750s-60fps-comparison-starvis-on-off-regular-cmos.jpg


I'd personally rather have the middle picture than the top anyday which looks lacking in contrast and very noisy to me. I wondering if Blackvue are getting the most out of the sensor as Starvis here appears to me to be more electronic gain and not the advantage of extra sensitivity from the sensor and is at odds with the marketing pictures on Sony's website in my opinion. Perhaps it needs some firmware tweeking.

Another item feature wise that's missing is the ability to turn GPS and Speed Data recording off. It's very much a feature that some want and others don't so it makes sense to have the option. No reason why it can't be password protected to secure it on for business vehicle use.
 
Thats pretty much what you get with any sensor if you let the ISO values run wild.
 
Yeah pretty much my interpretation. Not seeing any benefits of increased sensitivity, just what appears to be increased amplification of the sensor signal.
 
Something else not mentioned so far, is the Starvis pictures on the Blackvue website show massive grain (noise) and loss of contrast with Starvis on:

blackvue-dash-cam-dr750s-60fps-comparison-starvis-on-off-regular-cmos.jpg


I'd personally rather have the middle picture than the top anyday which looks lacking in contrast and very noisy to me. I wondering if Blackvue are getting the most out of the sensor as Starvis here appears to me to be more electronic gain and not the advantage of extra sensitivity from the sensor and is at odds with the marketing pictures on Sony's website in my opinion. Perhaps it needs some firmware tweeking.

Another item feature wise that's missing is the ability to turn GPS and Speed Data recording off. It's very much a feature that some want and others don't so it makes sense to have the option. No reason why it can't be password protected to secure it on for business vehicle use.

Hi, Jeremie here at BlackVue in South Korea. The night vision capability of the DR750S Series is higher than any previous BlackVue model released even without (Enhanced) Night Vision enabled. That's the image in the middle. It's usually more than adequate when driving at night, considering you will have your headlights on.

About Enhanced Night Vision: note that it must be enabled by the user to be active. We initially made tests with Noise Reduction at higher levels: it results in an image that is smoother overall and may be more appealing at first sight but also causes loss in details, which we thought is detrimental to the usefulness of the feature. As a result we decided to keep Noise Reduction to a minimum to preserve details. Last, note that these images were captured at 60FPS. At 30FPS you can expect slightly higher clarity in the dark.

About the test video samples posted on YouTube: besides the fact that YouTube tends to degrade the quality of videos in general, I would like to mention that those videos were recorded with pre-production sample dashcams and may present a few disparities between them. That's why some of these might not be 100% representative of the image quality seen in the mass production models, which underwent further optimization. We will try to upload original video files to our homepage to give a better feel of the image quality to expect.
Please note: I am about to leave the office. Will check back on Monday to try and answer more questions. Thank you.
 
Here are some of the enhanced images from actual end consumers and quite honestly I purchased a cheap $120 camera that was on sale in the zone and imo the nighttime image quality is about the same if not better.

https://youtu.be/Mi-oMR6yCLU
(this one has the comparison of the 650 to 750), I might as well wait for the 650s to drop down bottom and buy it)

After many hours of research for a new camera, I leaning more towards this one, same price range and end consumers sample videos sells itself out. No Manufacturer AE
https://youtu.be/JaSGKDA5BlI
https://youtu.be/bWIJlPzSHHg
https://youtu.be/bWIJlPzSHHg
i'm not an expert in camera but all the consumer cares is the end results.
 
Here are some of the enhanced images from actual end consumers and quite honestly I purchased a cheap $120 camera that was on sale in the zone and imo the nighttime image quality is about the same if not better.


i'm not an expert in camera but all the consumer cares is the end results.

That nightime video is truly aweful.

This is a still from a nightime video from my Viofo Wr1, a £ / $ 60 camera, on a road with less street lighting and my car was moving at the time - I know which I prefer:

 
That nightime video is truly aweful.

