Looking for Dual Cam for motorcycles

[DesertBike]

Correct, it is not a standard motorcycle. It is a 3 wheeled Arcimoto. At 9’5” long, even with the included extensions, the blueskysea 988 rear camera barely made it to the back end.

Any thoughts on the video quality?

It seems as if dashcams are all set to mediocre video quality, out of the box. 12 Mbit/s per camera is common. That was the "factory" rate on both of mine. The hardware can do better, so I'm using customized firmwares on both systems.

 

[estore009]

At 9’5” long, even with the included extensions, the blueskysea 988 rear camera barely made it to the back end.

You can ask the seller for help with another one extension cable!

 

[kamkar]

12 mbit should be rare now although you never know with those Koreans. and with 1080p footage you really want 20 mbit, and if it is a race cam 28 would be excellent for fast action and or lots of stuff to process in the image like driving thru a forest.
But no matter what camera you always want to go with the highest bitrate / image quality option, but in multi level cameras it is indeed often set to "normal" which i would not use so i go strait to "high" or "extreme"
I do understand the cameras that dont have a option to change this, but then again those are often low or basic bitrates and so IMO no good, but if the bitrate was high / adequate for the job at hand i see no reason to have other lesser options in the menu.

The Danish high end Audio and visual brand B&O they also dont sell their stuff with a menu setting for bad sound or picture but you save 50 watts on the power bill, it is go big or go home,,,,, this is the way.

 

[kamkar]

I assume you also need other GOP settings for a lower mounted MC camera VS a dashcam, at least i think that might be beneficiary

I dunno just some of the stuff my brain choose to wrestle with some times though it dont have all the information on the subject

 

[DesertBike]

12 mbit should be rare now although you never know with those Koreans. and with 1080p footage you really want 20 mbit, and if it is a race cam 28 would be excellent for fast action and or lots of stuff to process in the image like driving thru a forest.
But no matter what camera you always want to go with the highest bitrate / image quality option, but in multi level cameras it is indeed often set to "normal" which i would not use so i go strait to "high" or "extreme"
I do understand the cameras that dont have a option to change this, but then again those are often low or basic bitrates and so IMO no good, but if the bitrate was high / adequate for the job at hand i see no reason to have other lesser options in the menu.

The Danish high end Audio and visual brand B&O they also dont sell their stuff with a menu setting for bad sound or picture but you save 50 watts on the power bill, it is go big or go home,,,,, this is the way.

You would hope so, but the Innovv K2 and Viofo A129 Duo are both still shipping with 12 Mbit/s default bitrates, as far as I know.

It would be great if there were a way to adjust the bitrate - all the way up to maximum hardware will do - in the factory firmware. Would be fine even if it required restarting the system to make the change.

On the Viofo A129 Duo I can select between "high" and "low" bitrates. IIRC "low" is something silly like 8 Mbit/s, really blurry and only useful for recording the general situation.

With the Innovv, a user with skills has made available alternate versions of the factory firmware. He even rolled a custom-custom one for me. That's the one with 28 Mbit/s on front cam and 12 Mbit/s on the rear.

This is why I'm not exactly waiting with bated breath for a 4k motorcycle dashcam. Let's say the default bitrate is oh, 25 Mbit/s. At 4k rez, that's roughly equivalent to 12 Mbit/s at 1080. Which is to say, inadequate.

I stumbled across some info on 4k movie recording a while back. If I remember right, recording bitrates in excess of 100 Mbit/s are not uncommon with 4k movie making.

I expect I won't be interested in a 4k dashcam system until someone develops an affordable device that can handle 2 such streams. This could take a while. SD storage is already there in capability, and affordable.

 

[kamkar]

Indeed, my action camera shoot 4K, both 30 and 60 FPS at 100 mbit,,,,, might even be higher with newer firmwares.
Anyway with H.264 encode that are still low balling it, not least for 60 FPS, but the times i have used it on my windscreen, it do look to handle itself pretty well in situations with a lot extra detail to render.
I am not sure any of the current hardware options for 2 X 4K can do 100 mbit on each camera, judging from the heat my action camera generate just shooting 1 such video, such a dual camera would need a pretty beefy cooling solution.
Thats often the problem, a old Lada can also drive you from A to B, and qualify as a car, but its not really the car most of us would want.

