Next Viofo Cam

My Vico MF3 isn't too flash at night when lighting is only a street pole and headlights. Terrible really .. very grainy and the poor Camera is really struggling.

Not surprising .. seeing Cameras need adequate light to function properly .. so only a little light .. only a little performance.
Certainly not a hanging offence in my book.
 
A native 1080p sensor is going to do a lot better in low light, to some people that's important, not so for others, no camera excels at everything though so it's about finding a balance that suits your needs
 
Nigel said:
We should also take the price into account, you can't expect the very best quality lens on a budget camera but I'm sure it will still be decent.
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I expected to be better than a119 and more expensive, i don't want better performance at a lower price. I would pay the price of opia 2 on a dashcam with wr1 features and form factor but with the best video quality existent today. Not all of us are looking for budget dashcams. Viofo should step up and make a high end dashcam along the budget ones. (y)
 
Everyone's not willing to spend $200 or more on a dash cam, especially their first. It's good to have a product lineup that caters to different budgets and requirements.
 
I'll take better performance at a lower price :p But I don't mind paying a fair price for what I get. After seeing for myself what decent low-light performance is, I do not want less in my future cams. I don't expect a cam to see as well as my eyes but if I can easily see it at night I want the cam to show me more than a shadowy blur or worse. Even those who don't normally drive at night will at times need to do that, and your cam should still offer you protection then ;) Compromise is OK, but every factor needs to be carefully weighed rather than simply given up because it isn't easy to accomplish :(

And now another question @viofo
Will there be a PC-based or manual method of configuration for this cam? We may be a small percentage but some people like me don't have a smartphone.

Phil
 
I do appreciate the better low light performance of cameras on the new Starvis sensors, but in a case of a person not willing to part with a lot of money i dont feel bad about recommending a cheaper camera on a "older" sensor.

Sure the new sensors do make the footage look and feel better, but if you really dig into their footage, the extra they bring to the table will still be questionable at least with lawyers duking it out in a court.

Any dashcam are better than no dashcam, and a mid range dashcam can be just as good as a high end camera if you are really anal about what you can use the footage for.
But a high end dashcam do make footage more easy on the eye at night, people just have to be careful as to not get their expectations cranked up too high in regard to the new cameras.
Cuz you can see a lot more with the new sensors, but the more you can see might not have much use other than tricking the human eye and brain to think "wauuuu this is much better"
Remember the human brain are geared towards making us thing we see anything clear as crystal, when in fact the only part we see like that are a little dot right at the middle of our FOV, the rest the brain just extrapolate on.
And this is also what our brain will do looking at dashcam footage on a smaller screen that are just a little bigger than out eyes sweet spot.

Watch a video of low light dashcam footage and you are thinking, "wauuu this is pretty good i am sure if i hit pause i can even read the licenseplates", then try to play the same video frame by frame and you suddenly notice "OMG this is just a big blur".

Dont get me wrong i love the new cameras and i wouldn't have anything else.
 
Moon said:
Whilst I agree .. and would like to see top quality options - the problem as I see it .. is that VIOFO being a Chinese manufacturer .. are probably creating a Dash Cam pretty well as good as they can get it .. and still remain a Budget Brand.

You can't just decide that .. Hey 'SanYong' Cars .. let's go Upmarket so we can compete with Audi in the Luxury Car Market.

As far as Dash Cams going 'Upmarket' .. Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Olympus, Nikon .. and other big brand Japanese Camera manufacturers would need to get involved in the Dash Cam Market .. and so far .. they don't seem interested in making these 'Toy' Cameras.
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Far more Audi vehicles are made in China than SsangYong vehicles :D SsangYong are not Chinese, for Audi Chinese factories are very important.

Being Chinese doesn't mean that Viofo can't or don't use Japanese lenses and other components, although they are unlikely to do so for their budget camera. Of course the Sony sensors do come from Japan.
 
Moon said:
Whilst I agree .. and would like to see top quality options - the problem as I see it .. is that VIOFO being a Chinese manufacturer .. are probably creating a Dash Cam pretty well as good as they can get it .. and still remain a Budget Brand.

You can't just decide that .. Hey 'SanYong' Cars .. let's go Upmarket so we can compete with Audi in the Luxury Car Market.

As far as Dash Cams going 'Upmarket' .. Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Olympus, Nikon .. and other big brand Japanese Camera manufacturers would need to get involved in the Dash Cam Market .. and so far .. they don't seem interested in making these 'Toy' Cameras.
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I understand you, but if wr1 had a119 internals and sensor it would've been just a little more money than a119 still remaining in budget category. Now wr1 is somewhere with the g1w-s quality, not competing or better than a119. To end this i say again that i was very dissapointed when i saw the 1080 sensor. I really wanted and hoped to be at least a119 level. Maybe vico will have a wf2 in the future with at least opia 2 internals.:sneaky:
 
Agree .. thought VIOFO could've done better
Even jokiin admits they have dropped down slightly from the quality of the A119 (S?)
 
