M2 footage dash and action

[TonyM]

Last time I looked a £25 compact camera could easily handle day or night shooting video without the need to have the user set a "day", "night" or "intermediate" mode. So it's hardly unreasonable or rocket science to expect the same from a car cam. If a small cheap compact camera can manage it for £24.99 : http://www.argos.co.uk/product/4278113 (and that has a mechanical shutter, viewfinder, and a lot of other expensive items not needed for a car cam plus a 16mp sensor), then I see no reason why car cam manufacturers cannot do this for under £100.

Not sure the Vivitar S126 makes for the best dashcam, although the exposure does look rather good Could do with a decent mount though!:

The S126 does not have a viewfinder

 

[c4rc4m]

the type of WDR (or HDR) used in photography or CCTV using long and short exposures where the light source doesn't vary much doesn't work well for a dashcam, they tried this type of WDR in the release version firmware for the M2 and it was no good at all

Yeah it's common sense. With movement a long exposure is not a good thing for blur avoidance.

Only the gamma type WDR is likely to be of use.

However, as I said above, and I could be wrong, it looks as if Mobius have possibly tried upping the gain to recover the dark part of the images, hence the increased noise levels.

 

[jokiin]

However, as I said above, and I could be wrong, it looks as if Mobius have possibly tried upping the gain to recover the dark part of the images, hence the increased noise levels.

not really sure what they have done, better than previous but still a long way to go

 

[c4rc4m]

Not sure the Vivitar S126 makes for the best dashcam. Could do with a decent mount though!:

And that S126 does not have a viewfinder

Ha ha. Yeah I wasn't actually suggesting using the Vivitar as a dashcam./ Just pointing out that if Vivitar can make a camera with dedicated metering, 16mp sensor, mechanical shutter, flash and many bits not needed in a dashcam including some of the aforementioned items and retail it for £25, then I can't see any reason why dashcam manufacturers can't make a decent dashcam with proper metering for under £100. I would hazard a guess that it may come down to complexity as most dashcam brands don't seem to have ties to any established photographic brands and so possibly don't have the knowledge or experience of incorporating complex metering systems into their products. Just opinion and speculation on my behalf though.

As for the Vivitar, actually the picture doesn't look too bad. Most of what looks obviously bad is caused by the shake. Look at the road surface, no evident grain and even some of the passing road signs seem to have readable text, were it not for the shake.

 

[TonyM]

Ha ha. Yeah I wasn't actually suggesting using the Vivitar as a dashcam.
As for the Vivitar, actually the picture doesn't look too bad. Most of what looks obviously bad is caused by the shake. Look at the road surface, no evident grain and even some of the passing road signs seem to have readable text, were it not for the shake.

Agreed - it actually looks OK

 

[TonyM]

Much better exposure control from the M2 using 'bright light' priority in overcast conditions this morning. M2 is on 1080p60. GC on 1080p30. No WDR on both cameras.

Original source frames:-
GC:

M2:

 

[Harsh]

Was planning on giving bright-light a spin after trying out centred metering with low-light. 60 FPS showing its magic above.

 

[TonyM]

Was planning on giving bright-light a spin after trying out centred metering with low-light. 60 FPS showing its magic above.

There are some situations where the minimum 1/60s does make a difference.

 

[c4rc4m]

60fps should always give better results in daylight with moving subjects because of the faster shutter speed. The only danger where the shutter is dynamic is on a very bright day the interval between the frames in video can be so large as to cause visible stutter. However, with a fixed shutter that isn't an issue, although the penalty is increased blur with fast moving subjects where it's not fast enough to freeze the action. It's also worth mentioning that with 60fps, the quality of the end result can be dependant on the final processing of the frames. Most tv's etc can only handle 30fps. So if you shoot at 60fps you have to get the frame rate down in the final output to 30fps. That means blending or discarding frames. Blending smooths the output but causes blur on stills as each frame is made up 50% of the current frame and 50% of the next frame (usually alternate lines). With frames being discarded, the stills are sharper (good for our purposes) but the penalty can be the jerky output I mentioned above (because there are now large gaps between each frame in which the object moves unrecorded).

 

[Dashmellow]

Last time I looked a £25 compact camera could easily handle day or night shooting video without the need to have the user set a "day", "night" or "intermediate" mode. So it's hardly unreasonable or rocket science to expect the same from a car cam.

With regards to the shutter DSLR's and compacts and other cameras do NOT use mechanical shutters when shooting video - they simply discharge the sensor between frames (hence why there's no shutter noise) so it's exactly the same as for video on a car cam.

As for metering, if car / action cams are going to improve, then dedicated metering is a must. If a small cheap compact camera can manage it for £24.99 : http://www.argos.co.uk/product/4278113 (and that has a mechanical shutter, viewfinder, and a lot of other expensive items not needed for a car cam plus a 16mp sensor), then I see no reason why car cam manufacturers cannot do this for under £100.

