Is it possible to turn the sharpening off?

fozrider

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I just got back from a trip to the mountains and had some great video of my wife following on her bike. However the video is horribly over sharpened. The trees are outlined in white, as are the mountains at the interface with the sky. Is there a way to reduce the sharpening in the raw footage? Sharpening can always be applied after the fact, but it can't be removed from the file saved by the B1M.

Any help appreciated
 
It is. But not like a setting in the camera sadly, it have to be done in the firmware.
It is quite common for most camera makers to not really touch up on the default image settings, and this is sad as there are gains to be had like the user @Falsificator in here have proven again and again modifying firmware's.
 
It would be nice if you could post screenshots from your video here. Positioning the camera too high towards the sky can create over-contrast

PS: And what settings do you have on the B1M? Factory default?
 
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It would be nice if you could post screenshots from your video here. Positioning the camera too high towards the sky can create over-contrast

PS: And what settings do you have on the B1M? Factory default?


Hi, thanks for getting back. I was going to make a side by side comparison and some screenshots, but I now seem to have found a part of the problem. I copied my GoPro 7 footage and the B1M footage to a back up drive and then used the chromecast feature of the browser to display it on my large screen TV. The GoPro footage comes out fine but the B1M is absolutely horrible. I then started to look at the footage using Quicktime so I could import both into iMovie. Using Quicktime directly the footage doesn't look that bad. It's slightly over sharpened but acceptable. Perhaps the chromecast is adding additional sharpening that then deteriorates the footage.

I reset the B1M so the exposure is at zero and WDR is off. The only different setting is the GPS time.
 
The GoPro 7 footage comes out fine but the B1M is absolutely horrible.
I would not compare recording from dashcam with recording with a slightly more expensive action camera, let alone process video with the same tools.
Although ... I would compare shooting in low light ;)
 
I copied my GoPro 7 footage and the B1M footage to a back up drive and then used the chromecast feature of the browser to display it on my large screen TV. The GoPro footage comes out fine but the B1M is absolutely horrible.
what resolution is the TV?

what resolution are the video files from each camera?
 
When diagnosing video issues, we need to see raw footage. Google drive, Dropbox, MegaNZ and other have free file-sharing and are easy enough to use ;) Vid sharing platforms like YouTube alter the raw footage so that won't be good enough for any but the most basic diagnosis.

Phil
 
Here are a couple screenshots from the Quicktime display. Quite a bit of over sharpening, but not as bad as when it was displayed on the TV. You can see it at the interface with the mountain and sky and in the lettering on the sign. The tree leaves also take on a shimmering look. Again, this is probably still acceptable for a dashcam. I'm not expecting GoPro quality. I was just shocked at the initial display I did on my TV, probably a Chromecast artifact.
 

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I would try what I wrote about above - lower the camera angle a little lower. This is a mistake of almost everyone who starts using dashcam - the lens is raised very high. But since we are shooting the road, the matrix is also designed for such shooting. Usually, when viewed to the horizon, only 1/3 of the sky is left.
I set it so that oncoming cars pass exactly in the middle of the frame (in height), well, or according to your screenshots - with the correct camera settings, the motorcycle should be in the middle of the picture height.
This, of course, does not really fit with the canons of artistic filming, but perhaps you need to check. Let there be more roads in the frame! :)
 
They are both 1080p The dashcam does 30 fps.
even if you have the GoPro set to 1080p it's still using a much higher resolution sensor which will give it a smoother look, if the bitrate is higher that will help the GoPro also, higher spec hardware is going to have the edge regardless in this case
 
Yes comparing a larger sensor even if it is just doing a lower resolution by cropping or something else VS another camera locked at that same resolution are a bit like comparing apples to pineapples.
And as jokiin also say the bitrates might also be vastly different, dashcams have pretty modest bitrates still, and bitrate are sort of a multiplier factor for image detail.
 
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Here are a couple screenshots from the Quicktime display. Quite a bit of over sharpening, but not as bad as when it was displayed on the TV. You can see it at the interface with the mountain and sky and in the lettering on the sign. The tree leaves also take on a shimmering look. Again, this is probably still acceptable for a dashcam. I'm not expecting GoPro quality. I was just shocked at the initial display I did on my TV, probably a Chromecast artifact.
Try this firmware and back to me directly if any questions :)

 
Is it safe for us all to use that firmware to fix the oversharpening?
 
Is it safe for us all to use that firmware to fix the oversharpening?
Member estore009 is the manufacturer of this cam, so I would think it is safe.

Phil
 
Oh, I didn't meant it that way.

I meant if there's no requirement of hardware version or something. I wouldn't want to brick my DVR.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.
 
I meant if there's no requirement of hardware version or something. I wouldn't want to brick my DVR.
That is no requirement of hardware version or firmware version! And it is easy to update the firmware by a memory card!
 
Follow up.

A pair of screenshots before and after the firmware update:

Firmware 20200707:
pre.jpg

Firmware 20200901:
post.jpg

Draw your own conclusions.


Cheers.
 
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