License Plate Dash Cam

[HighMans]

Hello all! A bit of an odd request, but I'm looking for the best dash cam that can capture license plates (front) while driving. I don't care or need audio recording, dual cameras, gps, speed, etc. -- I literally only need to be able to capture license plates very well and clearly while driving.

 

[Dashmellow]

You are asking for the holy grail of dash cams which is often achievable but far from guaranteed. It depends on the lighting conditions and time of day, the weather and the speed of the other cars in relation to yours, especially when they are traveling towards you from the opposite direction. Under bright sunny conditions you are more likely to capture license plates clearly than on cloudy days regardless of which camera you purchase because the shutter speed in bright light will be much faster. Slower shutter speeds under low light cause a phenomenon called motion blur that will smear the image of a license plate on a moving vehicle. At night it can be extremely dificult, if not impossible to capture license plates in most circumstances.

Some brands do better than others but even different models within the same manufacturer's product lines can be very different in how well they capture plates.

 

[HighMans]

You are asking for the holy grail of dash cams which is often achievable but far from guaranteed. It depends on the lighting conditions and time of day, the weather and the speed of the other cars in relation to yours, especially when they are traveling towards you from the opposite direction. Under bright sunny conditions you are more likely to capture license plates clearly than on cloudy days regardless of which camera you purchase because the shutter speed in bright light will be much faster. Slower shutter speeds under low light cause a phenomenon called motion blur that will smear the image of a license plate on a moving vehicle. At night it can be extremely dificult, if not impossible to capture license plates in most circumstances.

Some brands do better than others but even different models within the same manufacturer's product lines can be very different in how well they capture plates.

The conditions that I care most about is during the day, driving around 40-50mph, sometimes up to 60 mph. I'm not worried about capturing plates at night at all, and most of the time it'll be sunny where I'm at.

 

[Dashmellow]

The conditions that I care most about is during the day, driving around 40-50mph, sometimes up to 60 mph. I'm not worried about capturing plates at night at all, and most of the time it'll be sunny where I'm at.

Driving only during the day will improve your chances of capturing license plate numbers but will not guarantee it. That's just the nature of today's dash cam technology I'm afraid. Among a few other things, a camera with a much larger sensor than we generally see in dash cams would be better at capturing license plates on a moving vehicle. One day, I believe larger sensor dash cams will be the norm, although that will require different lenses than we see now.

Like I've said, much of the time you will be able to capture the plate numbers you want but not always, even in the daytime.

I would recommend one of the Viofo models, especially one of the 2K cams.

 

[Nigel]

The conditions that I care most about is during the day, driving around 40-50mph, sometimes up to 60 mph. I'm not worried about capturing plates at night at all, and most of the time it'll be sunny where I'm at.

I think I would go for the Viofo A129 Pro 4K, which is available in single or dual channel versions.
Alternatively, one of the Viofo 2K cameras such as the A119, maybe the new A119 Mini.

The 2K camera will be better in low light conditions, including very cloudy days, while the A129 Pro will do better in bright lighting, but it also has an advantage with range (distance it can see), as long as either the lighting is reasonable or the speed is low. If being able to see plates at a distance is not required then go for a 2K camera, but on a highway I find the extra range of the 4K to be useful.

 

[kamkar]

Sadly low light do not mean the dead of night.
You could be driving on the longest day of the year in clear blue skies and lovely sunshine and drive into the shade of some trees lining the road, or tall buildings for that matter, and that would suddenly challenge your chance of a plate capture.

As you are American 2 cameras are kind of a must have, as many states dont have plates in the front, so a oncoming car only a rear camera will get a chance of his plate as he have passed by you the other way.
And if you get to have a vote on more readable plates on cars, and banning silly secondary graphics on plates, and maybe making them a little larger,,,,,, vote yes, CUZ US plates are not really meant to be readable, at least compared to EU plates.

If anything and you can do it, i find that my "zoom" camera in the windscreen often add positive in regard to plate captures as it get its chance on those a little further away, and it feel like the sweet spot are a bit larger than traditional wide angle dashcams that have a very small sweet spot that is near to your car.

In my experience capturing 30 FPS footage it is within about 10 frames you stand to get the capture, Doubling to 60 FPS footage do give you double the chance, but in my testing 2 similar cameras aside for one running 30 FPS and the other 60 FPS, there was very little reason to use 60 FPS, so since that test many years ago i have just used 30 FPS video.

As cars over here in EU ville have plates front and rear i get 2 stabs at them, and some times the rear camera get the capture the front camera did not, this is mostly true when we are talking 2 different sensors, so it could be a 1440p IMX 335 sensor in the front camera, and a 1080p IMX 291 in the rear camera.

A example of this can be seen in this video, where near the end i get into a "darker" place ( trees at the left side of the road and so force camera to use other exposure ) but here the rear camer capture the rear plates on the on coming cars, where the front 1440p front camera struggle.
This is 80 kmh / 50 MPH Danish highway speeds.