That little £25 compact camera you cite is nothing more than a cheap, poorly rated SoC camera that shoots 720p video not unlike a inexpensive budget dash cam. Despite your claim to the contrary it does not have a mechanical shutter or viewfinder. It uses a "digital" lens. The performance of this camera you cite as an example would be sorely disappointing.

First you mention DSLRs and now you're talking about a cheap camera like this, so again not valid or reasonable comparisons to a dash camera capturing night time footage. You need to compare apples to apples.

BTW, here are a couple of excerpts from a review.

"Vivitar S126's Lens is horrible over all."

"Vivitar S126's Video is horrible over all."

 

[c4rc4m]

That little £25 compact camera you cite is nothing more than a cheap, poorly rated SoC camera that shoots 720p video not unlike a inexpensive budget dash cam. Despite your claim to the contrary it does not have a mechanical shutter or viewfinder. It uses a "digital" lens. The performance of this camera you cite as an example would be sorely disappointing.

A digital lens is still a physical lens exactly the same minus the zoom motor and backwards / forwards adjustable elements, it just uses software to capture only the centre of the sensor to provide a "digital zoom".....and £30 also buys an optical zoom. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/camera...r-s332-compact-camera-black-10139794-pdt.html

We can play at this all day. I can easily pick top branded cameras like Canon and Sony at just under £100 if you like to make the comparison apples to apples on price alone. They have even more expensive features not found in dash cams which means that dashcam manufacturers should have the money for metering systems and even more money to spend implementing other quality enhancing features such as better sensor or processor over and above those found in the big brand stills cameras. If you contend they don't please tell me why something such as a dashcam for example which is basically a printed circuit board inside a plastic case with a small fixed glass lens and tiny sensor costs more to make than a much larger anodised metal cased compact stills camera with a much larger sensor with more physical pixels, in built memory, light metering system, multi-mode shooting system, physical zoom lens with substantially larger glass elements, lens motors and more elements / moving elements, multi-mode dials, flash unit etc etc.

 

[Dashmellow]

A digital lens is still a physical lens exactly the same minus the zoom motor and backwards / forwards adjustable elements, it just uses software to capture only the centre of the sensor to provide a "digital zoom".....and £30 also buys an optical zoom. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/camera...r-s332-compact-camera-black-10139794-pdt.html

We can play at this all day. I can easily pick top branded cameras like Canon and Sony at just under £100 if you like to make the comparison apples to apples on price alone. They have even more expensive features not found in dash cams which means that dashcam manufacturers should have the money for metering systems and even more money to spend implementing other quality enhancing features such as better sensor or processor over and above those found in the big brand stills cameras. If you contend they don't please tell me why something such as a dashcam for example which is basically a printed circuit board inside a plastic case with a small fixed glass lens and tiny sensor costs more to make than a much larger anodised metal cased compact stills camera with a much larger sensor with more physical pixels, in built memory, light metering system, multi-mode shooting system, physical zoom lens with substantially larger glass elements, lens motors and more elements / moving elements, multi-mode dials, flash unit etc etc.

This is just a silly argument that proves nothing. Again, you are comparing apple to oranges. And price is often a function of volume and economies of scale and the dash cam market is tiny compared to the market for point and shooters, even the crappy ones with lousy video capabilities you seem so enamored with.

 

[TonyM]

A digital lens is still a physical lens exactly the same minus the zoom motor and backwards / forwards adjustable elements, it just uses software to capture only the centre of the sensor to provide a "digital zoom".....and £30 also buys an optical zoom. http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/camera...r-s332-compact-camera-black-10139794-pdt.html

We can play at this all day. I can easily pick top branded cameras like Canon and Sony at just under £100 if you like to make the comparison apples to apples on price alone. They have even more expensive features not found in dash cams which means that dashcam manufacturers should have the money for metering systems and even more money to spend implementing other quality enhancing features such as better sensor or processor over and above those found in the big brand stills cameras. If you contend they don't please tell me why something such as a dashcam for example which is basically a printed circuit board inside a plastic case with a small fixed glass lens and tiny sensor costs more to make than a much larger anodised metal cased compact stills camera with a much larger sensor with more physical pixels, in built memory, light metering system, multi-mode shooting system, physical zoom lens with substantially larger glass elements, lens motors and more elements / moving elements, multi-mode dials, flash unit etc etc.

Compared to a Sony or Canon point and shoot camera, the Mobius team is a relatively small group of people, writing the M2 firmware from scratch in Linux (including the metering, WDR, noise reduction etc). The number of M2 units sold is probably miniscule compared to p&s cameras. I don't have actual figures, but as an example the principal seller in HK has so far sold only 267 M2s.

