Multi flaws in 0803 unit

[BuzzMega]

Occasionally, the 0803 goes mad. It seems to be stuck in a fast loop of a few milliseconds of the start up chime, sounding like a continuous distorted tone. Long press of the ON button resets it. But geez.

I think it may occur with a combo of the OK button plus Power ON at the same time. Not certain.

I bought from Amazon. Now I'm glad I did. Fast return, no questions. While I might live with the funny sound (never happens on automatic power up) this unit has the right side of the picture out of focus while the left side is nice and clear.

Is this statistically relatively common?

Both phenomena showed up before updating to Firmware 20140812. It drops the lane warning but adds the essential Sharpening tweak this unit sorely needs. With the new firmware, to get to the Menu, you must plow through video/photo playback screens before arriving at a camera-on/not-recording condition. Otherwise, the unit jumps directly into record at the speed of light.

Contrast, in the new firmware, seems tuned wrong with its "Soft" setting. That lowers contrast, all right, but crushes highlights down to middle gray. Completely unusable. It may be wishful looking, but I think the camera works a tad better overall with the update. It ignores sun-in-the-sky real good now.

Here in California, the 0803 shoots well and a slight +0.3 EV boost doesn't wash out in bright sun but seems to help in dim light.

This unit runs hot, but that seems to be standard. I caused the mount to grab a bit better with a little X-Acto knife surgery with layers of electrical tape. The mount, as is, has all the 0803 images twisted 2° counter clockwise even though the stick surface is almost car dead center. So lifting the right end of the camera is what's needed.

 

[Nigel]

Is this statistically relatively common?

Haven't heard much about the buzzing for a while but with the first batch/firmware it was certainly not unusual for people to experience it once or twice around startup time. It does seem to be very unusual for it to happen in normal use (and then maybe only if you have a loose mount) so for most people it has been a very minor issue. I did wonder if it was connected with having to create the folder structure on a newly formatted memory card...

I have noticed that there is a minor focus issue on one side on a few cameras, it seems to be out of focus on the right in left hand drive countries and out of focus on the left in right hand drive countries. I suspect that is complete coincidence but then again, the camera does not sit square to the windscreen glass due to the mount being on one side of the camera and the glass being curved and the higher angle is on different sides in LHD and RHD countries... Are you using maximum resolution to notice this or is it seriously out of focus?

This unit runs hot, but that seems to be standard.

Mine is running slightly warm since I changed the memory card, what card are you using?

 

[David106]

Unfortunately with the camera being relatively new and I think rushed to market there are bound to be issues. What frustrates me is that issues that only need a firmware fix are not being done and additional options are missing when the release notes states they are done.

I wonder if the developers behind the product are struggling technically.

 

[Hilts]

I wonder if the developers behind the product are struggling technically.

.... or perhaps the Mini 0803 "manufacturer" posting on DCT isn't really the true manufacturer?!

 

[reverend]

The initial videos from when this came out were from MEG if I remember rightly who posted the last firmware?

Picture quality wise on the 3H2F-D I always had the best output with Falsificator's custom firmwares and he's done the Mini 0803 one here - it's based on an older version though)

http://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/custom-firmware-from-procam-cx4-revision-3-0.6715/

I don't think that applies to all models though - it's hard work keeping track of all the various models of all cameras these days!

 

[Nigel]

Contrast, in the new firmware, seems tuned wrong with its "Soft" setting. That lowers contrast, all right, but crushes highlights down to middle gray. Completely unusable. It may be wishful looking, but I think the camera works a tad better overall with the update. It ignores sun-in-the-sky real good now.

Here in California, the 0803 shoots well and a slight +0.3 EV boost doesn't wash out in bright sun but seems to help in dim light.

The Contrast setting appears to be more like a Brightness setting, if you set it to soft then it divides every pixel value by 2 and there is then nothing in the image over half brightness - which is useless! If you set it to Hard then it multiplies every pixel value by 2 so things that where half brightness are now full brightness along with everything above, It doesn't actually add any detail at the bottom so that is useless too!

The Sharpness settings aren't much better, if you set sharpness to Soft then it turns off the sharpening completely leaving a very disappointing "watercolour" image, Sharpening obviously works on the raw data which has a higher dynamic range than is stored in the video files so it is able to add detail to what is stored, you can't sharpen the video in post processing and get back what was lost by setting Sharpness to Soft. Leaving it on Standard gives a reasonable result and Hard seems to have also sharpened noise which is probably a poor use of bitrate.

I didn't want to use LDWS and I've had it turned off but how can they have got rid of it when the camera is advertised as having it

 

[jokiin]

I didn't want to use LDWS and I've had it turned off but how can they have got rid of it when the camera is advertised as having it

are you using a firmware that came from your reseller though?

 

[BuzzMega]

Haven't heard much about the buzzing for a while but with the first batch/firmware it was certainly not unusual for people to experience it once or twice around startup time. It does seem to be very unusual for it to happen in normal use (and then maybe only if you have a loose mount) so for most people it has been a very minor issue. I did wonder if it was connected with having to create the folder structure on a newly formatted memory card...

