Thanks a lot for your feedback.
Hoping for some A129 Plus owners sharing their thoughts in comparison.
Speaking of 30fps, I couldn't see a big improvement over the 60fps Minecraft wise.
Yesterday I tested night quality again and noticed, though 30fps doesn't look as noisy it certainly has much more motion blur. But i guess that's normal too, right?
Don't know what I'll go with. More noise but "clearer" image or less noise but lot of motion blur.
Generally speaking my biggest issues are the broken files and the poor/skipping video in native H.264.
Drives me crazy why the native codec performs so bad.
In case other owners don't have this problem maybe my unit is a faulty one after all and I'll need to replace it.
Waiting for the next Viofo Support response.
Regarding the broken files I really don't think my cards are the issue.
Both are tested several times and okay, have a write speed of 44 MB/s (Samsung Pro Endurance) and 89 MB/s (Sandisk Extreme Pro) and working fine in every device so far.
Still I was thinking about testing one more.
A SanDisk Max Endurance 128GB but it'd be another ~40€.
If it shouldn't do the trick I don't know if I could send it back, 'cause usually you need to destroy the packaging to get to the cards. (Whoever came up with the idea packaging cards like this.)
Hi
@Dash_vs_Evil
I have been using/testing my a129 plus duo for the past few weeks, and so far I have been satisfied with the video quality and smoothness at 30fps. I checked out your videos and I did see some of the pixelation that you were describing. I reviewed some of my initial recordings, and I was only able to notice some very slight pixelation at 30fps along the very left and right edges of the video, and only when driving by very thick foliage/treeline under late afternoon early evening lighting. The majority of the central view of the video was clean and stutter free. I have not tried recording on 60fps though. My system is on the 1.4 firmware for the front and the default/out-of-box 1.0 firmware for the rear, recording in the default H264 system.
Partially similar to your experience, I have been having intermittent issues with broken/corrupted/pixelated/missed recording files, but only from my rear camera, particularly whenever parking mode is involved. (I have held off from installing the HWK until I can resolve the stability issue.)
Before installing the system in my car, I connected and tested both cameras via an external battery pack. Both units connected and recorded as expected (testing time was very limited though, only ran it for a few minutes of full resolution recording to wait until the system switched to low-bitrate parking mode). My settings are pretty close to default (1-min loop recording, 2560x1440 front, 1920x1080 rear, 30 fps, high bitrate, 5-second startup delay, motion detection OFF, g-sensor LOW, parking mode motion detection LOW, parking mode g-sensor MEDIUM). I am using a Sandisk 256GB High Endurance microSD card, with a Sandisk 64GB Max Endurance as backup. Both cards were formatted in the camera/front unit and performed flawlessly during the first week of testing. Regular files for front/rear cameras appear with the F/R at the end of the filenames, and parking files appear with the PF/PR endings.
I updated the front unit to firmware version 1.4 before installation. During my first week of testing, I ran the front unit in my car as a single-channel system only (rear camera not yet installed, rear cable not connected yet). I am pleased to report that the front unit (working solo) functioned flawlessly during that first week. It was powered via the included usb cable and the 12V/cigarette lighter adapter. Whether it was plugged directly into the unit or via the GPS mount, the front unit was stable and functioned as expected. To use LOW BITRATE parking mode at work, I use an external battery pack. The front unit successfully operated via the battery pack and recorded in full resolution for the first 5 minutes until no significant motion was detected. Then it would switch into low-bitrate parking mode and record. When significant movement was detected in/near the camera’s field of view, it switched back to full recording until the required window of time for non-detection was met again. As a single-channel system, it was able to cycle in and out of parking mode without hiccups in this setup.
The week after, I then installed the rear camera. My first few drives with the 2-channel system went smoothly, with full resolution recording (1440 @30fps, 1080 @30fps). The system would start up after the 5-second Startup delay, then proceed to go into normal recording with the screen turning off 15 seconds after boot up. In normal driving mode, the rear camera seems to be able to function quite flawlessly.
The instability issues started when I began using parking mode with the 2-channel system. (Parking Settings: LOW BITRATE, 1-minute loop, parking motion detection LOW, parking g-sensor MEDIUM, system powered by an external 9000mAh battery pack). Inspecting the files nightly throughout the week and weekend, I noticed a couple of things:
- multiple rear parking files show severe pixelation, with some becoming almost completely black (or with pink/green/white pixelation scattered either throughout the video, or at the beginning/middle/end sections)
- Gaps in recording time have started to appear, particularly for the rear camera. There have been days when only front parking files are saved. On other instances, the rear camera stops recording when the system transitions back to Parking mode from Full recording due to motion detection during the previous parking mode session.
- Parking mode time frames differ when comparing the timestamps of the front file with the associated rear file. Rear parking files are almost always 1 to 2 seconds late/behind the corresponding front parking file, with some instances becoming almost a full 45 seconds late compared to the front. Again, there have also been instances when the rear camera stops recording/saving, exhibited by missing rear files in the middle of the whole file number sequence.
- Last week, the system’s operation in regular driving mode took a few hits when the rear camera seemed to struggle to startup and stay connected to the front camera after autoboot-up when the car was started. Inspecting the parking files saved before these boot-up connection ‘fails’ revealed damaged/pixelated rear parking files as described in the paragraphs above. Cycling the boot sequence (turning the system OFF, then ON again) seems to enable a more stable connection for that drive.
- To rule out power supply instability during Parking mode, I have also tested running parking mode while powering via the car’s usb 12V charger (keeping the car in Ready mode, which is essentially Ignition ON but on EV mode for my Corolla hybrid). After 5 minutes of no motion detection, the system would switch to low bitrate parking mode and would cycle in and out of parking mode depending on motion detection. Reviewing the recorded files revealed the same intermittent rear camera image breakdown/pixelation.
Going back to driving mode, the rear seems to function without any hiccups. As a final test, I have NOT been using parking mode this whole week, just regular full resolution recording in drive mode. There have been no instances of dropped recording, and both cameras boot-up, connect and stay connected and stable during the daily drives so far.
This leaves me questioning if there might be some issues with the rear camera’s software/firmware, particularly when in parking mode (and coming out of parking mode)? Could it be a controller or processor issue? I have reached out to Viofo and hopefully they get back to me with some suggestions. I bought my unit directly from the the Viofo Benelux, and they have been quite responsive to customer issues (they mistakenly sent me the wrong fuse taps for my order, which they quickly sorted out by sending me the correct ones within a few days).
I hope this helps provide some more user experience regarding this system. Cheers!