New 750S-2CH getting lots of digital artifacts

[adsr2443]

Got a new 750S-2CH installed. Pulled some video off the camera, and I'm seeing a lot of digital artifacts, especially on the road areas. It's mainly on the front camera, the rear camera looks a little better. Some samples below.

Video quality is set at FHD@60 + FHD@30 (Sports), Enhanced Night Vision on, Brightness 3 Front & Rear.

Definitely seems like I should be getting less artifacts than this. When cars are coming in the opposite direction the video can't make out their plates - I would assume that you should be able to normally?

Any suggestions for how to improve the video quality would be much appreciated....

Thanks in advance.

Front Video:

Rear Video:

 

[Cessna CJ4]

Got a new 750S-2CH installed. Pulled some video off the camera, and I'm seeing a lot of digital artifacts, especially on the road areas. It's mainly on the front camera, the rear camera looks a little better. Some samples below.

Video quality is set at FHD@60 + FHD@30 (Sports), Enhanced Night Vision on, Brightness 3 Front & Rear.

Definitely seems like I should be getting less artifacts than this. When cars are coming in the opposite direction the video can't make out their plates - I would assume that you should be able to normally?

Any suggestions for how to improve the video quality would be much appreciated....

Thanks in advance.

Front Video:

Rear Video:

Hello Adsr and welcome!

Absolutely, horrible. It frustrates me to no end to see this yet again. I and others have had the exact same problem. My thread is here: https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/i-upgraded-from-650s-to-750s-heres-what-i-found.31180/.

On my Blackvue 750s, I can't run any configuration outside of this without getting the same distortion in image quality that you get:

I cannot use Enhanced Night Vision. I cannot use Sports Mode. My new vehicle has OEM tinted rear glass so the Brightness on the rear cam must be set no lower than 5 (max). The front cam is so dark, that if I don't run it at 3 or higher, the video is too muddy and without definition on anything in focus.

This is the 'optimal' setting for my Blackvue 750s. If I move from this setting things only get worse.

 

[adsr2443]

Thanks! I'll give that a try and report back .....

 

[adsr2443]

On my Blackvue 750s, I can't run any configuration outside of this without getting the same distortion in image quality that you get

Oh. and I assume that the "can't run any configuration" comment refers only to the settings in the "Video" section? i.e. the other ones seem unrelated to video quality ... but you never know. .....

 

[Cessna CJ4]

Oh. and I assume that the "can't run any configuration" comment refers only to the settings in the "Video" section? i.e. the other ones seem unrelated to video quality ... but you never know. .....

Right - I'm speaking about just the Video Quality Settings.

However, having said that, they could go to work on the Motion Sensor big time. It is just far too sensitive. However, I would prefer they spend their energy fixing the image processing piece, first. That seems far more important a thing to worry about at this stage.

Thanks! I'll give that a try and report back .....

Please do! I'd like to know if there is any material differential, or whether this is status quo for the DR750s.

 

[adsr2443]

Here are some new videos with the updated settings. Maybe a *little* better, but also definitely still seeing significant artifacts. My assumption is that I should be able to get to a point where I can capture video without seeing any digital artifacts the vast majority of the time - this is still nowhere near that point. I may also try dropping back to 720p to see if that helps. I'd much rather have video that is cleanly encoding at a lower resolution than something that is a higher resolution but dominated by motion encoding artifacts...

Here's the pertinent section from my config.ini file:

[Tab1]
TimeSet=0
SetTime=
TimeZone=-500
Daylight=1
GpsSync=1
ImageSetting=1
VideoQuality=0
NightVision=0
FrontBrightness=2
RearBrightness=4
NormalRecord=1
VoiceRecord=0
DateDisplay=1
SpeedUnit=2
RecordTime=1
AutoParking=1
RearRotate=0
LockEvent=1
OverwriteLock=1

And the new videos:

Front:

Rear:

 

[Cessna CJ4]

Here are some new videos with the updated settings.

Thanks for the post, adsr2443.

At least through YouTube, I don't see much of a difference in terms of improvement. Certainly, I'm not seeing the kind of consistent video quality that others seem to be able to produce - but most of them seem to be distributors of these dash cams. For example - here are two videos from The Dashcam Store and BlackBoxMyCar. The further highlight the example, these are videos of the older version cameras from both Blackvue (650s) and Thinkware (F770):

The Dashcam Store | Blackvue DR650s

BackBoxMyCar | Thinkware F770

Why are we not able to get better or equal image quality with our respective "next version" cams while others get better quality using the previous version cams? It is not as if it takes talent to configure the camera settings. Most of us have tried a variety of camera settings that don't produce the same results shown in some of these kinds of videos. There has to be a logical explanation for this. Our image quality should be just as good, just as clean and just as crisp - because we are supposed to be using a better cam in the DR750s.