 

[c4rc4m]

This is just a silly argument that proves nothing. Again, you are comparing apple to oranges. And price is often a function of volume and economies of scale and the dash cam market is tiny compared to the market for point and shooters, even the crappy ones with lousy video capabilities you seem so enamored with.

Well I'd disagree with you here with point and shoot, because isn't that what a dashcam is in essence, the very simplest form of camera, basically a sensor and a fixed lens with fixed focus and on chip metering. You simply turn it on and it shoots. You can't really get more basic than that. It's a CCTV camera for the car. You could argue that's what it's supposed to be, CCTV for the car. Now if it turned out perfect video day and night, and perfectly readable number plates of the traffic coming towards you, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion as it would be full filling what many of us want to see - a dashcam with sharp unpixellated video day and night, and easy to read registration plates. However, how many dashcams are currently achieving those goals entirely? In a car there is some advantage to fixed focus as it avoids hunting issues with autofocus, especially at night. But in the 21st century are we really to believe the future lies in such basic cameras when they're not completely delivering what we're looking for currently?

As for advantages of scale, for sure, some manufacturers are small scale. However, globally the dash cam and action cam market is huge. You can probably measure the number of GoPro's sold in the tens if not hundreds of millions, which is why so many other companies are jumping into the market place. Dashcams are pretty much the same. The market s growing globally and in some markets eg Russia, Malaysia, nearly all drivers have one. The Market in China is huge and the market is growing in the UK, US and Australia. It seems to me that the 1st company that can bring real innovation and stand out quality to the dashcam market at a not too unreasonable price, has the potential to be the GoPro of the industry at least until the competitors catch up. I'm afraid you don't have me at all convinced that future of the industry lies in cameras that are so basic. I personally see the future in a camera that brings real top quality imaging to the dash cam market and I just don't see that being achieved without cameras becoming a little less basic.

BTW, this discussion we're having isn't a go at Mobius, I loved my Mobius 1. It's my opinion of the dashcam industry and where it's at, compared to what many customers would ideally want. It's just a little unfortunate a general opinion discussion opened up in a brand specific thread.

 

[TonyM]

The M2 handled some tricky lighting conditions rather well this morning with 'bright light' priority (as did the GC ). Both cameras gave acceptable results, although neither could reliably capture licence plates when driving through the trees at 60mph, which is not unexpected.

The M2 results with WDR-on gave better exposure in the shadow areas, however there is some over-saturation. Since the WDR results are currently so bad in low light, I think WDR-off is the best approach for all-day use.

I might consider increasing the exposure value on the M2 as it's a bit darker than reality. However for the purpose of capturing details it's easier to increase the brightness of an under-exposed frame than it is to extract information from a correctly-exposed but motion-blurred frame.

M2 1080p60 WDR-OFF (Bright light priority, Centre-weighted metering, H264 Highest data rate approx 37Mbps)
GC 1080p30 WDR-OFF

Still frames:

 

[TonyM]

Repeat lap with WDR turned on. As I said above, the M2 with WDR is very capable given enough ambient light. However it's not suitable for all-day use.

M2 1080p60 WDR-ON (Bright light priority, Centre-weighted metering, H264 Highest data rate approx 37Mbps)
GC 1080p30 WDR-ON

Still frames:

 

[jokiin]

can be frustrating when you have a lot of adjustment available and you can find settings that work really well in one situation but then go backwards in others, getting some sort of balance is a real challenge at times

 

[kamkar]

X mas lights captured with latest FW ( 2.03 ) 1080/30 and with WDR on

 

[c4rc4m]

Thanks for posting. My observations, still very noisy and quite blurry although some parts look clearer than others - could be the windscreen or lens issues. There does seem to be a lot of windscreen reflection though. Maybe your car's windscreen is particularly prone to this as I've noticed on the daytime ones as well it doesn't always appear very transparent.

I'm sure my Civic pics up a lot less windscreen interference. That said, I can't compare as I have no working Mobius and a replacement is very very low on the list of priorities given my financial situation and the fact I've got a GoPro 2 as a make do cam (albeit that's terrible at night).

One thing that is interesting though is the GoPro doesn't start going all macro blocky with trees despite a low bit rate. The disadvantage though is the picture is much lower resolution. There's clearly some optimisation with encoding therefore in the GoPro's favour, albeit the GoPro is lower resolution than the Mobius whilst obviously means less detail to encode.

Screenshot from a paused GoPro Video here amongst trees and bushes (no point me adding a night shot). Note leaves still quite crisp and no blocking:

 

[kamkar]

I think gopro have a agreement with google/youtube, to make their footage just a little bit better looking.

Several times have a tried to UL to youtube the same footage from 2 different cameras but otherwise same bitrate and file container, and there is often clear differences the 2 on youtube where the raw footage from the 2 cameras look pretty much the same.

And i find that hard to understand.