Hi Guys,
Sorry to hear
@Rodrigo Emedy that your having problems with your unit, and sorry I haven't been able to reply to you concerns (the day job has taken over for the last few weeks). However, I've been running a few different firmwares to test how they work. One is the original TCL firmware, the other is the Cambox firmware and the last is Street Guardian's latest firmware for their identical product. All seem to have advantages and disadvantages. So a comparison against the base level TCL firmware:
Pros:
Cambox:
1) Records at a much higher bitrate ~28Mbps, which results in sharper image during the day,
2) Ability to turn on/off GPS,
3) Ability to record and turn on/off a custom user stamp,
4) Ability to record and turn on/off the speed in km/h,
5) Consistently shuts down in the user specified time, never abruptly
6) Better handling of the GPS function, locks within a minute every time for me (lowest record was 10 seconds)
SG:
1) Simplified menu by taking out redundant features, no photo or security menu and slight UI improvements
2) They have selectable bitrate levels for the video, highest is ~22Mbps
3) Ability to record and turn on/off a custom user stamp,
4) Struck a good balance between video bitrate and recording quality (I am still reviewing videos but I would say the best out of the three, at the max setting)
Cons:
Cambox:
1) Higher bitrate means larger file size and requires larger memory if you don't want videos to record over,
2) Higher bitrate means more noise is recorded in video (I am still reviewing videos but I believe the night videos are a bit grainy in dim-lit areas because of this, when compared to a lower bitrate, but better than lower bitrates when your headlight is illuminating the car in front of you - a balance must be struck)
3) Lots of customizable features that you will not touch, for example the GPS and GLONASS protocol selection (GPS is what works on the TCL CDV300X right now, saying this I prefer to have more options to choose from)
4) Because of the higher bitrate the processor on board is running harder and hotter, this could be an issue for the lifespan of your device (However I have been running my setup on the Cambox firmware with no issue to date)
SG:
1) No ability to record speed
2) No ability to turn GPS tracking on/off
3) Sometimes abruptly shuts down on power off
4) GPS lock is the worst out of the three and averages 3-4 minutes
What would be the knockout firmware for the CDV300X? @billknow
1) Take Cambox's hardware handling, UI layout and feature set minus GLONASS and the picture menu
2) Apply SG's three prong bitrate selectivity with max bitrate ~22Mbps
3) Allow speed to be recorded in miles/h and km/h
This is very much a brain dump at the moment, I'll hope to have a proper video comparison up in the weekend.
I may also play around with the hardware abstraction layer, as mentioned in the Russian forums and see where that takes me.
All the best DCT!