Hello all,
in October 2021 I bought a Nextbase 322GW dashcam and an original Nextbase polarizing filter from Amazon.it (since I'm in Italy).
I've been quite happy with both, however the camera randomly records blurry footage. This happens without any pattern whatsoever, and will persist across all the 3-minute clips it records until it powers down. The next time I start the car it may happen again or not. Essentially, every time it powers on it's like flipping a coin.
The problem is that there's no way to know how it works until I move the SD to the computer and look at the files, which is quite frustrating since I often use the footage for short videos I work on and I have no way of knowing if a whole trip's footage is usable at all until I'm back at the computer . Further, the low quality would make it quite hard to discern license plates in case of an accident.
I'm not even sure if it's a focus issue, or if for some reason the dashcam just "forgets" to apply a sharpening filter. The fact that it may fix itself — or break itself — with a simple reboot would suggest a software issue. Then again, I have no idea if the camera is fixed focus or not.
Attached are a couple of examples from after I updated to the latest firmware (21.5) — I had to do it manually because for some reason the app on the phone insisted that 19.x was the most recent one — taken from the same spot. I saved them as high-quality JPEGs to avoid compression artefacts. While the light conditions are slightly different, it’s obvious that one is considerably less sharp than the other. Notice the bricks on the short side of the wall closest to the camera, or the wheels of the minicar, or the gate of the building on the left.
If anyone is curious, here are a few unedited clips; I just removed the audio, but did not re-encode the video (ffmpeg -c copy -an).
https://www.jollino.it/_tmp/nextbase/nextbase_1.mp4 (1st screenshot)
https://www.jollino.it/_tmp/nextbase/nextbase_2.mp4 (2nd screenshot)
In this one from today (and the whole “session" thereof) the blurriness seems even worse:
But on the next session, i.e. on my way back, it was pretty much sharp again:
Since I've seen occasional reports of focusing issues, I was wondering if anyone had encountered a similar problem, where the camera is fine most of the time but then randomly goes and stays out of focus. The third clip actually seems to show an extreme case of short-sightedness, since the wall on the right at the start seems pretty sharp as long as it stays nearby, but then everything else remains out of focus while I drive away and nothing gets that close.
I'm actually quite happy with this dashcam (pending how support handles this :-D I've already opened a ticket with them over the weekend, so they haven't had a chance to reply yet) and I was actually planning to get a rear camera to go with it.
Should they tell me that it can't be fixed and I need to return it to Amazon for a replacement, I may actually go with a 522 so I can keep 60fps from the front camera.
In the meantime, any suggestions would be most welcome.
Thank you in advance!
in October 2021 I bought a Nextbase 322GW dashcam and an original Nextbase polarizing filter from Amazon.it (since I'm in Italy).
I've been quite happy with both, however the camera randomly records blurry footage. This happens without any pattern whatsoever, and will persist across all the 3-minute clips it records until it powers down. The next time I start the car it may happen again or not. Essentially, every time it powers on it's like flipping a coin.
The problem is that there's no way to know how it works until I move the SD to the computer and look at the files, which is quite frustrating since I often use the footage for short videos I work on and I have no way of knowing if a whole trip's footage is usable at all until I'm back at the computer . Further, the low quality would make it quite hard to discern license plates in case of an accident.
I'm not even sure if it's a focus issue, or if for some reason the dashcam just "forgets" to apply a sharpening filter. The fact that it may fix itself — or break itself — with a simple reboot would suggest a software issue. Then again, I have no idea if the camera is fixed focus or not.
Attached are a couple of examples from after I updated to the latest firmware (21.5) — I had to do it manually because for some reason the app on the phone insisted that 19.x was the most recent one — taken from the same spot. I saved them as high-quality JPEGs to avoid compression artefacts. While the light conditions are slightly different, it’s obvious that one is considerably less sharp than the other. Notice the bricks on the short side of the wall closest to the camera, or the wheels of the minicar, or the gate of the building on the left.
If anyone is curious, here are a few unedited clips; I just removed the audio, but did not re-encode the video (ffmpeg -c copy -an).
https://www.jollino.it/_tmp/nextbase/nextbase_1.mp4 (1st screenshot)
https://www.jollino.it/_tmp/nextbase/nextbase_2.mp4 (2nd screenshot)
In this one from today (and the whole “session" thereof) the blurriness seems even worse:
But on the next session, i.e. on my way back, it was pretty much sharp again:
Since I've seen occasional reports of focusing issues, I was wondering if anyone had encountered a similar problem, where the camera is fine most of the time but then randomly goes and stays out of focus. The third clip actually seems to show an extreme case of short-sightedness, since the wall on the right at the start seems pretty sharp as long as it stays nearby, but then everything else remains out of focus while I drive away and nothing gets that close.
I'm actually quite happy with this dashcam (pending how support handles this :-D I've already opened a ticket with them over the weekend, so they haven't had a chance to reply yet) and I was actually planning to get a rear camera to go with it.
Should they tell me that it can't be fixed and I need to return it to Amazon for a replacement, I may actually go with a 522 so I can keep 60fps from the front camera.
In the meantime, any suggestions would be most welcome.
Thank you in advance!