My immediate thoughts after 1 500 km of recording

[runar]

Let me start by admitting that my expectations to the SG9663DR might have been a bit too high and/or unrealistic. Nevertheless, I can't help but think there must be room for improvement, or that I'm doing something "wrong".

Last weekend I drove 1 500 km over approximately 26 hours. This gave me the perfect opportunity to test the cameras in multiple situations, such as during the night, with clouds and fog, sunrise and sunset, dark tunnels, and of course during optimal daytime conditions. All in all I'm happy with the system as a whole but less happy with the cameras. Compared to my previous setup with two Mobius cameras, the video quality feels like a downgrade in some regards, and I was probably expecting a bit more from a system that costs almost as much as four Mobiuses combined.

I'll do the return trip in a few weeks, so I'm more than interested in suggestions to other settings or things to test!

Disclaimer: I didn't use the filter, as during previous testing the filter did not really make any noticeable difference. Also, I used the same settings for the entire trip, mostly to simplify usage and because the conditions changed quite often. The following settings were used: Quality: High; Exposure: 0.0 on both cameras; WDR: On; AE Metering: Full Frame.

1. Burnt-out sky
   
   This is my main concern. I feel the sky burns out too easily, even with the filter attached. Without direct sunlight, the sky burns out when slightly more than half of the picture (the upper half?) is covered by ground or trees. In fact, it's almost better with direct sunlight.
   
   Example 1: Notice how it gets close to perfect as soon as I reach the speed limit sign (the video from the rear camera plays after the front camera, so keep watching):
   
   
   
   Example 2: These are extreme conditions for most cameras, but notice how more of the sky turns blue when the sun hits the camera directly:
   
   
   
   Example 3: Another example on how direct sunlight seems better:
   
   
   
   Example 4: Imagine how good these clips would look if the sky wasn't so white:
   
   
   
   Example 5: A short clip from earlier trips, with the filter attached and AE Metering set to Low Cut:
   
   
   
   
2. Video quality
   
   My rear window is tinted, and while I know this is not good for cameras, the Mobius handled my rear window much better than theSG9663DR. Unfortunately I didn't save any clips from my driving during the night, so I'll have to upload examples at a later time.
   
   With that being said, there are many good clips from the trip, including these two:
   
   
   
   
3. Focus
   
   I initially had some concerns regarding the focus of the cameras. It seemed the rear camera was a bit out of focus, but I now believe this is simply due to the fact that the cameras are only 1080p. I will keep an eye on it, though, as I'm not completely convinced just yet.
   
   
4. Parking mode
   
   Parking mode works perfectly! I set mine to 5 fps, which is more than enough to capture what's happening without filling up the memory card. I also added a button to the constant power wire to be able to shut the system off completely, for when I'm in my own garage or too lazy to turn the system off manually.

To conclude, the system works just fine as a dash cam system where the main job is capturing events (and great details are unnecessary), but I hope my feedback and comments will help the developer with future versions and new models.

I also have a question to the developer: Will it be possible to swap the cameras with new and improved cameras if such a thing would ever be released, or would the entire system have to be replaced?

 

[kamkar]

1: you might want to experiment with the metering, i have mine set to full frame.
Personally i dont mind sky going white, my focus are on what is street level, but this is probably something that can be worked on.

SG generally launch new cameras with pretty standard image settings, once day 2 day camera operation are dialed in satisfactory SG start to work on image improvement.

That long a drive did you drive from one end to the other of Norway ?
I once drove from Aarhus down here and to Byske in not the most northern part of Sweden, that was a plenty long drive, and going home i did it in one go too aside for the ferry ride.

 

[TonyM]

White sky is common when there's shadow areas and no specific highlights. The Mobius does that too. I'd say in general that the IMX291 in the DR has slightly more dynamic range than the Mobius.

I'm interested in what way you think the Mobius is better than the DR on your tinted rear window, especially at night. The IMX291 should show more detail in the shadows, however it may look noisier than you are used to.

There's scope for improving the auto exposure and image quality on the DR. It should develop over time.

 

[runar]

1: you might want to experiment with the metering, i have mine set to full frame.
Personally i dont mind sky going white, my focus are on what is street level, but this is probably something that can be worked on.

I have mine set to the same (Full Frame), but I will experiment with the different settings over the next weeks to see if I notice any significant difference.
And I agree that what happens at the street level is more important than the color of the sky. After all, this is a dash cam.

SG generally launch new cameras with pretty standard image settings, once day 2 day camera operation are dialed in satisfactory SG start to work on image improvement.

Image improvements on the software or hardware level? I must admit I don't know the SG brand as well as I knew Mobius.

That long a drive did you drive from one end to the other of Norway ?
I once drove from Aarhus down here and to Byske in not the most northern part of Sweden, that was a plenty long drive, and going home i did it in one go too aside for the ferry ride.

Yes, I did! It was a long but beautiful trip. I had a few stops, but did it in one go as well. I think I'll split the return trip over several days, to be able to see more of the country than just the roads. Speaking of roads, most of the roads were very good, and almost without any traffic except for the last hours. It's easy to forget that this is not a game, especially when you have the road to yourself. A man was killed in a traffic accident at a location I passed a few hours earlier.
I had to take one ferry as well, though waiting for the ferry to arrive and load all the cars took longer than the actual ride! I thought about driving through Northern Sweden, but then I'd have to place myself in quarantine for two weeks…

 

[kamkar]

Image quality will get tweaked in firm ware, and i assume that part will actually start soon CUZ after all the DR are familiar hardware already in other SG cameras, and so far not many flaws have popped up, and then ones that have are not serious bad issues.

 

[runar]

White sky is common when there's shadow areas and no specific highlights. The Mobius does that too. I'd say in general that the IMX291 in the DR has slightly more dynamic range than the Mobius.

You're right that the Mobius did that as well, and I found a lot of clips in my archive with just as white sky as in my examples above. However, I also found many clips with perfect sky even in bad conditions, and so far I haven't seen this with the SG9663DR. If that makes sense.

Here are a few examples I believe are recorded on a Mobius 2. The conditions should be comparable to the conditions in the second clip in example 4 above:

I'm interested in what way you think the Mobius is better than the DR on your tinted rear window, especially at night. The IMX291 should show more detail in the shadows, however it may look noisier than you are used to.

It seems I didn't drive much during the night with my dual Mobius setup, so I couldn't find any suitable examples in my archive. I still have the Mobiuses, though, and I'll find a way to mount and power them so I can test them at the same time as the SG9663DR. But noise may be a keyword here. I don't really remember the level of details, but the SG9663DR is indeed more noisier.

There's scope for improving the auto exposure and image quality on the DR. It should develop over time.

I know, and I'm not in a hurry. I don't want to sound like an angry or demanding customer, I just wanted to clarify if my experience is what to expect.

 

[jokiin]

set the AE to center weighted, it will give better results, I'd suggest leaving WDR off as we haven't done the adjustments on that yet, it's still at our base settings at the moment, we're doing the IQ adjustments on the SGGCX2PRO+ and they'll be ported over to the other models once done

 

[runar]

set the AE to center weighted, it will give better results, I'd suggest leaving WDR off as we haven't done the adjustments on that yet, it's still at our base settings at the moment, we're doing the IQ adjustments on the SGGCX2PRO+ and they'll be ported over to the other models once done

Thank you for your suggestion! I will change the AE setting and disable WDR, and see if that makes any difference.

 

[badbob001]

For your trip, what size memory card did you use? I'm curious about the consumption rate at high.