 

[HighMans]

Sadly low light do not mean the dead of night.
You could be driving on the longest day of the year in clear blue skies, and drive into the shade of some trees lining the road, or tall buildings for that matter, and that would suddenly challenge your chance of a plate capture.

As you are American 2 cameras are kind of a must have, as many states dont have plates in the front, so a oncoming car only a rear camera will get a chance of his plate as he have passed by you the other way.
And if you get to have a vote on more readable plates on cars, and banning silly secondary graphics on plates, and maybe making them a little larger,,,,,, vote yes, CUZ US plates are not really meant to be readable, at least compared to EU plates.

If anything and you can do it, i find that my "zoom" camera in the windscreen often add positive in regard to plate captures as it get its chance on those a little further away, and it feel like the sweet spot are a bit larger than traditional wide angle dashcams that have a very small sweet spot that is near to your car.

In my experience capturing 30 FPS footage it is within about 10 frames you stand to get the capture, Doubling to 60 FPS footage do give you double the chance, but in my testing 2 similar cameras aside for one running 30 FPS and the other 60 FPS, there was very little reason to use 60 FPS, so since that test many years ago i have just used 30 FPS video.

As cars over here in EU ville have plates front and rear i get 2 stabs at them, and some times the rear camera get the capture the front camera did not, this is mostly true when we are talking 2 different sensors, so it could be a 1440p IMX 335 sensor in the front camera, and a 1080p IMX 291 in the rear camera.

A example of this can be seen in this video, where near the end i get into a "darker" place ( trees at the left side of the road and so force camera to use other exposure ) but here the rear camer capture the rear plates on the on coming cars, where the front 1440p front camera struggle.
This is 80 kmh / 50 MPH Danish highway speeds.

I'm in a state with only rear license plates, and the only reason I need a dashcam is for a personal project I'm working on to record license plates. If I miss one or two here or there, it's not a big deal -- the more the merrier obviously.

I think I would go for the Viofo A129 Pro 4K, which is available in single or dual channel versions.
Alternatively, one of the Viofo 2K cameras such as the A119, maybe the new A119 Mini.

The 2K camera will be better in low light conditions, including very cloudy days, while the A129 Pro will do better in bright lighting, but it also has an advantage with range (distance it can see), as long as either the lighting is reasonable or the speed is low. If being able to see plates at a distance is not required then go for a 2K camera, but on a highway I find the extra range of the 4K to be useful.

I currently have an A119 V3, and it's okay but I was wondering if there were any other options. I might upgrade to the single A129 Pro.

 

[kamkar]

well the front camera is the man camera, and what it do 100 % no matter the time of day and light, maybe only bar severe fog, is logging your own driving in relation to roadside / lane markings and color of traffic lights, so that alone will fend off many silly claims.

You cal also log plates at night, or that is there are still the issue of reflection of headlights in the plate, but if say you overtake a car, and do so at a speed not that much faster than the other car, then you might get a capture too, the killer in low light is motion blur, but as long as the difference in speed between camera car and target car are pretty small ( we are talking walking pace here ) you might still get a plate capture.
But here the slower the better, so the pace a baby can crawl would be ideal, just too rare you drive that slow past parked cars or get overtaken or overtake at that little speed difference.

The active ANPR cameras some Danish cop cars have on the roof, they can read plates pretty damn good, but they also flash IR light and what not to pull that off, just like stationary ANPR CCTV cameras would do.

If your plate are in the COP database, you can be sure their system in the car will go BONG ! when they pass by your car.

 

[Nigel]

I'm in a state with only rear license plates, and the only reason I need a dashcam is for a personal project I'm working on to record license plates. If I miss one or two here or there, it's not a big deal -- the more the merrier obviously.



I currently have an A119 V3, and it's okay but I was wondering if there were any other options. I might upgrade to the single A129 Pro.

The A119 V3 is one of the best, but the A129 Pro essentially has twice the resolution. Not quite right since the A119 is zoomed in a little.

If you don't have front plates then I guess you are always reading the rear plate on the car in front of you, in which case low light is less of an issue since normally both cars will be traveling similar speeds - the A129 Pro will do better.

Don't bother upgrading to the new A119 Mini, or any other 2K camera, you will not see significant improvements in plate quality.

 

[HighMans]

I haven't tested it out yet, but do you know if the Interpolated 4K on the A119 v3 work well?

 

[kamkar]

no that is just 1440p scaled up, so no gained optical fidelity

 

[Nigel]

I haven't tested it out yet, but do you know if the Interpolated 4K on the A119 v3 work well?

Are you doing automatic number plate reading?

There are slight advantages to the interpolated 4K, it tends to use more of the bitrate for resolution at the expense of pixelation and colour fidelity, but there is also the disadvantage that since it is not a whole number scaling, there will be a bit of distortion or blurriness added.

The difference is not very noticable and I would stick to the native resolution on all Viofo cameras!
There are some cameras where the interpolated 4K works well though, normally only because that resolution is allocated significantly higher bitrate, which is not the case on Viofo cameras.