A219 Pro video drop follow up post (previously: New A129Pro occasional double beep , doubt it is due to overheating)

[JoePGM]

If by corrupted video files you mean the footage getting blocky in situations with a lot to process, then i can tell you thats normal due to the moderate bitrate dashcams use.
If you need cinematic footage in situations like that you need a recorder that do 100 - 200 mbit bitrate., and they you still want to keep the footage far away from youtube.

corrupted video means losing video record of 4-6 second, mentioning in this post. No body challenge about blocky compression here

 

[kamkar]

hehe yeah long after posting i watched one of the videos, stuff like that should not happen.

 

[JoePGM]

@viofo @VIOFO-Support Could you have a look at this issue ?

 

[JoePGM]

I will start containing my video drop footage here in case anyone have similar experience and want to follow. Since not many user experienced the same issue and care about this topic in the main firmware post...

Today driving under good sun light, as someone suggest try using "low" bitrate to see if the video drop still exists, I just have four front video drop and one rear video drop all happens in different time during a one hour driving....

In short, today setting is 2560x1440 60fps, h264, Low bitrate, no motion detect no collision

 

[JoePGM]

So far I can conclude video drop happens (certainly - no beep, they removed it since 1.7 late version) in whatever high or low bitrate, h264 or h265 at resolution 2560x1440 60fps and also 4k/30fps.

 

[Arese]

I will start containing my video drop footage here in case anyone have similar experience and want to follow. Since not many user experienced the same issue and care about this topic in the main firmware post...

Today driving under good sun light, as someone suggest try using "low" bitrate to see if the video drop still exists, I just have four front video drop and one rear video drop all happens in different time during a one hour driving....

In short, today setting is 2560x1440 60fps, h264, Low bitrate, no motion detect no collision

Thanks for posting an example of the frame drops. I wasn't sure what I should be looking for but now it's clear with your videos.
Now the issue is that we have to go through all of our footage to find video drops..

Before when the double beep was activated, we could write down the time we heard the double beep and review videos recorded around that time.

Now without the double beeps we basically have 0 clue and would need to review hours of footage!

Since I've recently upgraded to the v2.1 I will be be monitoring closely my footage regularly for the time being to make sure I'm not experiencing frame drops. I mean this is a big problem, imagine an incident happens during those frame drops, it defeats the purpose of owning a dashcam and I don't understand how a warning about such a critical element of the system was removed.

 

[JoePGM]

@Arese it's straight forward and not difficult to find the drop video. I have mentioned the method I used to track the video drop in the main firmware post, page65. I can re-post that here:

"Just copy all the video files to your pc, open up the traditional file explorer, add in the column of "length" and "size", then you will see any abnormal video clips. Mine set to 5min per clip, so you can trace from here"

 

[JoePGM]

The video drop so far I observe will lost around 4-5 second of video. Everytime the drop occur only at the very beginning of writing a new clip, but not at any mid of a single clip.

 

[LeoeL]

I lose more than 5 seconds.
Sometimes I have to press twice the left button (during the double beeps) to start recording again.

 

[Arese]

@Arese it's straight forward and not difficult to find the drop video. I have mentioned the method I used to track the video drop in the main firmware post, page65. I can re-post that here:

"Just copy all the video files to your pc, open up the traditional file explorer, add in the column of "length" and "size", then you will see any abnormal video clips. Mine set to 5min per clip, so you can trace from here"
View attachment 53040

Great thanks for that.
Ok this weekend I'll be doing a bit of driving and I'll review my files to see if I can find any anomalies.
I'll report my findings back here

 

[JoePGM]

To all user, if you find your unit have video drop issue, I highly recommend reporting it to Viofo support too. More people have issue and trigger the drop in different scenario, more chance we could narrow down the issue and get a new firmware with fix.

Viofo support , I will say they are not the best, they will ask us to perform some very basic question and common sense test at the early stage, but don't get frustrated, believe "the power of crowds".

 

[kamkar]

Throwing more manpower at a problem or challenge have historically accomplished great things.

 

[Arese]

Hi @JoePGM
So yesterday I drove around 5h (still haven't filled up my sdcard) and upon reviewing the files I didn't find any anomaly with videos. They all have the same size for a full 2min video and the only different files in size are car start/stop or parking mode recordings.
My dashcam also switches between drive mode and parking mode automatically as intended.

I still want to review the files once it filled up the SD and start recording over older files to see if any frame drops start appearing

 

[JoePGM]

Hey @Arese , so you said you did a 5hours driving and find that no any video drop. Did you recognize the time and weather you record the journey? Is is good sunny day time, shade evening or after sunset or night time?

From my experience, the shaded evening /after sunset/ night time not that easy to trigger video drop. And also what resolution/bitrate you are recording in?

 

[Arese]

Hey @Arese , so you said you did a 5hours driving and find that no any video drop. Did you recognize the time and weather you record the journey? Is is good sunny day time, shade evening or after sunset or night time?

From my experience, the shaded evening /after sunset/ night time not that easy to trigger video drop. And also what resolution/bitrate you are recording in?

I am using the highest resolution and highest bitrate settings, WDR off.

Regarding the type of weather recorded. We started the trip with a nice 21 degrees sunny weather with blue sky in the city then as we arrived in the mountains weather turned cloudy, grey and gloomy and as we climbed up in altitude it started heavily snowing which was clearly captured by the dashcam. Assuming recording falling snow, lack of natural light combined with all the car's headlights would make up a complex scene to record.
Finally, on our back to the city, we drove down the mountains as the sunset, and then we continued driving in night time on the motorway then street roads.

Oh and I'm using a genuine WD Purple 256GB card

Hope this helps

 

[JoePGM]

A little update to all you.

Viofo support said they has submitted my video drop issue to Novatek and ask them to investigate and provide fix, however they said a long waiting before a real fix roll out will be expected.....

Can't really say it is a good new nor bad, at least something logged in their system and hopefully we will receive a fix in future...