 

[DesertBike]

The heat problem is one that's been mentioned when I asked why there aren't any dual-channel, 4k moto dashcams yet.

Suppose we can't get away with only passive cooling. So we add a fan to the DVR. Now that fan needs a dust filter. What happens if it rains? Filter gets wet, fan is now working to pull air through a wet filter. Maybe we upgrade the fan, so it will not burn out due to the additional load. Or, maybe we mandate putting the DVR under the seat.

That takes care of the rain problem. We still have the dust problem, especially for an offroad bike.

You and I would probably be meticulous about changing the dust filter often. But, average user would either not understand, or assume "it's fine," then the filter fills up with dust. Fan dies from increased load, or doesn't but can't cool effectively.

Now we need to add a thermal throttling feature to the DVR. If the fan fails, or the user doesn't bother changing the dust filter, it lowers the recording bitrate (and thus heat load) or turns itself off to prevent damage.

Then it's a question of which approach would annoy the user more, and which will generate more warranty returns.

Yeah, a 4k dual motorcycle dashcam would turn into a painful engineering effort really fast. I don't see any way it could end up as compact, relatively inexpensive, or convenient to install as say, the Innovv K2.

 

[hawkbox]

I basically ignored this topic for over a year, I barely cleared 2000km this year on my bike thanks to the Rona so a dashcam wasn't in mind. I'm replacing my Triumph in the spring with a GT900 Pro and will definitely be investigating cameras again so it's good to see if nothing else Innovv has some competition now.

Unless I was recording for Long Way Up or something I don't personally see a lot of value in going much higher than 1080 anyway.

 

[DesertBike]

I basically ignored this topic for over a year, I barely cleared 2000km this year on my bike thanks to the Rona so a dashcam wasn't in mind. I'm replacing my Triumph in the spring with a GT900 Pro and will definitely be investigating cameras again so it's good to see if nothing else Innovv has some competition now.

Unless I was recording for Long Way Up or something I don't personally see a lot of value in going much higher than 1080 anyway.

This is an established principle of digital photography. More pixels doesn't by itself mean a better picture.

Give me a clean 1080 picture with high recording bitrate any day, rather than a 4k resolution picture with poor quality.

 

[kamkar]

Indeed.
While i am 4K- curious, i would not be throwing fist full of my own money after a 4K dashcam at the moment.
I do like the 1440p cameras where i am now on my #2 sample with the new Viofo A139, but they are not matching the best 1080p sensors for low light performance, but i do think that can be bettered some, and even as is, then with my perspective on dashcams they are okay.

 

[DesertBike]

I am not sure we are going to get good low-light performance out of 1440p and 4k sensors anytime soon.

If the sensing "pixels" are physically smaller because there are more of them in the same space (often the case in cameras), they can't gather as much light and are subject to more noise. Result: worse low-light performance.

Sony released a new 4k sensor (IMX485) last year that is supposed to have "better" low-light performance. I'm not sure how good it is, or whether it's used in any current dashcam products.

 

[kamkar]

There are some interesting sensors alright, but not used in cameras yet.
Also a couple of paths there, either you can get a sensor that have the pixel count you need ( 8 mpix for 4K ) with larger sensitive pixels, or if the hardware support it you could go with a 32 mpix sensor and bin 4 smaller pixels into 1 larger unit, in which case you would get the same result so to say.
But so far i have not seen a dashcam SOC bin pixels like that ( very common in phones nowadays ) TBH i dont even think it are done in action cameras yet.
And there is the American way ( i just named it that ) where you make one helluva large sensor to accommodate the pixel count you need with very large pixels, and i think there also exist a few sensors like that, but they probably carry a obscene price tag.

