Blackvue DR900S - 2CH

[Vortex Radar]

Maybe this is for me, but I feel 8 hours is plenty. In Vancouver we do have a shorter commute, my time to work is about 20 minutes each way.

-Jimmy @ BlackboxMyCar

I thought so too until I upgraded to the B124. If the dashcam sits parked all evening and night, the parking mode footage will overwrite all the previous day's footage if I forget to pull the card. Manually marking clips can help prevent them from getting overwritten, but it only saves 6 seconds before, so it usually saves the time period after the event, not the event itself or leading up to it, so I usually mark/save the clip after the event I want and then actually use the clip before it.. which isn't saved.

 

[hulk2k17]

I think it depends on how active your parking mode recording is. If you park in a busy lot with a bunch of traffic/movement, then you risk losing your footage from the morning. If not then you'll be ok. For me, 128 GB on Extreme mode for the 750s 2ch lasts about 2.5 days. I also park in an enclosed garage at home in the evenings so I have little to zero footage at night.

 

[jokiin]

Manually marking clips can help prevent them from getting overwritten, but it only saves 6 seconds before, so it usually saves the time period after the event, not the event itself or leading up to it, so I usually mark/save the clip after the event I want and then actually use the clip before it.. which isn't saved.

this is one of the downsides of the pre-buffer setup

 

[Ralph2]

Maybe this is for me, but I feel 8 hours is plenty. In Vancouver we do have a shorter commute, my time to work is about 20 minutes each way.

-Jimmy @ BlackboxMyCar

20 min.. that probably means 2 or 3 short blocks My experience in Vancouver is.. anyplace takes several hours if you are on the road from 0500 in the morning to about 0300. the following day.

 

[evad]

Did anyone spot that H.265 files recorded with DR900S are roughly same size as H.264? Shouldn't H.265 be more effective in that department?

Here's an example:

 

[jokiin]

Shouldn't H.265 be more effective in that department?

that's the general consensus, what the encoder is like on this chipset though I'm not sure

 

[reverend]

Did anyone spot that H.265 files recorded with DR900S are roughly same size as H.264? Shouldn't H.265 be more effective in that department?

How do the screenshots compare as you'd expect the H.265 files to have better quality out of the pair? I guess it's early days for the encoders yet so lots of tweaking will need doing!

 

[evad]

I would expect that H265 should offer same IQ yet with significantly smaller footprint - wasn't that the main reason / selling point to use H265 with 4K footage?

Just wanted to find out whether other testers of DR900S units like @Vortex Radar noticed similar issue.

 

[Vortex Radar]

Good eye @evad! I switched to H.264 today and can confirm that file sizes are actually the same as H.265. I have no idea why this is the case. Weird!

 

[TonyM]

It was the same with my Mobius 2. Selecting a particular quality level was actually setting the bitrate, whether you were using h264 or h265. The theory was that you could select a lower quality level with h265 (meaning a lower bitrate) and actually end up with the same video quality. Perhaps the manufacturers could explain the settings a little better.

 

[jokiin]

It was the same with my Mobius 2. Selecting a particular quality level was actually setting the bitrate, whether you were using h264 or h265. The theory was that you could select a lower quality level with h265 (meaning a lower bitrate) and actually end up with the same video quality. Perhaps the manufacturers could explain the settings a little better.

they explained it as giving batter quality at the same bitrates, personally I never saw that, the videos looked the same but very hard to judge without having side by side cameras set to H.264 and H.265, even then I don't think the differences are that obvious

the arguments I've seen for H.265 as an encoder have always been about how great it is when converting from some other format using a PC, I'm not sure how that translates to recordings made on the fly with a camera SOC, perhaps it's something the processors will get better at once things become more mainstream

 

[kamkar]

That bitrate thing seem weird.

experimenting wit the mobius 2 that can do H.264 and H.265 i found that using H.265 i could get off using a significant lower bitrate compared to H.264, and still have what appeared to be the same IQ

Half the bitrate in H.265 was about the same as H.264, on the other hand having the H.265 bitrate high ( same numbers as for H.264 ) dident really do anything for the look of the footage.
But again hard to tell without having 2 cameras shooting the same at the same time.

 

[Estoril Sport]

From examples of video footage from the 900s it does appear to suffer from lower contrast values as compared to the 750 video footage, can you change this is in that App?

 

[Estoril Sport]

I have recently purchased a DR 900s 2CH +Power Magic Unit and got it professionally installed in my car, (they did a great job) however I have been disappointed with the picture quality results even though I am running on the 4K extreme setting. The re-seller has agreed to replace the front and back units free of charge, which is good. However I am wondering if Blackvue have problems of quality control and some units are good and some are not so good? I have seen some excellent videos of the DR900s picture quality on 'YouTube' promoting the product but I am starting to wonder if these videos are a true representation of the picture quality, and if individuals can obtain the same results from purchasing a DR900s online/store?

On a positive note the Blackvue Cloud solution works well. I am able to download the files from my 900s dashcam remotely to my home PC and the wifi actual works and is a reasonable speed (far better than my previous Blackvue units).

Examples of a some image captures from the Blackvue Viewer:

 

[SR45]

Agree Estoril. Mine does not look as sharp as the Vortex YouTube review. Was wondering the same that they sent him out a special 900S that was cherry picked because it was viewed by Blackvue first, or he was lucky. Mine doesn’t look all that bad, but it looks less clear as I was expecting.

 

[jokiin]

Examples of a some image captures from the Blackvue Viewer:

pictures are scaled down, how do they look at full resolution?

 

[Estoril Sport]

I thought they were full resolution perhaps the web site has downsized them, I believe there is an option to view them at full resolution. (Download and view full size icon in the upper right hand corner of the screen when viewing the image)

 

[jokiin]

I thought they were full resolution perhaps the web site has downsized them, I believe there is an option to view them at full resolution. (Download and view full size icon in the upper right hand corner of the screen when viewing the image)

download version is 1920x1080, not 3840x2160

 

[Estoril Sport]

Yes you are correct Jokiin the this forum downsizes the images to 1920x1080. Even if I try and use flickr to host the iamge again this forum downsizes the iamge to 1920x1080 !

So I have cropped the original image from 3840x2160 to 1920x1080 it makes the image look even worse! I really hope the replacement camera is better than this!!!

 

[jokiin]

best with images to just host them elsewhere and post a link, or upload a video file at native res that people can view, it doesn't look like I would expect but better to reserve that judgement for the original files to be sure there is no other influence, eg a user here with another camera was complaining about the very poor quality and it turned out to be the player he was using that was the issue, maybe not the case for you but never hurts to look at all options when troubleshooting a problem