Night quality etc.

[Vince33]

Very interesting website. I hope more review will appear.
What i notice is that none of the cams says: Night quality: Very Good. It's either good or worse.
Does anyone know a cam with very good night quality? or the best of the "Good"?

I currently own the GSE550 and it's an ok cam though indeed night quality is not so good. I also think it's because of the ISO being too high.
Problem is that if i turn off auto ISO then it might be too high for the day time. ideally i would switch ISO for day and night. The auto function puts the ISO too high by itself, at night.

BTW a suggestion for the reviews is to add if there is lag between 2 recordings. what i mean is that some cams don´t record for a second or more when a new file is created.
And what is meant with reliability? Also recording reliability? Because my cam sometimes doesn't record.

 

[DashCamMan]

Very interesting website. I hope more review will appear.
What i notice is that none of the cams says: Night quality: Very Good. It's either good or worse.
Does anyone know a cam with very good night quality? or the best of the "Good"?

I currently own the GSE550 and it's an ok cam though indeed night quality is not so good. I also think it's because of the ISO being too high.
Problem is that if i turn off auto ISO then it might be too high for the day time. ideally i would switch ISO for day and night. The auto function puts the ISO too high by itself, at night.

BTW a suggestion for the reviews is to add if there is lag between 2 recordings. what i mean is that some cams don´t record for a second or more when a new file is created.
And what is meant with reliability? Also recording reliability? Because my cam sometimes doesn't record.

Hi Vince,

Great questions.

Unfortunately I have not seen any mass marketed dash cam that has superb picture quality at night. Many people believe the FineVu CR-500HD has the best night time video quality for a dash cam. Even with the CR-500HD, in dimly lit environments at night, it is difficult to read license plates. Hence the reason for not scoring it very good. There may be a dash camera out there with excellent night quality that can capture license plate details in adjacent lanes at high speeds well, but I haven't seen it.

For night quality, watch videos of the FineVu CR-500HD, Blackvue DR400G-HD II and Itronics ITB-100HD. These 3 cameras have arguably the best night time video quality for a dash cam.

For the lag between video clips, of the 20+ cameras on the dash cam comparison page, only 2 of the cameras have a noticeable gap between files. The DVR-027 and the Smallest HD 720p DVR. The reality is that the gaps between files is a non-issue for virtually all decent dash cams available as long as clip size is 1 minute and a high quality SD card (class 10) is used.

Reliability is a subjective measure based on user feedback of their cameras. It covers if the camera works as expected and if it breaks down. If many people (real users not camera review sites) are complaining about the same major problem (burnt sensors, camera freezes, blurry picture when overheats), I will put the reliability below average. If there are different complaints here and there (not consistently a problem), I will put the reliability as average. If the camera is popular and only has minor complaints, I will put above average. This is not scientific but unfortunately it is the best given the information available. Ideally the more feedback people provide on forums such as this, the more information will be available to refine this measure.

Note that my goal is not to scientifically prove that one camera is a certain % better than another camera. My goal is to find cameras that have reasonable performance for the price it is selling for based on real user experiences.

Dash Cam Man

 

[Vince33]

Hi Dash Cam Man (I hope it's not your real name ),

Thanks for your reply!
I understand what you say about how your ratings are done and if enough people give feedback, then the ratings should somehow be correct .
So from what i read i think the ITB-100HD would be the best choice for now.
Do you know if all resolutions can have the wide angle, and if the image doesn't become jaggy with wide angle?
Because the GSE550 that I have can't have the wide angle in 1080p. And in 720p the image is very jaggy. The reason i have it on 720 is to have more on the recording (wide angle), but for licenseplate reading 1080p is much better.

I see there is new firmware for the GSE550. Is there a changelog for that? Do you know if nightquality will be better, or if wide angle is then available on 1080p?

Thanks
Vince

 

[DashCamMan]

Hi Dash Cam Man (I hope it's not your real name ),

Thanks for your reply!
I understand what you say about how your ratings are done and if enough people give feedback, then the ratings should somehow be correct .
So from what i read i think the ITB-100HD would be the best choice for now.
Do you know if all resolutions can have the wide angle, and if the image doesn't become jaggy with wide angle?
Because the GSE550 that I have can't have the wide angle in 1080p. And in 720p the image is very jaggy. The reason i have it on 720 is to have more on the recording (wide angle), but for licenseplate reading 1080p is much better.

I see there is new firmware for the GSE550. Is there a changelog for that? Do you know if nightquality will be better, or if wide angle is then available on 1080p?

Thanks
Vince

The ITB-100HD has the same wide angle for all resolutions. The GSE550 and all other cameras based on the Ambarella A2S processor (GS1000, F500LHD, F900LHD, GS600, etc) have the same issue with a narrow resolution at 1080p (72 degrees) and a wider resolution at 720p (97 degrees). This is a processor based limitation so a firmware update will not resolve this. I don't have a changelog for the firmware. However, I recall there were no major fixes in them. Hence the night quality will not be improved if you update firmware. If your camera is working fine, I wouldn't take the risk of updating firmware.

Dash Cam Man