 

[richx]

There are some interesting sensors alright, but not used in cameras yet.
Also a couple of paths there, either you can get a sensor that have the pixel count you need ( 8 mpix for 4K ) with larger sensitive pixels, or if the hardware support it you could go with a 32 mpix sensor and bin 4 smaller pixels into 1 larger unit, in which case you would get the same result so to say.
But so far i have not seen a dashcam SOC bin pixels like that ( very common in phones nowadays ) TBH i dont even think it are done in action cameras yet.
And there is the American way ( i just named it that ) where you make one helluva large sensor to accommodate the pixel count you need with very large pixels, and i think there also exist a few sensors like that, but they probably carry a obscene price tag.

American way: not to mention the corresponding optics would be very large and bulky, especially if they are to be F1.8 to match the current market products, and to deliver the required sharpness to make full use of 4K recording.

 

[DesertBike]

No, that doesn't quite work.

4k resolution (3840x2160) is only about 8 megapixels. There are plenty of smartphones that will take acceptable (or better) quality 4k video.

Their optics have no room to be "bulky."

Clearly it can be done, the question is at what price?

 

[kamkar]

O yes, there are hardware out there that will handle much more than dual 8 mpix streams, you can get almost 2 X that in the SOC / ISP in some modern phones.
There are no problem getting 4K optics in the kind of lenses currently used in dash and action cameras, and as the large sensor Sony "action" cameras and also the 1" module for the insta 360 one R prove, the optics do not have to go 3 - 4 X larger just CUZ the sensor have grown that much larger.
Hell even the fairly flat phones now also have pretty large sensors too, and those are even smaller lenses.

The quality however in phones to a large degree also depend on the camera software running the camera / cameras, thats why you will see fairly cheap phones with pretty decent camera hardware loose out big time in camera tests VS more expensive phones with more or less same hardware but just a better camera software too.

you can also just compare a few different media players for the computer, there is a vast difference in between the good and bad players, even just among the player options within windows 10.

 

[DesertBike]

Interesting input to this discussion: Have you seen that Innovv released a new motorcycle cam system with a 4k front cam? They're calling it the K5. Pre-order status for now, supposed to ship in "20 to 30 days."

Among other notable changes, Innovv integrated the DVR guts into the front camera.

This has the benefit of much-easier SD card access. I suspect it was also done for heat management.

 

[kamkar]

Yeah i saw that, will be interesting to see how it fall out.
Regarding integrating the main unit with the front camera like car models it have me a bit weary in regard to what size it will then be and how it will have a effect on where to mount it.
Cooling dont actually worry me much, cuz if that front camera / main unit are out in the wind it should get sufficient cooling, so then it is merely a mater of getting the heat from the SOC chip and to the casing to be dissipated there.
Also hope it is a good lid on that SD card, the "flap" lids on my osmo action camera but also found on gopro and others, while waterproof i am not going to dunk my action camera in any water unless i have a WP casing.
I only see it as splash proof even if they say it is good for several Meters depth.

I do prefer the screw in type of lid, like the ones on old cameras where you had to use a coin to unscrew it.

 

[jokiin]

This has the benefit of much-easier SD card access. I suspect it was also done for heat management.

remote units are better for heat management

 

[kamkar]

I guess you could still put a remote unit where it got a lot of wind, i assume there are not much of that under a motorcycle seat with a guy sitting on it too.
Though i think Rocks approach here will also be fine for the job, i am looking forward to hear some first hand user feedback.

For the cars, my dime are still firmly on the remote units, which i assume will still change some to accommodate future specs.

 

[jokiin]

I guess you could still put a remote unit where it got a lot of wind, i assume there are not much of that under a motorcycle seat with a guy sitting on it too.
Though i think Rocks approach here will also be fine for the job, i am looking forward to hear some first hand user feedback.

For the cars, my dime are still firmly on the remote units, which i assume will still change some to accommodate future specs.

heat isn't a problem, doing 4k remotely is the problem at the moment, once the hardware catches up it will probably happen