This is a still from a nightime video from my Viofo Wr1, a £ / $ 60 camera, on a road with less street lighting and my car was moving at the time - I know which I prefer:


Perhaps there are many factors to consider, indoor and outdoor temperatures, humidity, and other, but you ought to think that a $300+ dual camera will perform better than non capacitors cameras but the images putout by end users speak for themself.
So I'm kind of leaning"
A- Purchase a blackmagic batt. and purchase a better nighttime quality video for 100-150 and have the option to purchase another one in 2-3 years as these cameras are always getting better and better. or
B- Paid up the premium for the capacitors and hope they will be as good as 5 years from now.
 
In fairness Blackvue products are usually pretty good. I just think this one needs a bit more tweaking.
 
note that these images were captured at 60FPS. At 30FPS you can expect slightly higher clarity in the dark.

I suppose these words confirm that 60 FPS video will have higher compression, meaning it will have less details? Isn't the reason why people want 60 FPS is to have more details? IMHO it does not make sense to have 60 FPS implemented in a way that 30 FPS will provide higher level of details

I would have bought this camera today, if I saw a confirmation that 60 FPS video will be double the size of 30 FPS video (meaning double volume of details), I guess I will have to keep looking.

P.S. is it just me, thinking that higher level of details is much more important than anything else (video smoothness, recording time, e.t.c.) in dash cams ?
 
I suppose these words confirm that 60 FPS video will have higher compression, meaning it will have less details? Isn't the reason why people want 60 FPS is to have more details? IMHO it does not make sense to have 60 FPS implemented in a way that 30 FPS will provide higher level of details

I would have bought this camera today, if I saw a confirmation that 60 FPS video will be double the size of 30 FPS video (meaning double volume of details), I guess I will have to keep looking.

P.S. is it just me, thinking that higher level of details is much more important than anything else (video smoothness, recording time, e.t.c.) in dash cams ?

Some points (my understanding):

1. 60fps won't record anymore detail than 30fps. The level of detail is down to resolution. The main advantage of 60fps in daylight is the faster shutter speed which reduces motion blur by allowing the object to travel less distance during the exposure (note it can make the picture worse at night in low light conditions as a faster shutter speed gathers less light as there's less exposure time)

2. You will lose detail and picture quality on 60fps if the data rate is the same because the amount of data has doubled but has to be squeezed into the same amount of space on the SD Card. That means higher compression = potentially more compression artefacts and detail discarded during the compression process including possibly soft or blocky areas depending on the compression level and amount of detail in the picture

3. It is somewhat self defeating to double the frame rate but keep the data rate the same for those reasons

4. This also highlights the limitations of dashcams currently.

Fixed shutter speeds mean no opportunity to go faster when the light is very bright or slower when the light levels are low. I'm guessing dash cameras probably comply to the old video rule of setting the shutter to twice the frame rate. The upside of this is you avoid jumpy video as the shutter never gets too fast. The downside is you can't compensate for motion blur / low light levels as much. The ideal solution in my opinion would be to have a camera that could choose from a range of shutter speeds @60fps depending on the ambient conditions with the camera choosing the fastest available and switching dynamically between them as light levels change, then on detecting very low light, having the ability to switch automatically to 30fps. The advantage of a more dynamic range means the camera can always choose the fastest available shutter speed in daylight thereby minimising the effects of motion blur and maximising quality, and can switch to 30fps when the light level becomes too low. This may require experimentation as to how far the double rule can be broken. However, I never used to use the double rule and shot some OK video, so I'm guessing the rule is more a guideline than a fixed rule in life. The downside is this requires more processing. I'd guess it may also require the ability to save clips of different lengths rather than fixed lengths as dynamic changes to frame rate and shutter speed probably cannot be saved within the same clip due to file and editing limitations.

Some interesting discussion in the comments in the blog here where at least another user suggest the double rule can be broken:

https://vimeo.com/blog/post/frame-rate-vs-shutter-speed-setting-the-record-str

I'm sure I've used shutters to 1/500 th on video in the past, although shutter speed is always a combination of shutter speed vs object speed once you break the rule (the faster the object, the more likely the video will appear jerky at any given speed because the farther it travels between exposures). This may actually require speed data from GPS to implement in a dashcam therefore even if GPS data isn't recorded to the picture.
 
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