 

[adsr2443]

Has anyone gone through the loop with the manufacturer to see if they have any suggestions or at a minimum if they agree this isn't the level of image quality they expect out of the product?

Also, I installed them on both of our cars, so I'll pull the card off the other car and see if there's any difference there (maybe different windshield tinting or some other aspect would make a difference).

But yeah, this quality is just pretty piss-poor. In a previous job I worked on the design of image processing and encoding chips very similar to what these dashcams are doing, and there are _lots_ of parameters that go into both the front end image processing chain and then the H.264 encoder function (well beyond just image size, frame rate, and brightness level). So I'm holding out hope that this is just early firmware and they will make some significant improvements with later revs. But it's a little disheartening to see significantly higher quality video on the demo clips ...

On a somewhat related note, has anyone here experimented with polarization filters like these:

http://www.thedashcamstore.com/slip-on-polarizing-filter-for-blackvue-dr650s-750s-front-camera/

The clips seems to show they help out a bit. But then again you know how things go with those sample clips .

 

[BlackboxMyCar]

Do you have any clips on it when driving around town/in a city? If you are driving through the forest that will typically lead to a fair bit of pixelation.
That being said, your sample looks worse than most others I've seen. Your rear test #2 clip looks like what I'd expect though

 

[wallstreet123456]

Is this something that can be fixed with a firmware update or is this a problem with the camera itself?

 

[adsr2443]

I don't think anyone can say for sure without knowing the details of their design, but my educated guess based on my experience with developing systems like these in the past is that there are likely a number of internal parameters that they can tweak, so it's likely that a firmware update can improve the quality.

Here are some more captures from my drive to work this morning. One city streets, and one highway. Definitely better than the "driving through the forest" (also known as suburbia ) clip. Maybe they need to adjust their marketing a bit: "750S-2CH Urban Dashcam" "751S-2CH Backwoods Dashcam Coming Soon!".

My next experiment is to drop to 720p and see if that shows any significant improvement...

 

[wallstreet123456]

ADSR,
Have you sent your videos to Blackvue? I would do that and see what their response is.

 

[adsr2443]

ADSR,
Have you sent your videos to Blackvue? I would do that and see what their response is.

I haven't yet - I'll try to get to that some time soon....

 

[BlackboxMyCar]

Factoring in YouTube compression I would say your highway and city samples look similar to what we've seen from other DR750S-2CH
What were the settings used?

 

[adsr2443]

For the #2 videos I used:

FHD@30 + FHD@30, Enhanced Night Vision off, Brightness 3 Front, 5 Rear

From what I've seen, the city/highway scenes look roughly comparable to what I've seen posted online, but the other clip looks pretty poor - I would consider them unacceptable as far as image quality - WAY too many motion artifacts.

The YouTube videos look pretty comparable quality-wise to the original files (as long as you make sure it hasn't bumped you down to a lower resolution or frame rate). Here are the original files if you're interested:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6kpbq0403qqyodr/20171031_085642_NF.mp4
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0no1aw5nyslcz63/20171031_085642_NR.mp4
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6vt18s647l4tqaz/20171101_073906_NF.mp4
https://www.dropbox.com/s/65v6zjnyg38jicl/20171101_085732_NF.mp4

 

[Estoril Sport]

Regrettably these digital artifacts are far too common when driving past wooded areas. I found this problem with my Blackvue 500 and 600 dashcams. I am intending to upgrade to a 750S soon but seeing these issues are still present is depressing.

I suspect most other dashcams will also suffer in these conditions unless the bitrate is much higher. I believe the issue is related to the bit rate as the the camera cannot cope with the conditions. The 750S demo videos are in mostly built up cites/ motorways where the camera does not need to cope with the varieties of light and dark imagery. I did look at the Vico-Opia 2 as an alternative dashcam as this has a far better bitrate but not much else in its favour

 

[adsr2443]

Here are some clips from today shot at 720p30 (aka HD@30):

I also sent off a message to BlackVue support ... I'll update the thread when I eventually hear back from them....

 

[Estoril Sport]

I also sent off a message to BlackVue support ... I'll update the thread when I eventually hear back from them....

It might help if the camera was pointing down more, so less sky and more dashboard.

 

[HavocK9]

Is this something that can be fixed with a firmware update or is this a problem with the camera itself?

I found that firmware 1.001 is part of the issue. BlackVue added significant amounts of in camera sharpening and blurring to address some reported soft focus issues. This significant over sharpening created dramatic sharpening artifacts and contrast. These sharpening artifacts and added contrast exacerbate the compression artifacts. Not to mention the issues that developed with need to set your brightness to level1, to prevent the overdriving of the sensor in NV, the latest firmware is a bit of a disaster... I went back to 1.ooo.

 

[adsr2443]

Hmmm ... I hadn't tried Brightness Level 1 - is that your recommendation? Earlier in the thread it was suggested to try 3 Front / 5 Rear ... so I've been staying more in that area. I guess I have another thing to test out now....