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JonSnow said:
I understand you, but if wr1 had a119 internals and sensor it would've been just a little more money than a119 still remaining in budget category. Now wr1 is somewhere with the g1w-s quality, not competing or better than a119. To end this i say again that i was very dissapointed when i saw the 1080 sensor. I really wanted and hoped to be at least a119 level. Maybe vico will have a wf2 in the future with at least opia 2 internals.:sneaky:
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That would be the VicoVation MF3. MF2 is an older, discontinued model.
 
It will be interesting to see if any of the other brands follow VIOFO's Hockey Puck design, and improve on it.
All the Buzz seems to be around what VIOFO are doing, after the success of the A119.. so, given the strides they have achieved so far against their opponents .. following up with a significant new model will determine whether VIOFO can take full advantage of the progress they've made so far .. and dominate the Budget Class 'Quality' Cam.

My guess is that whilst the WR1 is likely to receive a warm welcome .. I feel it will also come up against some criticism for being a bit timid, playing it safe .. and therefore missing an opportunity to launch their new model at the cutting edge.
 
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You cant just take a brand and say that's the quality of cameras they make, SG also have their low budget camera the XS, its not Chinese something camera low budget, but rather as cheap as SG can make it and still call it a worth while dashcam.

But if you are making dashcams in several classes, then their individual prizing better be right, and also right in comparison to competing bands.

If you dont, then you will not sell much or have to strike it lucky like that fruit company have with their phones.
 
jokiin said:
not at all, we use 1080p rather than higher resolutions but it has nothing to do with price and everything to do with results
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Would you say it is question of balancing low light performance vs resolution in regard to choice of sensor?
 
Dashmellow said:
Would you say it is question of balancing low light performance vs resolution in regard to choice of sensor?
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there are some attractive attributes to higher resolution sensors but there are also some downsides, low light is certainly one of them, file handling is another (file size, bitrate, storage, card speed, heat), software support etc is also more limited at higher resolutions than 1080p which can become a problem for editing (older hardware) and review (think insurer, police, courtroom etc) when dealing with raw untouched files, I'm sure at some stage we'll shift to higher resolutions once technology and demand are more in sync with each other, I like nice clean 4K footage just as much as the next person, it's not yet a practical solution though for our purposes
 
Interesting design. Obviously the wedge is superior, but for niche cases where the wedge is impractical this should be good.
 
JonSnow said:
In Romania we had a spy photo with the new wr1 in february, without any info about the sensor. I hoped till the last day it will have a good image sensor, at least a119 quality. I liked the wifi feature, no screen body, shape of the camera and the small mount but now i'm dissapointed. I wanted to upgrade from a119 but now i have to downgrade if i want the features wr1 has over a119. Dissapointing. Now i have to wait another camera in this form with wifi but at least a119/ opia 2 image quality.
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Compared to most of 1080P dash cameras in the market, the WR1 is a good choice, sony sensor, good lens, Wi-Fi, GPS, we will wait more feedback while more users received.

Not totally same as other brand like GoPro, their latest one come with latest technology and better then the old model.
For dash cameras, we think to release different price range camera to fit different market, some models is not so popular in Europe or America, but sell well in Asia, Russian, etc.

Of course, we are working on new model, but not so fast to release.
 
Dashmellow said:
Would you say it is question of balancing low light performance vs resolution in regard to choice of sensor?
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Yes, it is old story. Normally a 2MP sensor can do better in low light compared a 4MP sensor.
For high resolution, most of company now use the OV4689, and for Novatek they tuned the HDR feature on OV4689, we will take some time to sync the SDK to check the HDR feature on A119.
And before we heard the Sony 5MP sensor also is not so good, and will check another sensor in near future, we need balance daytime video and night time video while choosing the sensor.

If there is no heating issue, maybe one of the native 4K dash camera is our F1, it use 8MP sensor.
Currently we can not confirm it can survive for long term use as dash camera, Ambarella chipset always have more heating issue.
Yesterday I checked the Garmin latest dash camera, it is smaller then expected, looks good, and found also use Ambarella chipset.
Then I check some feedback on Amazon UK for this camera, saw some users report the heating issue, and I confirm is hot after more than 30 mins recording.
 
viofo said:
Currently we can not confirm it can survive for long term use as dash camera, Ambarella chipset always have more heating issue.
Yesterday I checked the Garmin latest dash camera, it is smaller then expected, looks good, and found also use Ambarella chipset.
Then I check some feedback on Amazon UK for this camera, saw some users report the heating issue, and I confirm is hot after more than 30 mins recording.
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I think Ambarella is more suited to sport camera market, good results for this application and most people don't use for long periods of time each use so heat issue is not noticed by 95% of their users anyway
 
jokiin said:
I think Ambarella is more suited to sport camera market, good results for this application and most people don't use for long periods of time each use so heat issue is not noticed by 95% of their users anyway
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I disagree with you.If you ask me,I would like to buy a dashcam which fits to long time period of time during day users than ones who uses them only 2-3 hour in 24h period or even less than that.

Sent from my CUBOT MAX using Tapatalk
 
sone983 said:
I disagree with you.If you ask me,I would like to buy a dashcam which fits to long time period of time during day users than ones who uses them only 2-3 hour in 24h period or even less than that.

Sent from my CUBOT MAX using Tapatalk
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I'm not saying you shouldn't use your camera for hours at a time, just that the Ambarella chipset is less suitable for this type of use as they generate a lot of heat
 
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