I have noticed that there is a minor focus issue on one side on a few cameras, it seems to be out of focus on the right in left hand drive countries and out of focus on the left in right hand drive countries. I suspect that is complete coincidence but then again, the camera does not sit square to the windscreen glass due to the mount being on one side of the camera and the glass being curved and the higher angle is on different sides in LHD and RHD countries... Are you using maximum resolution to notice this or is it seriously out of focus?


Mine is running slightly warm since I changed the memory card, what card are you using?

Card: Sandisk class 10 32G. Focus issue observed at 1296p.

 

[David106]

.... or perhaps the Mini 0803 "manufacturer" posting on DCT isn't really the true manufacturer?!

The problem is we dont really know who the manufacturers really are there seem to be so many hence why I used the plural in developers. I see this as a big issue as "newer" firmware that someone found on a no name website is totally uncontrolled. To be honest my camera generally works ok with just the never ending mute bug being an issue however I would like to see firmware enhancements that actually exist in firmware and not just on the release notes.

 

[jokiin]

The manufacturer does not post on this forum

 

[David106]

are you using a firmware that came from your reseller though?

My camera came from E-Prance who to my knowledge have never issued firmware upgrades. Surely the more relevant question is who is the manufacturer of your particular camera as they are the ones to issue controlled upgrades, this information will likely never be divulged.

I am certainly guilty of using firmware not neccesarily linked to my particular camera.

 

[jokiin]

That's what I mean though, if you're using a firmware from another source you can't really complain about missing features as the specific options vary between different customers, if you choose to use someone else's version then you'll get things their way

I do understand where you're coming from though

 

[David106]

I am lucky that I use my 0803 for its basic purpose, to video the road in front of me. I dont use LDWS, GPS, motion detection or any other "enhancement" that a particular distributor has requested be added to their camera version so I dont care if they go missing in firmware.

Please though can some one fix the mute bug??????????

 

[Nigel]

Card: Sandisk class 10 32G. Focus issue observed at 1296p.

I'm not going to bother keeping an accurate list, but based on memory and very little data it does look possible that Sandisk may be responsible for hot running... If anyone wants to add their experience...

 

[David106]

My 0803 does not run hot, it is warm but not hot. I have a Samsung 32gb class 6 SD card in the camera which is configured for 1080p, super fine, with WDR on, LDWS off, motion detection off.

 

[Nigel]

My 0803 does not run hot, it is warm but not hot. I have a Samsung 32gb class 6 SD card in the camera which is configured for 1080p, super fine, with WDR on, LDWS off, motion detection off.

Thanks David,

This is never going to be accurate, there is no point putting details in the list and everyone has a different idea of cool/warm/hot, but with enough people contributing we may see a trend:

Mini 0803 temperature with different memory cards:

Melting/Heat related problems
???

Running Hot but no heat related problems
Sandisk class 10 32G - BuzzMega

Running Warm
Samsung 32gb class 6 - David106, Nigel

Running Cool
Samsung 64gb class 10 Pro - Nigel

 

[BuzzMega]

The Contrast setting appears to be more like a Brightness setting, if you set it to soft then it divides every pixel value by 2 and there is then nothing in the image over half brightness - which is useless!

It's useless all right. Technically "Contrast" stretches black to white more or less by multiplication. "Brightness" lifts or depresses all values by equal amounts through addition. So an image with digital values in 8-bit (0 to 255, numerically) were brightness boosted, anything black would be raised to 50 and anything 205 or greater would be slammed against the maximum of 255. But a contrast lift of 50 units would have the identical effect on an original value of 205, but proportionally less on down the scale.

The ideas behind brightness and contrast are rigorous in a program like Photoshop, but inside digital cameras? I think they all are fudged. When I see these terms in digital cameras my mind substitutes "Brightness-Like" and "Contrast-Like" for the menu terms.

Gamma is what we would like to have as a control. Gamma moves a mid point up or down the tonal scale, stretching what's below and squeezing tonalities above.

That said, the Contrast>Hard setting on firmware 20140812 seems like a true(ish) lift of the top end, but shadow detail drops a tad, so the adjustment may be stretching from the center point of the tonal range.

My current settings are 1296p, Contrast>Standard, Sharpness>Standard, EV+0.3, WDR on, SuperFine data rate.

 

[Nigel]

That said, the Contrast>Hard setting on firmware 20140812 seems like a true(ish) lift of the top end, but shadow detail drops a tad, so the adjustment may be stretching from the center point of the tonal range.

I would expect an increase in contrast to, in your words "stretch from the center point of the tonal range", however Contrast>Hard actually stretches away from zero by x2 so you loose all the info from the top half and the bottom half gets redistributed across the full range.

With it set to standard it seems to do a much better job in high contrast conditions under trees, it now gives a fairly detailed image where I was getting a lot of blackness, sometimes looks a little unnatural but much better for a dashcam. It is sort of doing what I expect a WDR setting to do, but I have WDR off, haven't tried it on yet.