Not a Happy Camper with the A139

our heatwaves are three days of mid 40°C's

The sad thing here is my trusty A129 Duo is kicking ass while the A139 is floundering. Sure, the A129 Duo is a 1080p 2 channel. However, that camera has never once failed or overheated. Viofo knows how to make a good product. I don't think they want to admit they didn't adequately test the A139 and released it prematurely.

Something is wrong. Either with my unit alone, quality control, or possibly across the board. I am pushing Viofo to send me a replacement. I want to know whether other cameras are failing along the same lines or if I just got happened to get a Dud.

For the amount of money I spent, I don't want a Maybe Working Camera.
 
HonestReview: You may have mentioned it, but did you try a different SD card?
 
For the amount of money I spent, I don't want a Maybe Working Camera.

I am sorry to say, but in that case you have made one mistake, and that is to go with a brand new system on the market.
At least that is how it often seem to me with many new systems.

In a few hours i go to look how today's experiment have taken to the A139, started a new session about 3 hours ago, which was still sunny outside though today have been plagued by some degree of cloud cover.
 
Okay i did get another result, that is somewhat uplifting.
I parked the car at 16:53 with 6 hours selected on the timer, and the last parking guard file are from 22:53, with my math skills i think that add up to pretty much 6 hours.

My trick was,,,,,,,, me remembering i think i changed to H.265 a while back, so earlier today i did the long press of the MIC button to get back to H.264.
And that seem to have helped me, so i am now ready to proceed with hotter testing again tomorrow, where i should get temperatures higher then what i have had on other days where my 6 hour timer was cut short.

Mind you i am not overly optimistic for the pending hot parking challenge tomorrow, but ill give it a shot for sure.

Today's start and stop frame grabs.

A139 Pstart.jpg
A139Pstop.jpg
 
Okay i did get another result, that is somewhat uplifting.
I parked the car at 16:53 with 6 hours selected on the timer, and the last parking guard file are from 22:53, with my math skills i think that add up to pretty much 6 hours.

My trick was,,,,,,,, me remembering i think i changed to H.265 a while back, so earlier today i did the long press of the MIC button to get back to H.264.
And that seem to have helped me, so i am now ready to proceed with hotter testing again tomorrow, where i should get temperatures higher then what i have had on other days where my 6 hour timer was cut short.
Not sure if @HonestReview has mentioned whether he was using H.264 or H.265
 
I dont think that have been mentioned, i just remembered and thought i better try that to do something new at least in regard to my own testing, it would also make sense a company just testing with the default format and giving little thought about the alternative format.
So that surely could be a gremlin in the works.

I am also still working with the purple WD memory card.
 
I didn't know you could do H265, interesting.
 
HonestReview: You may have mentioned it, but did you try a different SD card?

Yes. Sandisk A2 Extreme and Sandisk High Endurance. Both had same faulty of corrupted files. I don't have any other brand SD card to test. I mean it could be a Sandisk Issue I guess, but these cards work fine int he A129 Duo and Also in the A139 until the heat issue appears.

Viofo is now going to RMA my cameras. Not sure how long the process will take. Not thrilled about having to rip out cameras, and asked them if to send back all or what they want me to do. I did instruct Viofo in my email that I won't be sending back the rear cords. So they can mail me a replacement that has none.

To hell if I'm going to rip everything apart and rewire. The cabling is fine and 100% not the issue.
 
Not sure if @HonestReview has mentioned whether he was using H.264 or H.265

Didn't know that was an option. How the heck do I check?

Firmware is version 1.2 and I tried 2k-FHD-FHD and FHD-FHD-FHD where FHD = 1080p.

How do I see if I'm using the h.264 or h265 codec?

Viofo is blaming my super capacitor, which I doubt is the issue. As I can yank out the Power Cord (if camera isn't overheated) and it'll shut down properly. But once overheated, camera exits improperly and corrupts the file upon spontaneous shutdown. Or corrupts file while camera freezes on FHD-FHD-FHD.

Either way, the symptoms of my camera don't seem normal. At least not based upon what others have reported.

I'll pull off a video and see if itll tell me in VLC what codec is being used.
 
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I'll pull off a video and see if itll tell me in VLC what codec is being used.
if VLC doesn't show you the codec info (I think it should) you can also use MediaInfo to check, it should be H.264 though anyway

 
if VLC doesn't show you the codec info (I think it should) you can also use MediaInfo to check, it should be H.264 though anyway


Gee Thanks everyone... No one thought to mention about the h.x264 and h.x265 codec until now... Well lo and behold, I've been on the h.x265. Had no idea you could swap between h.x264 and h.x265. Not sure what default is but either way my camera's been on h.x265 for all my tests it seems.

So now I need to rerun the tests again and see what happens. Not sure I'll have time to do this for a few days. Guess I'll postpone mailing off my camera as "faulty" until I verify the same happens on H.x265. Since h.x265 definitely consumes more processor being higher resolution!
 
I didn't know you could do H265, interesting.

Not sure what default video codec is for the A139 but I've definitely been running h.x265, which could potentially be causing my unit to overheat and/or freeze. As h.x265 no undoubtedly requires more processor power and thus generates more heat.

Of all the suggestions made thus far, people throw out the most pertinent one while the patient is coding on the operating table and the doctor is trying to revive him/her. I.E. My camera is scheduled for an RMA for being faulty (life support) but now I need to confirm if it is truly faulty....Sigh.
 
A139 Manual Link

Am I missing something by the way? I see no mention of the h.x264 and h.x265 codec toggle using the long press of microphone button listed in the manual what so ever.

If I overlooked the toggling procedure, please direct me to the page where it's located. Otherwise, this bit of information would have been super helpful when I began my tests initially!
 
A139 Manual Link

Am I missing something by the way? I see no mention of the h.x264 and h.x265 codec toggle using the long press of microphone button listed in the manual what so ever.

If I overlooked the toggling procedure, please direct me to the page where it's located. Otherwise, this bit of information would have been super helpful when I began my tests initially!
it's a hidden function
 
it's a hidden function

A critical piece of information at the very least. Less compression and a higher resolution means the processor works harder, and more heat is generated. So it will now have to be seen if running at x264, I experience the same failures or none at all.

Report back in a few days when I have time to run some tests again.
 
A critical piece of information at the very least.
it's not the default but likely you activated it by chance without knowing, it's an undocumented/unofficial feature so not something you'll find in any manual, as to how much difference it does/doesn't make to the amount of heat generated I'm not sure it's that significant, possible that there's a file handling bug with H.265, suspect your heat issues may still exist but if there is a bug in the handling of H.265 files then you might at least get a proper shutdown using H.264, if it still shuts down it might not make for the ideal solution for parking mode use but at least if there's no corrupt files and it actually powers off then I'd call that working as expected under the circumstances

anyway all subjective until you actually test, if you still have the same issues then may just be your camera that has the issue and not a wider issue
 
it's not the default but likely you activated it by chance without knowing, it's an undocumented/unofficial feature so not something you'll find in any manual, as to how much difference it does/doesn't make to the amount of heat generated I'm not sure it's that significant, possible that there's a file handling bug with H.265, suspect your heat issues may still exist but if there is a bug in the handling of H.265 files then you might at least get a proper shutdown using H.264, if it still shuts down it might not make for the ideal solution for parking mode use but at least if there's no corrupt files and it actually powers off then I'd call that working as expected under the circumstances

anyway all subjective until you actually test, if you still have the same issues then may just be your camera that has the issue and not a wider issue

Exactly. Speculative but Still an unchecked variable that needs tested. Before I waste my time sending in the camera as defective, I want to be sure there isn't a bug or other issue at play. If h.x264 doesn't over heat or shuts down properly, then we can conclude h.x265 codec is at fault. On other hand, if the h.x264 codec still behaves in the same manner, I need to RMA my camera.

As it could be my unit is just plain faulty.
 
Since h.x265 definitely consumes more processor being higher resolution!
What do you mean by "higher resolution"? It uses the same resolution, only the way of compression changes.
Not sure what default video codec is for the A139 but I've definitely been running h.x265, which could potentially be causing my unit to overheat and/or freeze. As h.x265 no undoubtedly requires more processor power and thus generates more heat.
This is a good question. By default it should be h264 but when I flashed my two units few months ago I noticed that one unit records in h265 and the second in h264 (at that time I wasn't aware there is the same option as for previous generations).
So now I need to rerun the tests again and see what happens. Not sure I'll have time to do this for a few days. Guess I'll postpone mailing off my camera as "faulty" until I verify the same happens on H.x265. Since h.x265 definitely consumes more processor being higher resolution!
Between h265 and h264 there is basically no difference in power consumption, thus no excessive heat production. But it could be software related, since h265 is "still quite new". Worth to mention that I use h265 basically since day one and no such issues and last few days I see temperatures around 70°C in my car (68-71°C windshield next to A139, 72-75°C under roof) and even higher temperatures are coming.
 
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I put mine on H265 after reading the post on how to do it with holding the mic button down. I often use that for CCTV for the well known benefits. I'll do my hotbox test and see if anything weird happens.

H265 would be a good selling point for a dashcam IMHO, I'd choose one with it over one without.
 
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